BIG CAT STUDY GROUP: Dan Holdsworth has a bloody good idea

Jon,

Yesterday on the way to work, I observed a couple of Highways Agency vans busily engaged in the rather risky business of removing thesad remains of an extremely dead car from the side of the M66.

Two things occur to me regarding this. Firstly, there is unlikely to be any difference in the road-crossing behaviour of domestic and non-domestic cats. They're all going to be equally incompetent at it, and will likely suffer similar casualty rates.

Secondly, the same agency that removes dead deer, badgers and otheranimals from roadsides will also be shifting dead cats of all sizes from roadsides. That agency on motorways will not be the police but instead will be the Highways Agency, who were invented to do the dirty, boring jobs on motorways so police could do more useful things instead (mostly involving lurking with speedguns and so on).

The Highways Agency recently underwent an IT overhaul, as this puff-piece from Atos demonstrates:

http://atos.net/en-us/about_us/our-customers/bin/cs_highways_agency.htm

All this IT management gobbledegook boils down to this: in the Highways Agency, operatives will barely be able to do so much as pass wind without it being recorded in the computer ticketing system somewhere(probably recorded under Climate Change methane emissions). Joking aside, removal of dead wildlife ought to be recorded as will disposal of biohazardous material. The Highways Agency aren't the police, so I'm wondering, would a strategic Freedom of Information request to them for this info do any good? Or has this avenue already been explored?

Dan H.