Road Traffic Collision Reporting: Cats Debate
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Vikki Slade
Main Page: Vikki Slade (Liberal Democrat - Mid Dorset and North Poole)Department Debates - View all Vikki Slade's debates with the Department for Transport
Road Traffic Collision Reporting: Cats
Vikki Slade Excerpts(3 days, 4 hours ago)
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Martin Wrigley
From my experience, I suspect that the right hon. Member’s third option is probably correct.
On people’s confusion about where to report a collision with a cat, section 170 of the Road Traffic Act 1988 says that a driver who hits certain animals must stop and, if necessary, report it to the police. Those animals are horses, cattle, asses, mules, sheep, pigs, goats and dogs. Cats are not on the list.
Vikki Slade (Mid Dorset and North Poole) (LD)
I am intervening on behalf of my good friend Sandra, otherwise known as the crazy cat lady of Canford Heath. She is concerned, as I am, that the assumption is that the reason cats are not included is that they are not working animals. I can tell Members that my beloved dogs, Todd and Reggie, are absolutely not working animals—far from it—yet they would be covered. On the question of whether legislation is needed, we had a fantastic animal welfare strategy issued earlier this year, so is now not the moment to bring this issue into a new animal welfare Act?
Martin Wrigley
I tend to agree, and we will come to working animals shortly.
Cats are not on the list. Neither, I might add, are llamas or alpacas, which gives a fair idea of how old the list is. It has come down to us, almost untouched, from the Road Traffic Act 1930. The usual explanation—my hon. Friend the Member for Mid Dorset and North Poole (Vikki Slade) must have read my speech in advance—is that these are working animals with an economic value to their owners, whereas cats were seen as pets. Rule 286 of the highway code does advise drivers to report any collision with an animal and, where possible, to find the owner of a cat. However, that is only guidance, and a driver who hits a cat can carry on driving without breaking any law.