Fresh calls to make drivers stop and report incidents involving cats

Cats are “regularly hit and just scooped to the side of the road”, an MP has warned, as she suggested drivers should have a duty to report incidents.

A 37-year-old law dictates that drivers must stop and tell pet owners if they hit dogs.

But the Road Traffic Act 1988 – which also covers incidents involving cattle, goats, horses and pigs – does not compel drivers to stop if they injure or kill a cat.

“There are 12.5 million cat owners in the UK and hundreds of thousands of cats are killed on the roads every year,” Labour MP Bell Ribeiro-Addy told the Commons.

Referring to the Road Traffic Act, 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.