But for the information provided by a pet insurance company, Petplan, I’d have to try and work out for myself how many cats are run over each year.
Petplan tells us that about 250,000 cats are run over every year on the roads in the UK. This equates to 630 cats daily. The worst city for cat traffic accidents is Bristol closely followed by London. As there are about 7 million cats in the UK, a quarter of a million cats represents 3.57% of all UK cats being involved in road traffic accidents annually.
Grimsby and Dundee are the safest cities for cats with respect to traffic accidents. The average veterinary bill following a cat being hit by a car is £500. The most expensive claim paid out by this insurance company was for £10,000. Cats often suffer serious injuries as can be expected.
The insurance company’s study informs us that 35% of car drivers admit to hiting a cat, which seems to be an extraordinarily high percentage. Sadly, 10% of the drivers said that they would leave the cat for dead.
Clearly, road traffic accident’s are a serious threat to wandering domestic cats. Another study (Rochlitz 2003) found that younger cats (7 months to 2 years of age) were most likely to be involved in an RTA. RTA decreased by 16% for every year in age. Male cats are twice as likely as females to be run over. This is probably linked with the larger home ranges of male cats (they travel further).
The British are well-known for letting their cats wander outside. Personally, I don’t agree with it unless the nearest road is some distance away and it is a quiet road. Apparently, the survey found that 64% of cat owners in Britain say that they keep their cats indoors at night. I don’t understand this as there is less traffic at night and cats like to hunt at night. In days gone by cat owners used to put their cat out at night.
Half of vehicle drivers felt that cat owners should do more to look after their companion animals and 85% of the participants in the study believe that reflective collars are a good safety aid. I am not sure they’d help reduce traffic accidents.
Britain is quite a heavily populated country with a lot of traffic. I would expect road traffic accidents concerning cats to be considerably lower across most areas of America. The majority of European countries have a lower human population density than the UK and therefore, once again, I would expect less per square mile or less per human population in the way of road traffic accidents concerning domestic cats in most of the European countries.
In order to prevent my cat being on of the statistics on how many cats are run over each year, I have built him a secure garden cat enclosure. He has the run of the house and garden and I have peace of mind. He is flea free, injury free and in good condition. I’m calm.
P.S. The Florida puma is vulnerable to being killed on the highways of Florida which is a shame because there are only around 100 left.
P.S. As for America, it seems that almost 5.5 million cats are killed on the roads annually. This is much higher than the 1.2 million dogs killed on the roads each year. I do not know whether these statistics are accurate but they come from the top site as found by Google.
This is around 3% of the total number of cats by which I mean domestic and feral cats in America. The percentage of cats killed on the roads in the UK is around 3% on the figures that I have provided on this page.
