The majority of UK drivers would break the law if they hit a dog with their vehicle, shocking new research from animal welfare charity Blue Cross reveals.
The study showed a staggering 86 per cent of motorists would not call the police if they injured a dog and no owner was in sight – with that number rising to 91 per cent in young drivers aged 18 to 24.
Under UK Law, a driver who hits a dog must stop and report the accident to the police – however, the same legal requirement does not apply if a cat is involved.
The research comes as Blue Cross launches the Blue Cross Code – a new safety initiative encouraging drivers and pet owners to be more alert to risks on the road, especially as the clocks go back this month.
It is estimated that 80,000 dogs and 230,000 cats are hit by a car on UK roads every year.
As part of the study, drivers were asked how they would react in a series of scenarios, including what they would do if they hit a dog or cat with their vehicle.
More than half (54 per cent) of drivers said they would stop their vehicle and take the wounded dog to a vet while 16 per cent said they would knock on nearby homes to find the dog’s owner.
Despite acting in good faith, most drivers would be breaking the law by not calling the police at the roadside, which is what just 14 per cent of motorists said they would do.
Some 16 per cent of drivers admitted they would prioritise their journey over the wellbeing of the stricken animal.
Alarmingly, this rises to more than a third (35%) of young drivers.
Six per cent of young motorists admitted they’d simply continue with their journey despite hitting a dog while 20% said they would drive on ‘if the dog seemed okay’.
One in 10 young drivers admitted they would ‘move the stricken animal to the side of the road’ before continuing their journey.
When asked about hitting a cat with their car, a quarter of drivers (27 per cent) said they would prioritise their journey if they were convinced the animal was dead.
If the accident was at night, most drivers (30 per cent) would knock at local houses to find the dead cat’s owner while a quarter (25 per cent) would take it to home, then to a vet the next day.
And a third (35 per cent) of motorists do not routinely check under their car for cats before driving at night.
The worst offenders are 55-64-year-olds, of whom only half (51 per cent) check before travelling.
This comes despite more than half (58 per cent) of cat owners worrying more about their pet when it is dark, and yet two-fifths (39 per cent) make no changes to their pet’s routine after the clocks go back.
Of the 2,000 UK animal-lovers polled, a quarter of cat owners said they have had a pet that has been killed or injured by a car, with 13 per cent saying there has been at least one ‘close shave’.
Blue Cross is today launching its new Blue Cross Code in a bid to encourage drivers and pet owners to be more aware of the dangers on the road, and what to do if the worst happens.
In a nod to the famous Green Cross Code of the 1970s, the Blue Cross Code is designed to make everyone think more about the safety of pets as the nights get longer this winter.
Blue Cross Chief Vet Dr Paul Manktelow said: ‘There are few things more upsetting for a vet than those awful occasions when someone brings in an animal that has been hit by a car.
‘Vets see up close the anguish and upset caused by road accidents – so anything we can do to prevent more misery must be a priority.
‘The Blue Cross Code is about making owners and drivers think more about their actions and the preventative measures they can take to help keep our dogs or cats safe.
‘As the clocks go back and those longer, darker winter nights draw in, the safety of all road users is something everyone should consider before they or their four-legged friend leaves the house.
‘So let’s all follow the code’s three simple rules of Paws, Prevent and Protect – and hopefully we’ll have no heartbreaks this winter.’
Below heartbroken pet lovers tell how they lost their special animals to hit and run drivers.
‘I’ll always love her… she was so special’
Julie Cookson, 67, is a former charity shop volunteer who lives in the Llyn peninsula in North Wales with her cat Mrs Socks.
The retired child protection officer has rehomed many moggies over her lifetime but thoughts of one treasured companion still bring a tear to her eye.
For Julie, the heartbreak of losing her beloved cat Queenie is as fresh today as it was on that fateful November afternoon five years ago.
‘It can’t be her, it can’t be her’, she recalls crying by the roadside.
Julie had been away for a couple of nights, but the ‘incredibly independent’ Queenie was more than used to coming and going as she pleased.
‘You were honoured if she was on your bed, she would never sit on your knee. She liked affection, but it had to be on her terms’, remembers Julie.
‘She was out and about all the time, it did worry me but I think it’s cruel to keep cats indoors, and there was no keeping Queenie indoors.’
When Julie returned home, she was surprised her arrival failed to attract even a whisker of notice from the ‘aloof’ Queenie, who was nowhere to be seen.
‘I came back and Queenie was missing, but my neighbour popped round and said not to worry.
‘You know what she’s like, she’ll be around soon enough, leave your music on and she’ll know you’re home’, Julie’s neighbour reassured.
‘But she didn’t come home,’ remembered Julie. ‘I went walking down the road to the caravan site, to the fields. She just wasn’t there.’
Julie’s search came to nothing but a knock on the door the following morning delivered the news she had been starting to dread. ‘I think I’ve found Queenie’, said a neighbour.
‘We went up to the main road and across to another lane, and I saw her. Someone had moved her. Her body had been put onto the grassy verge.
‘I couldn’t identify her at first, she was so badly injured. I actually went home and got a photo to check the markings on her body because I just didn’t want to believe it was her.
‘But it was. It was my Queenie.’
Julie wrapped the body in a blanket and took it home to bury in her back garden. A memorial stone now marks Queenie’s six years of life on the very spot she was found on the roadside.
Julie said: ‘The stone is a bit covered in grass now, but that place is always in my memory, and whenever I walk past that spot, I say a few words to Queenie.’
The sudden loss of her friend was all the more distressing for Julie, given she had rescued Queenie as a sickly kitten from a squalid house overrun with cats.
Julie continued: ‘I later discovered it was a mother from the village who spotted Queenie while she was walking with her daughter. She moved the body to the side of the road.
‘She wasn’t to know that it was Queenie, who outright refused to wear a collar.
‘My current cat Mrs Socks has a reflective collar. She goes up to that main road, she knows she’s not meant to because it’s always busy with lots of tractors and holiday traffic.
‘But I feel a little more comforted knowing drivers have a better chance of seeing her, especially when it’s dark, which is when it must have happened to Queenie.
‘Freedom is very important to cats, I really believe that. I’ll always worry about Mrs Socks roaming around, but I wouldn’t keep her inside.’
Julie’s hope is that the Blue Cross Code campaign makes drivers and pet owners take more notice of the road they share – preventing more heartache and sorrow in future.
‘Queenie’s at peace now and I’ll always love her, but if I could have said one final thing to her, I would have said simply ”thank you for being my cat”. She was so special.’
‘I still miss him… when Facebook sends me old photos of Tigger, it still hurts’
Chris Pickering, 72 is a retired University lecturer who lives in Headingley, Leeds and had a ten-year-old cat named Tigger before he was struck down by a car.
The former dentistry professor adopted and rehomed around 20 cats in her life, but her now departed longhaired ginger cat, Tigger, was her most beloved.
Tigger found his forever home with Chris and her 73-year-old husband Pete who was formerly an asset manager after being adopted eight years ago when his first owner died of a heart attack.
Tigger – or ‘Tigger the third’ as Chris jokingly called him because he was her third cat given that name – had been used to a peaceful life with the elderly lady who was his previous owner.
He was content with ‘anything that didn’t disturb him and above all else a quiet life, recalls Chris.
‘He was very much my cat, we had another cat named Sushi who we adopted to keep him company, but she was far too energetic for his old soul.
‘Sushi was my husband’s cat and Tigger was very definitely mine’, she lovingly reminisced.
‘He would come right up close next to me and sleep on my neck, at all times he wanted to be on my skin, he was the most affectionate cat I’ve ever had… he loved me and I loved him’, Chris said.
One day in July 2022 Chris was attending a graduation ceremony at the University of Leeds where she was one of the ceremony officiants, greeting graduates on stage for several hours.
However, in the break between ceremonies, Chris checked her phone to find a message from her next-door neighbour that read ‘I’m really sorry to tell you…’
Her neighbour broke the heartbreaking news that Tigger had been found dead on the side of the pavement.
Chris remembers going into a toilet cubicle to weep before she had to return for the next ceremony where she needed ‘all the world to hold it together’.
Hours later, when she was free to return home, she discovered Tigger had curled up on the pavement outside of her home. Chris presumes he’d managed to crawl from the middle of the road to the pavement just outside their doorstep, where he then died.
Neighbour Hannah, who regularly welcomed Tigger through her broken cat flap, had picked up Tigger’s body and secured it until Chris returned home to collect him and bury him that evening.
‘I just remember concentrating on not crying during the ceremony’, says Chris.
‘Unless you keep your cats only indoors – which I don’t think you should because it’s cruel – it’s a risk you have to take.’
Chris and Pete live in a cul-de-sac, which has been heavily built up with houses and cars since they bought the property in 1989 when it was ‘quite a quiet street’.
‘Our home backs onto a park, which is like a cat paradise with trees and wildlife, it’s really, really safe for cats, so, of course, he chooses to go out the front and explore the road instead.
‘I don’t know how the car killed him but he had blood on his side, but physically apart from the blood there were no other signs of injury. I presume he died of internal bleeding and perhaps shock.
‘The driver might well have not even known they’d hit him.
‘When my neighbour found Tigger he was on the pavement and I assumed he was asleep.
‘That morning was like any other, I’d brushed him and given him flea treatment on his neck before giving him his breakfast. So I’d spent a lot of time with him before it happened.
‘I still miss him’, Chris adds, ‘when Facebook sends me old photos of Tigger, it still hurts.
‘I’ve had 20 or so cats in my life and he is the one that I miss the most. He was just the most affectionate cat you could ever have met, or at least he was to me.
‘But this won’t ever deter me from adopting cats, I’m a great believer that cats find me, I said to my kids that I won’t go looking for another cat after he (and later Sushi died).
‘But, my youngest daughter appeared one day months later and said to me ‘I know you’re going to be angry but you’ll get over it’.
Chris asked, ‘Why?’ when her daughter revealed that she adopted two kittens for her which were waiting in a catbox in the living room as a surprise.
‘I had made a decision not to replace Tigger, but my daughter knows what a cat lady I am, so here I am now in my 70s with two frisky teenage boys named Mr Gray and Billy.’
‘I think drivers and road users need to be hyper-vigilant for cats but they also need to realise that cats can be a bit stupid. They dash across the road, they just put their head down and run.
‘You can’t teach a cat how to cross the road. Animals and children can decide to be a bit random when crossing over roads, so drivers need to be as vigilant’, she said.
‘If I were given the chance to speak to the driver who killed Tigger, I would want to find out if my cat was being silly and lying in the middle of the road or if it was the driver at fault.
‘If anyone accidentally hits a cat, I would hope they would make an effort to get them to a vet or knock on a nearby door to find out whose cat it was.
‘Although the driver may feel bad, it’s even worse for the owner – especially if they don’t know what happened, just for closure. Drivers should take the responsibility to try and help.’
‘She would always run to us in the morning, and say hello by jumping on our bed’
A distraught couple whose beloved dog was killed by a mystery motorist are calling on the nation’s drivers to do their legal duty in the event of an accident.
Dominika Sojka, 34, and her partner Ian Clague, 62, lost their 10-month-old puppy Bijoux in June after she escaped from the garden of their Bournemouth home and was hit by a car.
The unknown driver did not stop at the scene or call the police, which is the legal duty of any motorist who hits a dog under UK Law.
Four months on from the tragedy, the couple are left with a cruel mix of loss and injustice – and many, many questions about what happened on that fateful summer evening.
Their black and grey chow chow husky cross – or Chowsky – had strayed onto the road and been hit by an unknown driver who took the wounded animal to a nearby vet.
But Dominika and Ian were not to know this at the time, only learning the fate of their beloved Bijoux when they received a phone call from their pet’s breeder.
Dominika, a private jet broker, said: ‘We let Bijoux and our other dog Saphir out in the garden at around 10pm, we were watching a movie at the time.
‘After a while Saphir started scratching on the door, which is strange because normally she doesn’t do that. I opened the door and Saphir came, then I started calling for Bijoux.
‘I thought Bijoux must be exploring the garden, so I closed the door and we went back to watching our movie.
‘When we’d finished, Bijoux still wasn’t at the door so we went outside to start searching for her. I was starting to really worry. Bijoux was not in the garden.
‘Ian and I went to the park because I thought if she’d escaped she’d go there. Then we checked the roundabout, but I couldn’t see her, she wasn’t there. In a way I was relieved.
‘We went home and I phoned the vet, but no dog had turned up there. I assumed she was alive. We left the gate open, hoping she would come back.’
Dominika’s next move was to begin posting a series of Facebook messages asking if anyone in the local area or in local dog groups had seen Bijoux. It was then that her phone rang.
Dominika said: ‘Suddenly I received a call. It was Bijoux’s breeder. The microchip in Bijoux was still registered under her name and the vet called her rather than us.
‘She said she’s not sure if it’s my dog but she was informed the vet had received a dog that had been hit by a car, and it didn’t make it. I couldn’t believe this was just a coincidence. I was in tears.
‘So, we called the vet and unfortunately the dog they had was Bijoux. It was very shocking. And, we had no idea what had really happened, or how she died.’
The couple’s need for answers was made all the more difficult following a second phone call the following day.
Dominika said: ‘We received a really weird call from a guy who said he was the person who took Bijoux to the vet.’
Ian, who owns and runs an engineering firm, said: ‘A man called us, we thought it was genuine to begin with and he said ‘she’s with Jesus now’.
‘He said he found her near a particular road, but he was crying and he hung up. It was a puzzling encounter, we didn’t have his number, so we couldn’t get any more information.
‘We went to the vet the next day to identify Bijoux. It was her. It was obvious she had been hit on the side of the face. But we wanted to know the circumstances, what had happened.
‘They said someone had brought her in and filled out a form with their contact details, so we asked the vet to contact them and ask whether they would come forward, because we just wanted to know what had happened.
‘But that person didn’t want to speak to us.’
Dominika said: ‘I just wanted to know what had happened, I wanted closure.’
The couple’s hopes of finding answers were vanishing fast – their call to report the incident to the police ultimately came to nothing, same too for their request to speak to the driver.
So determined were they to find out what had really happened, the couple turned to a professional pet detective, a dog-loving ex-detective who specialised in just such cases.
Colin Butcher took up the investigation. His enquiries established that a male driver had hit Bijoux at a nearby set of traffic lights. Two neighbours reported hearing a haunting ‘howl that lasted for seven seconds’.
Ian said: ‘This was very upsetting. One lady said she saw a red car and a gentleman in a brown jacket stood next to it.
‘We wanted to get corroborating information from the vet. We don’t know if the person who brought Bijoux to the vet was this same person.
‘We know there was CCTV of this person turning up and handing over Bijoux. But Colin doesn’t have the authority to compel people to talk. He can inform you as to what the procedures are and shepherd the police through the maneuvers.’
The police decided to close the case at the start of September, informing the couple there were no witnesses to the accident. It left Dominika and Ian feeling empty and suspicious.
Ian said: ‘Colin is a former homicide detective. His experience tells him that a good Samaritan rarely has reason to hide.
‘And, when you come across something hidden in an investigation, it tells you there’s more to be revealed, and that’s a good line of enquiry.’
One theory the couple still consider is that the death of their pet was the result of a botched dog-napping attempt. But they know their speculation will not bring Bijoux back.
Dominika added: ‘She was so lovely, very lovable, and loved other dogs. She would always run to us in the morning, and say hello by jumping on our bed.’
Ian said: ‘Bijoux really loved the forest, she loved to chase a hare or a rabbit or squirrel – not that she ever caught one’.
In a message to the unknown driver, Dominika said: ‘You hit our dog. The least you can do is pick up the phone and call the police.
‘I have so many questions, but zero answers. It would really help with closure’.
Ian added: ‘Had the driver called the police at the time, we may never have had to go through all this’.
In the wake of the tragedy, Ian and Dominika are calling on all drivers to be aware of the Blue Cross Code and their legal duty to stop at the scene and call the police if they hit a dog.
These cases studies are courtesy of CPRSP and Parliament.UK