To think cat owners are unreasonable for insisting that drivers MUST stop if they hit a cat?

[OtterlyMad]

Some of the people on my town’s Facebook page lose their minds when a cat is killed by a car. It’s automatically blamed on speeding (despite there being no evidence of this) and there are always lots of comments along the lines of how “disgusting” it is that the driver didn’t stop and make the owner aware.

None of them seem to appreciate that the driver might not have time to track down the owner. For example, perhaps they are on their way to work, a job interview, wedding, funeral, court, airport, hospital, dentist, client meeting, school pick up, etc. Plus cats can wander quite far and don’t all wear collars so tracking down the owner could be a real challenge - even more so if driver isn’t local to the area!

Obviously it’s devastating for people to lose their pet in this way (I’m an animal lover and have owned pets all my life so I get it) but surely this is a known risk of allowing cats to roam freely? And owners accept that risk because they feel it gives their cat a better quality of life, even if that means their life is shorter as a result?

My locals are now campaigning to make it law that drivers who hit a cat must not only stop and find the owner, but also HAND OVER THEIR CONTACT DETAILS. To do what with?! So the cat’s owner can give the driver grief and/or demand compensation they’re not entitled to???

Am I the only one thinking this is ludicrous?

You are being unreasonable - drivers should be required to stop, track down the owner of the cat and hand over their contact details.

You are not being unreasonable - injury/death by vehicle is a sad but accepted risk of cats having the right to roam so drivers should not be required to stop.

I had a cat that was run over. It had fields aplenty at the back of the house to explore but insisted on crossing the road to go to the pub instead(!). Anyway, the driver stopped immediately and knocked on my door. They were in bits - I didn’t blame them at all, it was the cats own stupid fault. Thankfully the cat didn’t suffer as he died instantly. I sometimes think of that driver and hope they were ok. There was nothing they could have done, they did the decent thing by stopping and knocking on the door. The way the driver was so upset made me think they were a pet owner themselves and/or had a loss of their own recently.

Anyone that knowingly drives away after hitting an animal that is clearly a pet and not knowing whether the animal is dead or alive and in pain is not much of a human in my mind. If they’re not able to stop due to the road/traffic conditions then they should pull over when it’s safe and ring a local vet or animal charity to let them know.

I pressed Post by mistake and then edited. You responded to my unedited post. You should be able to answer now, if you wish to.

It is the cat owners who are negligent. Right to roam might exist, but any cat owner who lets their cat own is negligent and irresponsible.

i love my cats. It is absolutely disturbing that people will get so upset at the idea of their cats being injured and possibly suffering, but not taking simple measures to prevent the accident in the first place.

you wouldn’t let a dog run in the street. You wouldn’t let a young child run around unsupervised. Yet there are cat owners who decide to take risks with their cats and don’t want to accept the consequences of their own choices.

yes, if safe for a driver to stop, the driver should stop. If the cat is seriously injured, but not dead, they should probably put the cat out of its misery as quickly as possible. That the poor driver is placed in that position is horrific.

if there is a collar with a phone number, the driver can call the owner. If the owner hasn’t even bothered with that basic measure and are instead relying on the microchip alone, they really shouldn’t be surprised if they don’t get notified.

take some responsibility. If people won’t, they really should not have cats.

Do you mean the cat owners would be liable for their negligence/mistake of letting their cat out to roam despite the risks?

There are very few drivers who would intentionally hurt or kill a cat. Those who have sadly struck one, I'm sure would have avoided doing so if they could have. It's not negligence on their part in this scenario, a cat darting out quickly in front of a driver, giving them no time to stop or avoid is not a mistake on the part of the driver.

Well, ideally, find a safe place to stop. Then go and see what you've done and take appropriate measures to safely move the body away from the road and post online to a local area group at the very least. Would be better to take it to the nearest vet.
Surely it's between the above and being a totally ignorant fool and just carrying on. It should be the law, but it's actually common decency to try at the very least. Who could happily go to bed that night after hitting a cat and driving away?

Or a squirrel, rabbit, bird, rat?

Would you stop and seek help for those?

I would say the value on a cats life is closer to the above animals than it is a child's. And the law supports that.

I agree with those who say that cat owners can’t have it both ways- they can’t embrace NOT having responsibility for their pet (letting it roam, harm wildlife etc) but then demand that OTHER PEOPLE take responsibility for its welfare. No. If they want drivers to have to report, then right to roam should go.

The other thing that gets me with Facebook posts like this is that the value of the animal’s life seems to rest on it being owned by a human. I would stop for a cat, not because it’s a ‘beloved pet’ but because it’s an animal in pain. In the same way that I’ve stopped for injured wild animals hit by other drivers and taken them to the vet- most recently, a pigeon. I don’t understand how anyone could hit a living being and NOT stop unless it was really unsafe to do so. But, I do think cat owners demanding this… law change (?) are applying some warped logic/ wanting the best of both worlds.

I am an animal lover and I absolutely would stop and do my best to take the cat to a vet and find owners if I ever hit one.

But I would also feel frustrated and sad that an animal with zero sense of road danger was left to roam the streets at all hours of day and night by owners who are supposed to "love them like family".

A cat's road sense is similar to a 2-year-old child. If a 2-year-old child was deliberately left alone to cross roads at 3 am and got run over I bet police and the community would not be very kind on the grieving parents.

Thankfully I have never hit an animal. If I was on my own or with another adult, then yes I would absolutely stop if safe to pull over. It would then depend on where I was tbh and how easy it was for me to find a local vet.

If however i’m in a situation where it would make me late for a medical appointment, or if I had my small kids in the car (inc baby), then no i probably wouldn’t leave them in the car to go and deal with a cat, unless it’s literally safe to pull up right next to it.

I would certainly post on my local fb group. I would absolutely never go round houses. Especially as a lone female.

There are always a lot of posts on my local fb groups about cats being hit, just to inform people. No one gets angry or talks about such a law, but it is one of the many reasons why i’d never get a cat in the first place. I live in a massive residential area with lots of cars and I would deem it too risky to let the cat outside.

Ooh this is interesting, I think you’re the first person to suggest that the driver should “make amends” - what exactly do you mean by that?

I hit a rabbit last year which put a nasty crack in my bumper. I’d imagine a cat would do similar. As PPs have said, if cat owners want the same rights as dog owners they also need to accept the same responsibilities. If it had been a dog instead of a rabbit I’d be recovering costs from the owner and the same would apply in the case of this hypothetical cat law.

I’m fortunate enough to work for a company that would not penalise me for being late, but not everyone has that privilege. People get sacked all the time for stupid, unfair reasons. I wouldn’t expect someone to stop if it meant risking their job and income.

Basically you’re conflating my empathy for people with shitty bosses/working conditions, with a lack of empathy for animals. Sometimes life is not black and white.

Does everybody always drive within 15 minutes of their own home where they are members of all the local FB groups and know where the vets are?

I don't. I am often driving to my mum's which is 90 minutes away, or to take/bring back DD from Uni which is in another city entirely, twice a year we usually have a week's self catering break in another part of the UK hours from home, at the weekend we go all over the place hiking...

It's very easy to say "call a local vet or post on the local facebook group" but you are assuming that firstly you know where the vets are or are in a position to stop and google, and are on the social media groups for whatever town you're in. I tried to join the town fb group for where my mum lives as I thought it'd be useful, they wouldn't let me as I wasn't local. Fair enough.

Also totally agree that if cat owners want to let their animals out at night, or even during the day, they cannot then kick off when the cat is involved in an accident. It is not always the driver's accident, cats are not known for their road sense. It's the idea that it's always the driver's fault, the driver needs to drive more carefully, or stop whatever the circumstances, and spend time finding a vet, knocking on doors, posting on social media, putting the animal out of its misery - all a bit one sided. What is the cat owner doing?

Out of curiosity - hand over all their details to whom exactly?

I seems like you are creating scenarios and going out of your way to taunt cat owners about why it’s okay to leave injured and using pet cats in the road without stopping to help.

in my area there is a cat hater who poisons pet cats. One or two vile people come online to justify that individuals behaviours.

I appreciate the cruelty you are defending is more passive than deliberately poisoning and animal - but you are in a similar wheel house.

i understand not everyone is compassionate and there are people who you don’t care if animals suffer. I just don’t understand why you have started such a hateful thread? I

For good sake - go to a little bit of effort! Google the closest vet! It’s not hard.

For good sake - go to a little bit of effort! Google the closest vet! It’s not hard.

That is assuming there is somewhere safe to stop close by. And what if it's 3 in the morning? I'm sure the vet would be delighted to be woken up by someone saying they think they've hit a cat, on some road they don't know the name of as they're not local.

A lot of vets are open 24hours for overnight emergencies with skeleton staff

The dead cat, perhaps.

I hit a pheasant once shortly after I moved from a city to the country, or rather it bounced onto my windscreen. I checked it was safe to pull over and got out to see if it was ok ( it wasn't and was in a lot of pain). Whilst I was standing on the side of the road not really knowing what to do with it, a woman pulled up behind me and asked if 'I knew what to do with it ', I said no and didn't quite know what she meant. She got out of her car, took the pheasant off me and snapped it's neck, I was a bit shocked at her but great full it was out of pain. Then she said ' are you going to eat that or shall I take it?' I shook my head and she said ok and walked back to her car with the pheasant and put it in the boot. I didn't know whether to laugh or cry. I would always stop for any animal if it was safe.

The original question is: is it reasonable to always required a driver who hits a cat to stop, find the owner and and give their contact details?

I don't think the original question is a reasonable thing to make mandatory and always require. As I've said upthread, most cat car accidents happen overnight (the overwhelming majority of them). You cannot locate an owner at 11pm or 2am or 4am and not risk yourself. If there is no collar, you go knocking on nearby doors at that time you will quickly get yourself into real trouble.

Even if it's during the day, unless you hit a cat near houses and are comfortable knocking on the doors to ask, it's going to be tricky to locate the owner. I'm fairly robust but can think of plenty of areas that I'd think twice about knocking on stranger's doors alone.

Once/If you have located the cat owner, there is no need for them to have your contact details. That is even more unreasonable than the proposed mandatory requirement to locate the owner.

You can

• call the police (I suspect you'd get a prety unwelcome response, but you can)
• post on the local Facebook page, if you have an account and you've hit a cat in an are where you are already a member of the local group. e.g. in my village there are 'local knowledge' questions to be answered before you can join - not sure how common that is
• call a vet, but you will likely be put through to the emergency number if it's overnight so again, I'm not sure how welcome that call will be
• move the cat to the side of the road and/or collect it and take it to an emergency vet IF it's safe to do so; if the accident is an night there is a greater chance this will not be safe to do
• use that facebook page posted upthread where all cat accidents can be reported - which actually sounds like the safest option of all, tbh.

Which you pick, is likely to depend very much on your personal circumstances and the circumstances of the accident. e.g. someone driving on a dark, unlit road should not stop and get out the car unless wearing good reflective gear or able to light up the location is some way to warn other drivers that may come along.

I don't think they should be required to track down the owner but they should absolutely stop and report this to someone. I personally do think its awful that drivers hit a cat and just drive off. I agree there should be a law in place that requires them to stop and report that they have killed someone's beloved pet. A vet or animal charity could scan for microchip and notify owners, otherwise owners are left wondering possibly for years, what happened to their cat. All cats are now microchipped by law so this would be easy enough to do.

Not trying to be goady but do cat owners not see the mismatch between "someone's beloved pet" and that "beloved pet" being out and about near busy roads in the dark?

Something so precious and so beloved, that you think it's fine to put into a dangerous situation like that? And expect others to deal with the consequences of that?

Agreed cat owners not wanting to take responsibility for their own pets but expecting strangers to take responsibility for them in horrible.

self proclaimed animal lovers who only really care about the cute fluffy ones can also be horrible.

not stopping to knock on random doors for who knows how long to find a cat owner is not horrible it’s self preservation.

not stopping because a bird has flown into your car or a rat has ran out in front of you on a busy road is not horrible it’s self preservation.

I hit a cat once when I was on a busy stretch of duel carriageway near us. I was in the fast lane going about 60 and it ran out from the central reservation. Stopping or swerving would have been really dangerous. It was really shocking and upsetting but literally nothing I could do.