Cats Don't Just Kill Birds. They Kill Traffic.
Nobody tracks how many car accidents cats cause each year. There's no federal database, no insurance category, no CDC metric. But the incidents keep piling up, literally, and 2024-2025 delivered a string of them that ranged from absurd to fatal.
Here's the highlight reel.
91 Freeway, Riverside, California -- September 4, 2024
A couple in their twenties spotted a kitten crossing the westbound 91 Freeway near Madison Street at 12:40 PM. The male passenger told the driver to stop. She did. In the fast lane. On a freeway.
He jumped out, grabbed the kitten, and a trailing car swerved hard into the center divider. A third vehicle, unable to brake in time, slammed into both stopped cars. Three-car pileup. One person hospitalized. The kitten escaped and was never recovered.
California Highway Patrol investigated. Nobody was charged, but nobody got the cat either.
Source: CBS News Los Angeles
US-74, Swain County, North Carolina -- November 19, 2025
Melissa Schlarb, 28, was driving from Robbinsville to her job as a bank teller in Cherokee at 8:17 AM. A bald eagle flying over US-74 near Bryson City was carrying a cat. The eagle lost its grip. The cat's carcass crashed through the passenger side of Schlarb's windshield at highway speed.
That's Schlarb's 911 call. Kendrick Weeks, Western Wildlife Diversity Program supervisor for the North Carolina Wildlife Resources Commission, confirmed that bald eagles routinely scavenge roadkill cats. Schlarb was uninjured. The cat was already dead, likely roadkill picked up by the eagle.
Source: WLOS News 13
Kam Tin Road, Hong Kong -- February 17, 2026
A driver on Kam Tin Road near Wang Toi Shan swerved to avoid a stray cat at 5:47 AM. The car crossed into oncoming traffic and hit a double-decker KMB bus head-on. The private car was described as "virtually unrecognizable." The bus windscreen was completely smashed and the bodywork deeply crumpled. Emergency services responded to the scene. All because someone didn't want to hit a stray.
Source: Dimsum Daily
Mahoba, Uttar Pradesh, India -- December 23, 2025
Kandhilal Rajpur, 35, a milk transporter, swerved to avoid a stray animal on Belatal Road near Nanora village. His vehicle fell into a deep roadside ditch. Rajpur was pronounced dead at the hospital.
Source: Devdiscourse
San Francisco, California -- October 27, 2025
A Waymo autonomous vehicle struck and killed "KitKat," a beloved nine-year-old bodega cat at Randa's Market on 16th Street in the Mission District. Two witnesses said KitKat sat in front of the stopped Waymo for seven seconds, then walked under it. The car's right rear tire crushed the back of the cat's body as it pulled away.
The incident went viral. A memorial altar with candles, flowers, cat food, and Kit Kat candy bars appeared outside the market. Even the robots are killing cats now. Or the cats are walking under robots. Either way, the outcome is the same.
Source: Mission Local
The Pattern
Cats on roads cause swerves, stops, pileups, and deaths. Free-roaming cats create hazards that no one quantifies and no one tracks. Insurance companies don't break out "swerved to avoid cat" as a claims category. Governments don't count cat-caused fatalities.
But the bodies keep showing up: in ditches in India, in crumpled cars in Hong Kong, in hospitals in California. The cat walks away. Or it doesn't. Either way, someone else pays the bill.