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.

What is your point?

You need to do a bit more reading to properly understand the dog/cat anomaly because it's not as you describe - the correct position is explained a number of times on this thread.

https://www.gov.uk/report-dead-animal

https://www.purelypetsinsurance.co.uk/blogs/what-to-do-if-you-hit-a-dog-with-your-car/#:~:text=1.-,Stop%20the%20car,or%20not%20%E2%80%93%20it's%20the%20law.

https://www.rac.co.uk/drive/advice/driving-advice/what-to-do-if-you-hit-an-animal-with-your-car/

https://www.sthelensstar.co.uk/news/17743361.law-says-regarding-hitting-dog-car/

They're totally lobbying for the wrong thing.

They should be lobbying for cats to be enclosed in gardens with catios.

If you get a cat you're responsible for it's wellbeing and that includes taking every precaution to prevent them getting injured. If you aren't going to or can't do that to an achievable standard then you shouldn't really be owning an animal like that.

isn’t that good? Deer are hunted for food in our culture. The animal is dead either way. Isn’t it better to eat it than let it rot.

That also works and makes the same point as the original post did.

Humans are the cause of domestic cats and humans are the ones killing wildlife, just using a cat to do it instead of a gun or trap.

It’s still the cat owner’s responsibility to keep the cat contained.

Yes, I wasn’t implying that there was anything wrong with it. I have a feeling it was illegal, though, since strictly speaking the deer (I think) would have belonged to the landowner of wherever it came from.

The law does NOT in any way compel you to stop and render assistance to the animal - that isn't why that law exists.

If it happened on my street I'd expect someone to stop, but also as it's a quiet cul de sac most of the time you should be able to avoid running over a cat unless you were speeding.

On the other hand DD1, a new driver, may have clipped a cat one time as it dodged across four lanes of traffic- was very busy and she tried to slow down to avoid it as much as possible - it carried on across the road and there was no way she could have stopped to check if it was injured, or probably even find where the cat had gone if she had been able to as it disappeared into the hedgerow. She was really upset about it but there was nothing else she could have done.

It’s why my cats are now house cats since I’ve moved, they were either getting run over ( once had the vets call me twice in one week to say they had been taken to them and had died) or they were getting stolen, claimed by others but expecting me to pay the vet bills.

There's no requirement to inform the police if you hit a cat, there's no mechanism for them to take such a report like with dogs. So the information would be pretty useless.

Dogs are required to be reported because they must be under control in public places by law, not to help the dog or for an owner to find out what happened to it, it might be a by product of that law but it's not the intention of it, a dog running into the road is not under control and therefore the owner may be liable for that.

To make it a requirement to report a cat then the same rules would need to apply and the cat owner be required to keep their animal under control in public places - so no more roaming cats.

Plus there's populations of feral cats as well, and they don't have owners. So if you hit one of those how do you know which it is?

I don't advocate just leaving an animal to suffer if it can be avoided, sometimes the risks are too high and it can't be. Or even a dead pet for owners to wonder, and personally would, if I could, at least report to a local vet, if not take the animal, but there's no onus on me to do that at all. I'd do it because I like animals and would be incredibly upset if I hit one and would hope someone would do the same for mine.

It's also worth noting though, that to transport any animal in your car it has to be properly restrained so it doesn't distract the driver or affect their driving - so if you've no method of doing this with a live, but injured and distressed animal, then what do you do?

The issue on this thread is that some posters are expecting that cats should roam freely, but the fault if something happens to them, be entirely someone else's, and have done so quite aggressively too, calling people scum and insisting that drivers have automatically made mistakes or been negligent and need to go to (and I quote) 'the ends of the earth' to make amends using the emotionally loaded 'its someone's beloved pet'.

You are allowed to let a cat out unsupervised, but if you do it should come with the understanding that no one else has any legal responsibility for it should something happen, bar intentional cruelty, and if they did then some of the responsibility would rightly fall on the owner too.

Cats have "right to roam", dogs not on a lead and roaming around without an owner are considered "not under control". If we are going to go down the same route as if you hit a dog, then maybe we should halt cat's "right to roam" and instead follow other countries that have only indoor cats. It would do wildlife a huge favour and also benefit many people's gardens judging by the amount of posts on here about cats in gardens. It also cuts down the risk of cat fatalities on roads, meaning beloved pet cats are safer.

I didn't say anything about "rendering assistance" - you're the only one who's said that.

But I quite the govt website for you - emphasis my own.

"You must stop and report the accident to the police if you hit any:

dogs .."

And so on..

I’m a bit baffled by your question to this poster tbh.

Regardless of what has been hit, why would someone stop when they have clarified it wasn’t safe to do so? No advice for anything says to stop when unsafe. No fucking way would i get out of my car in the dark and pissing rain with a lorry behind me with poor visibility.

I thought about this thread as I drove back from the shop. I was slowing down to turn left when I saw a cat on the left pavement approaching the road. She stopped and turned to walk away. I did not move as there was a car approaching behind and I was worried they wouldn't stop or even notice the cat. Fortunately the cat got the memo, crossed the road and safely went under a gate. Took seconds out of my day whereas if I'd not stopped I'd probably be still thinking about it now 🐈

I have to be honest and say that until reading this thread, I had no idea so many cats took strolls on motorways!

Surely this means stop when safe to do so though.

In the same way that I hit another car on a motorway once, it drove off, i didn’t feel safe pulling over, so i reported it when i got home. They are fine as long you as you actually report it as soon as you can.

Maybe not that many - but I bet a large % of those that do, end up in an accident, which would warp the numbers a bit.

Or that the people hitting them are always on their way to perform jury duty, a once in a lifetime dream job, get life saving surgery. I had no idea either.

My mate ran over a deer once and it, quite predictably, wrote off his car and a few months later he got a letter from the queen's estate saying they might sue him for running over the deer.

Quite common apparently to get that letter, although I don't know if they ever actually pursue it

He was driving down the M3 I think and it basically jumped through his windscreen, he was really lucky not to be killed

Fascinating

Yes, that's what I said in my initial post that kicked off this conversation.

You must stop - if safe to do so - if you hit a dog.

But the reason for stopping/reporting isn't to take the injured dog to the vets etc as the cat lovers wish to be applied to cats.

I've never said it is.

The law is very clear on this point however. You must stop (when safe to do so) if you hit a dog. Or a pig, goat, cow, horse, sheep, ass, or mule. You must report the incident to the police.

https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1988/52/section/170/enacted