To hear the Los Angeles Times tell it -- with help from Alaska State Troopers and the Alaska Moose Federation -- it sounds dangerous to even pull the car your car onto a roadway in the 49th state.

"Alaska State Troopers spokeswoman Megan Peters said the agency has no records of how many people have been injured in moose collisions this year, but Alaska's history is replete with horror stories," the newspaper reported this week. '"I remember a wreck a few years back where all four people in the vehicle were killed after a moose was struck,' Peters said in an email."

Imagine, a crash with a moose could kill your whole family.

Peters might well have written an email making such a claim, but a quick search on Google, an amazing research tool for reporters these days, reveals no hint of a story about four dead in a collision with a moose in Alaska or anywhere else. And Joanna Reed, the traffic records research analyst overseeing the Fatality Analysis Reporting System for the Alaska Highway Safety Office, had this to say in an email:

"I have checked our records back through 1994 and have found no record of a crash with four fatalities involving a moose."

But why let facts get in the way of a good story?

After all, people do sometimes die in collisions with moose in Alaska. And the odds are high that if you drive enough in Alaska you will, sooner or later, run into a moose. Radio talk-show host Tom Anderson hit one just the other day. The damage to his car was minor as is often the case. "Scared the crap out of me," Anderson added on his Facebook page.

"I hit the brakes ... and clip its right hind leg. He kept running."

Anderson has spent most of his life in Alaska. This was bound to happen. A state study in the 1990s concluded the odds are about 1 in 1,000 that a regular commuter will eventually hit a moose in moosey areas of the state.

Those areas, fortunately, are small. About half of all moose-vehicle collisions happen along only 91 miles of roadway in the state. That's about a half of 1 percent of the state road system, according to the Alaska Department of Transportation.

Unfortunately, the 91 miles around which the moose congregate in winter largely overlap the state's few urban areas. One would think drivers might note this and be especially carefully, but there is no sign that they do. Moose-car collisions, for instance, increase in bad weather.

Drivers going too fast for the conditions can't get the car or truck stopped quick enough when a moose walks onto the road. Whammo. Damage can amount to the tens of thousands of dollars in these collisions, but the risks of death are pretty small.

"Only one-half of 1 percent of Alaska's moose-vehicle accidents result in a motorist fatality," the aforementioned state study noted. "Given this, the commuter mentioned above faces a 1 in 200,000 chance of striking a moose and being killed."

And remember, this commuter drives daily on that one-half of 1 percent of roadways with concentrations of moose. For motorists on 99.5 percent of the roads in Alaska, the odds of dying in a moose-motor vehicle accident are way less than 1 in 200,000, but let's stick to that figure.

"The commuter mentioned above is equally as likely to be involved in an alcohol-related traffic accident as a moose-vehicle accident," the state study reported. "They are five times more likely to have their car stolen than hit a moose. They are 1,000 times more likely to die from some other cause, including cancer, drowning, other car accidents, homicide, etc., than from a moose accident. The commuter is 16 times more likely to die as a victim of a homicide than from a collision with a moose."

Whoa! You're 16 times more likely to be murdered in the 49th state than to die as a result of your motor vehicle hitting a moose? This could almost make one wonder if the whole issue of moose-vehicle collisions isn't a little overhyped.