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Calls to make drivers report hitting a cat law

Harry Whitehead
BBC News, Guernsey
BBC A woman with short pixie brown hair looking at the camera and smiling. She has blue eyes and a pair of glasses on her head. She has a thin pearl necklace and another necklace with a turtle pendent. She is wearing a navy blue t-shirt.BBC
Nichola Lloyd said losing her cats was like losing a member of the family

More than 550 people have signed a petition calling to make it a legal requirement to report hitting a cat with a car.

Currently, drivers in Guernsey only have to report hitting dogs, horses, cows, asses, mules, sheep, pigs or goats.

Nichola Lloyd, who lost two cats after being hit by cars, said it was "completely bonkers" that collisions with cats did not need to be reported.

Jersey became the first place in the British Isles to make it law to report a collision with a cat, carrying a fine of £10,000.

'I still miss him'

Mrs Lloyd lost her cat Freddie in 2024 after he was hit by a vehicle outside her home.

"It was awful, we'd only had Freddie around a year. We'd just got married about two weeks before and we were settling into a new house.

"I wasn't lucky enough to have children so my cats are my children, it was like losing a member of the family. I still really miss him."

Mrs Lloyd has ed in the calls to update the law to make reporting a collision with a cat a legal responsibility.

"I was looking up and a cat doesn't come under the definition of an animal under the Road Traffic [Ordinance]," she said.

"You've got to stop for a lot of things, I appreciate that cats being cats are possibly more likely to be run over than other animals, but that doesn't make them any less an animal."

Nichola Lloyd A Siamese cat, which has a dark face and dark ears, with the rest of his body a creamy colour in a washing machine drum.Nichola Lloyd
Freddie was hit and killed by a car in June 2024

Steve Byrne, manager at animal charity GSPCA, said volunteers saw around 200 - 300 incidents of cats being run over every year.

"If they aren't reported quickly then obviously you've got a potentially suffering animal in the road and you'll have a very worried owner not knowing where the animal is," he said

Mr Byrne said one of the challenges the charity faces is reuniting injured and dead cats with their owner.

"Sadly, only about 80% of cats are microchipped so there is a good portion of these cats that sometimes you've got no identification to try and find the owner.

A women with chest length brown hair. She is looking at the camera and smiling. She has glasses on. She is wearing a black thin cardigan and a leopard print top underneath.
Kayleigh Mills' petition has amassed more than 550 signatures

Kayleigh Mills started an online petition after she witnessed a cat get hit by a car on her road in St Peter Port.

"There are constantly posts on social media saying, 'my cat has been hit in this road, my cat's been hit in that road', and I just think that it is about time people reported it," she said.

"If you hit a horse or a pig or a goat, you have to report it, but for cats it doesn't feel like a priority."

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