Sussex charity Cats Protection supports calls for changes to hit and run laws

Many organisations, including Cats Protection, are supporting a campaign for the law to be changed to give cats the same rights as many other animals when it comes to road traffic accidents.
Drivers could be fined £1,000 if they accidentally hit a cat and fail to inform the police, under a proposed new law.Drivers could be fined £1,000 if they accidentally hit a cat and fail to inform the police, under a proposed new law.
Drivers could be fined £1,000 if they accidentally hit a cat and fail to inform the police, under a proposed new law.

Currently, drivers must stop and inform police if they hit dogs, horses, cattle, pigs, goats and sheep – but not cats.

Due to this, owners are often left wondering what’s happened to their beloved cats after they have been killed, as it’s not a legal requirement for motorists to alert anyone of the incident.

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Recently, one pet owner who lost her cat to a hit-and-run incident reached 100,000 signatures on a petition to change the law, which was then debated in parliament.

A spokesperson said cats deserved the same protection in law as dogs and other pets and called on the Government to show compassion to their devoted owners.

However, the response from the Government was that it had ‘no plans to make it an offence to drive off after hitting a cat’.

Motoring experts LeaseCar.uk is now also calling for the Government to make the changes to the law, including a £1,000 fine for any drivers who don’t comply by leaving a cat on the roadside without reporting the incident.

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Tim Alcock from LeaseCar.uk said: “It was shocking to discover that it’s not a legal requirement for motorists to report whether they’ve run over cats, but it was even more surprising that the law covers various animals but excludes one of the most popular pets in Britain.

“The fact that anyone would want to leave a defenceless animal on the side of the road is appalling and not having a law in place can make people assume it’s fine for this to continue.“It’s not fair to our beloved pets to have the law unchanged, we want no cat to be left behind injured or dead at the side of the road.”

Sussex-based charity Cats Protection supports this campaign, and highlighted the importance of cats being microchipped to avoid owners experiencing unnecessary added grief from not knowing what has happened to their pet.

Madison Rogers, Cats Protection’s head of advocacy, campaigns and government relations, added: “Cats Protection is calling for the Local Authorities across the UK to collect, scan and notify owners about cat road victims.

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"The charity would hope that should a driver accidentally injure a cat they would alert the relevant authorities and if needed, take the cat to a vet for emergency treatment where it can also be scanned for a microchip.

"Currently 26 per cent of cats across the UK are not microchipped so Cats Protection is also calling on the Government to introduce compulsory microchipping for pet cats and urging owners to keep their details kept up to date to ensure they can be contacted if their cat is sadly a victim of a road traffic accident.”

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