Cats regularly hit by drivers and 'scooped to the side of the road’ — MP calls for drivers to report
An MP has suggested drivers should have a duty to report when they hit a cat
Drivers should be legally required to report hitting a cat with their vehicle, an MP has said, highlighting the number of felines killed on UK roads each year.
Current legislation compels drivers to stop and inform owners if they hit a dog, but no such protection exists for cats.
This legal disparity leaves countless cats "regularly hit and just scooped to the side of the road," Labour MP Bell Ribeiro-Addy told the Commons.
She pointed out the significant number of cat owners in the UK – 12.5 million – and the "hundreds of thousands of cats" killed annually on the roads, emphasising the need for a change in the law.
The Road Traffic Act 1988 requires drivers to report collisions with animals such as dogs, cattle, goats, horses, and pigs, but notably omits cats.
The MP for Clapham and Brixton Hill in London said: “Cats are regularly hit and just scooped to the side of the road, and there’s no legal duty to report that.
“Does the minister agree that this is something that we should do to bring cats in parity with dogs in terms of their safety on the road?”
Responding, environment minister Daniel Zeichner said: “This is an issue that has been widely discussed.
“The advice we have is that it would be difficult to actually enforce in practice, but I fully recognise the distress and concern that it causes.”
Mr Zeichner had earlier paid tribute to “organisations like Cats Protection who do such wonderful work”, adding the charity had pointed water minister Emma Hardy to her new kittens Lily and Megatron.