The woman turning her own cat tragedy into a mission to change the law

"At first I was in denial - It must've been another cat", Mandy Hobbis remembers.

"But it's the fact that he was treated without care, dignity and respect".

It has been more than a decade since she received the call that her cat had been run over, discarded and dumped at a landfill.

Thinking back to that day, Hobbis, 42, said she was "devastated" that Snowy was left to die on the side of a road, unreported and in need of aid.

For nine years, she has been campaigning as co-founder of Cats Matter, to get drivers held accountable for reporting roadside crashes with felines.

The Road Traffic Act, 1988, says that drivers must report accidents with dogs and livestock but not cats - despite them being the second most popular household pet in the UK, according to statistics.

The campaign has been supported by the RSPCA and the PDSA, who as charities often deal with the aftermath of crashes involving animals.

Snowy found his way into Hobbis' life when he would visit her on his roams around the local area.

"He started coming to us and we'd feed him," she said.

She found out that Snowy had had a rough start to life and was being used for breeding.

Over the few years after she took him in, she said they bonded greatly: "He was always friendly to everyone he met.

"He was just dopey really. He'd always fall sleep on the table. Snowy was quite a big cat, so when we would buy him beds, he'd often flop his head and legs out the side."

The day Snowy went missing began like any other when she let him out for his usual morning stroll.

It was only when he didn't come home for tea that the 42-year-old felt something was very wrong.

Hobbis, from Stourbridge, in the West Midlands, began to hand out flyers across the area but a friend then told her that he had been found dead on the roadside by her home.

A few years later, she also lost her childhood cat, Mosh, in the same way. He was found behind a bush with a broken pelvis and broken legs after being run over and left for dead.

She said the experience was devastating for the whole family: "My dad had not long passed away so he was a companion to my mum."

Hobbis took him to the vets where he stayed until they said there was nothing they can do to save him.

"I have cat fences now because I can't go through it again," she admitted.

Hobbis wanted to make a change and met the woman who would go on with her to co-found Cat Matters, their campaign group, Tiya Ivy, when she posted about her experience online.

"We just got chatting. We met up and said 'something needs to be done here. They shouldn't be just left on the road'," she said.

The pair have previously campaigned for the mandatory microchipping of cats, which became law in 2024.

They have lobbied successive governments to try to make it illegal for drivers to leave the scene of a collision with a cat in the UK.

In December, the current government said it had "no current plans" for the law in response to an e-petition signed by 11,000 people.

"It's always warm words but nothing has ever happened. We know that people support this – [cats] deserve a chance at survival too," Hobbis said.

"The 1988 act is based on working animals, it's a bit dated now and needs to be modernised".

Undaunted, the group set up a fresh petition on the Parliament website and, by the start of June, it had sailed past 100,000 signatures - the benchmark at which petitions can be considered for a debate in the Commons.

A date for the debate has yet to be set, if it is considered.

The PDSA said they wanted the legislation to go even further and make drivers responsible for stopping and helping injured pets on the road.

In 2025 they helped 2,884 cats after they were hit by vehicles but say the total number of accidents is much higher, as drivers do not often report crashes.

This is echoed by the charities Blue Cross and RSPCA, who say that the number of cats admitted does not show the scale of accidents. It was estimated by insurance firm Petplan that 230,000 cats are hit on the road each year.

A spokesperson for the PDSA said that one phone call or visit could be the difference between the life and death of a furry family member.

"The most common injury is hip fractures, but cats are like magic, they can make a full recovery [with help]", said PDSA vet Anna Clark.

She urged drivers involved in accidents to safely stop their vehicle and take injured animals to the nearest vet to give them the best chance of survival.

"Even if it's a stray or an animal you don't know – the vet has a duty of care to help. We want to help," she said.