Why do cats wait until the car comes before crossing?

[Runs With Scissors]

I'm serious. I notice this only at night, so maybe it has something to do with the headlights, but I swear, cats only cross in front of me *right* when I'm arriving at where they are. And these are small, residential streets, so it's not like there's a lot of traffic for them to have to wait for.

[GrizzRich]

Speed of approaching headlights is difficult to gauge.
The sould of the approaching vehicle appears faster then the speed that the lights appear (or DON'T appear) to move.

Hence, their brains go into a vapor-lock mode....

"Watch, wait... run! NO! wait.... waaa-aaait... Run! FAST! MROWRR! that was close!"

Just my opinion, of course. I'm allergic to cat dander so I don't get close enough to them to understand what they think.... though there are those that say they don't.

[The Lizard Queen]

It's my theory that it's all part of the feline plan to use us as "cat toys". They wait until the car is almost on them then run into the road, freeze, then speed away as we swerve to miss them. We stop the car a moment to wait for our hearts to slow down and our knees to quit shaking, then continue our journey congratulating ourselves at what good drivers we were not to have hit the poor little kitty.

What we don't see is the culprit and a few friends rolling and laughing in the bushes saying things like, "Ooooh boy, did you see that look of panic on his face!?"... "Do ya think he has to change his pants now?" ... "Oh, look! Here comes another car! Who's turn is it to freak the human?"

Don't get me wrong, I adore cats! I also understand the way their minds work.

[Blake]

More seriously, this is normal prey behaviour, and cats are just prey animals in the wild.

Most prey animals when they hear large predator instinctively freeze. The 'logic' being that they may have heard it before it heard them, so they are better off freezing and hoping it walks past than they are running away and certainly being chased. Of course the animals themsleves don't actually reason this out, it's just an instinctive behaviour they have evolved with.

And to animals cars are just large predators. That's particularly true of animals that get have seen other animals killed by cars, as most street cats have. So the normal reaction to seeing a car approach is to freeze and hope it doesn't notice them.

If they happen to freeze some distance back from the curb no problems. The big scary predator runs past roaring and they breathe a sigh of relief. But if they freeze near the curb or under a car parked by the curb it's not so good. The predator seem to be running straight towards them. At some point the instincts say they've been spotted and tells them to run for cover.

And that's when the second fatal flaw kicks in: animals won't run blind if they can avoid it. At night with the headlights on the road is the only illuminated area, and all else is looking from that light into darkness. So the animal runs when the predator gets too close, and it runs into the only area it can see. Unfortunately that means it runs straight into the beam of the headlights when the car is just about on top of it. And that means splat city, or at least a near miss.

Basic animal psychology. And of course cats aren't the only animals that do this. Almost all prey species will do it including deer or rabbits. But probably the worst I have ever seen are kangaroos. They have evolved to cope with predators much slower than themselves so they will wait until the very last minute to run. A kangaroo will wait to move until it literally launches itself into the front grill of a car. Collisions are almost a certainty.

So be thankful it's just cats.

[RandMcnally]

Originally Posted by The Lizard Queen

They wait until the car is almost on them then run into the road, freeze, then speed away as we swerve to miss the.

We're supposed to swerve to miss them?

[Lionne]

What about all the cats that cross when you're not around? You don't see those, you know. Maybe the ones that cross in front of you are a small percentage of traveling cat population.

[Beware of Doug]

I think it happens after one of those kitty house parties you see in the Multiple Cats litter commercial. The 'nip gets passed, and when evening crazy-time comes around, it's out to the road.

Then sometimes a gang of 'em go out and roll a dog.

[Cockatiel]

There's actually a cat on my street that waits for the car to pass by each time. But that's probably just a weird exception.