Under the changes, drivers would be required to stop ‘as soon as it is safe and reasonably practicable to do so’ if they thought they had hit or run over a cat, and notify the owner or the JSPCA. Failure to comply with this could result in a fine of up to £10,000.
However, despite receiving unanimous support from the States Assembly in June, the proposition was called in for Scrutiny before it will return to the States for final ratification.
In a submission to the Environment, Housing and Infrastructure Panel, JSPCA chief executive Debra D’Orleans said her organisation ‘feels that the changes to the Road Traffic Law should come into force as soon as possible’.
‘If the requirement to report cat road traffic accidents is made law, with subsequent consequences should they not, more accidents will be reported at the time of the incident and we believe this could in fact save a cat’s life,’ she said, adding: ‘Emergency treatment at an earlier stage will give a better chance of survival.’
The JSPCA provide a 24/7 animal ambulance service and were often the ones who had to deal with ‘the difficult call from both the member of the public who finds a dead cat and a distraught owner who has reported their cat missing’, she said.
The JSPCA has seen 32 cases so far this year, compared to 76 accidents involving cats in 2019 and 58 in 2020.
In another submission to the panel, a St Brelade Centenier said the law would be ‘unpoliceable’.
Amanda Wright said honorary police would ‘have to look for a failure to report by a driver, but it is often a witness who is the likely person to report having seen a cat being hit’. She said that ‘we would then have to identify the vehicle and then the driver’ as ‘the JSPCA or person responsible for the cat would not be able to do this’.
She questioned the part of the law where a driver ‘reasonably believes that a cat has been struck’, saying it would be difficult to prove, and also queried whether the fine was proportionate. The proposals followed a successful 2019 proposition by Deputy Jeremy Maçon and were prepared in consultation with the States police, the JSPCA and the Deputy.
