We Need Your
Help to Protect Cats

Dear *|FNAME|*

This is D’Artagnan (Dart for short). Dart was a beautiful British longhair-Somali Cross, who belonged to my constituent Olivia. In January 2022, Olivia was having a lie-in with her partner when she got a knock on the door from her neighbour, who gave her the tragic news that Dart had been struck by a car, killed, and left at the side of a road.

After weeks of heartbreak and grief, Olivia was shocked to find out that when a motorist collides with a cat, they don’t legally have to report it. That’s because the Road Traffic Act doesn’t protect cats.
 

Olivia’s now on a mission to change the law to give cats the same legal protections as dogs, pigs, mules and other animals by compelling drivers to stop and report collisions with cats.


230,000 cats like Dart are killed as the result of road traffic accidents every year. If drivers had to stop and report a collision with a cat, this would potentially save thousands of feline lives and help their owners get closure.
 

We recently reached an important milestone, with Olivia’s petition hitting 50,000 signatures. If we can get 50,000 more before the end of August, we can hopefully get this petition debated in Parliament and put pressure on the government to change the law.

Olivia needs our support to get this petition over the line. So I’m asking you to Act for Cats by doing two things today:

1. Sign Olivia’s petition – https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/607317
2. Share Olivia’s petition with a picture of your cat on social media, tagging Olivia (@OHollandRose), me (@BellRibeiroAddy) and the Government Minister for roads (@CharlotteV) on Twitter with the hashtags #ProtectCats #Act4Cats and #RoadTrafficAct

Yours sincerely,

Bell

Bell Ribeiro-Addy MP
Labour Member of Parliament for Streatham
House of Commons
London | SW1A 0AA
Tel: 0207 219 6695
Fax: 0207 219 4964
www.bellribeiroaddy.com