I didn't stop when I ran over a cat. Is that really so awful? (2024)

Last year, I was driving along a country road in Cheshire at around noon on a sunny day, to visit my grandparents, when I accidentally hit a cat.

The ginger and white puss appeared from a field and began running along the grass verge on the opposite side of the road adjacent to my car.

Had it looked as though it might run into the road, I would have slowed down to avoid it. Instead, it seemed about to dart back into the field.

So it was a shock when the cat suddenly shot across both lanes, and I felt a thud as it went under the back wheel. The noise, and the way the car jolted, told me it most likely wouldn’t have survived.

I say ‘most likely’ because I didn’t stop to find out. I simply continued my journey.

Some will undoubtedly call me heartless, including my animal-loving wife, whose initial reaction was mortification when I told her.

But my primary reason for not stopping was that this occurred on the blind bend of a country road, so it wouldn’t have been safe for me — or for other drivers — if I’d stopped my car.

That said, had it been a dog, 100 per cent I would have stopped, even if it had meant pulling up further down the road and walking back.

Partly out of legal obligation, but also because I view dogs differently to cats. Dogs are man’s best friend, after all. Cats, on the other hand, always strike me as aloof and less lovable.

If cat owners want their pets to roam free, as most seem to, they must accept the inherent risk of them coming a cropper on our roads or elsewhere.

Accidents like mine aren’t a reason for drivers to be lambasted — whether we stop or not. After all, there was no legal obligation for me to stop. Under section 170 of the Road Traffic Act 1988, a driver is required to stop and report accidents involving specific animals including horses, cattle, sheep, pigs, goats and dogs, but not cats or wild animals.

According to Cats Matter, a group which campaigns on the issue, around 230,000 cats are killed in road traffic accidents every year in the UK, prompting many people to call for a change in the law in the belief that, if drivers were legally obliged to stop, then the lives of many could be saved. But it’s not as though drivers deliberately target cats; accidents happen.

Back home that evening, my wife couldn’t understand why I didn’t stop to check on the poor cat’s welfare. Once she learned where the accident happened, she was more understanding. She did remark, however, that had she been with me, she’d have insisted I pull over when it was safe, so she could run back to check on it.

I’m not alone in my cat hit and run. A hot topic on Mumsnet recently, opinion was divided as to whether it’s reasonable not to stop if you hit a cat with your car — 53 per cent said it was. Ironically, of those who said they’d stop, some would only do so in a bid to track down the owner so they could pay for damage to the vehicle — and I can understand that.

Because just as cat owners have to accept that other people may feed their roaming cat, or squirt it with water for making an unwelcome mess in their garden, they have to be realistic about the risk of road accidents.

If none of this sits comfortably with them, then the only answer is to treat a cat as you would a dog, keeping it with you at all times, on a lead in public and only allowing it to roam on your own property.

You may think my attitude cold. Yet I felt awful knowing I’d hurt an animal, especially one that was probably someone’s much-loved pet.

I didn’t mention the cat when I arrived at my grandparents’ house for fear of upsetting them, but I did check my car for damage — luckily, it was fine apart from a small scratch on the hub cap.

To those who say I got my priorities wrong, I’d say it would have been dangerous — to me and other drivers — to swerve, slam on the brakes or cause a hazard by stopping. I did what I felt was the right thing at the time — and I don’t regret it.

• As told to Sadie Nicholas