A BEREAVED hedgehog is calling for highway authorities to build segregated prickle lanes.

The devastated omnivore made the demand moments after she witnessed her entire family being wiped out of existence by an articulated lorry.

Thousands of hedgehogs are killed on the roads every year, with their lives being considered of secondary importance to the mobility of a much larger mammalian species.

But in a petition posted online, the distraught yet determined survivor of the harrowing hedgehog highway tragedy wrote: “Hedgehogs might be smaller than humans, and in most cases we’re less intelligent, but that doesn’t mean we should be treated with any less respect.

“Our species has suffered greatly at the wheels of the humans’ unnecessarily fast and polluting mode of motorised transportation.

“Generation after generation of hedgehogs have been forced to risk their lives in order to traverse the roads of death that humans have used to divide our habitat.

“When we are hungry, we must cross the road; when we are searching for a new home, we must cross the road; and when we are horny, we must also cross that dangerous, deathly, dastardly road.

“Well, I say; no more! No more perilous crossings! No more flattened hedgehogs! From this day we go forth, and we will segregate the roads!

“We will not rest until there are new, safe, segregated prickle lanes. Dedicated, prickle-protected, illuminated lanes on every road in this fair land.”

The hedgehog ended her petition with a warning that unless highway authorities paid heed to the demands of her and her fellow nocturnal beasts, the roads would be hogged until the day they did.

“Our battle has only just begun, hogrades. This is the beginning of the pricklelution.”

In response a highways authority spokesman said that the proposal would form part of an upcoming public consultation on the future of all roads.

“Following the fatalities of several hedgehogs on our roads this year the highways authority is prepared to consider the construction of a new nationwide network of segregated prickle lanes.

“A statutory 30-day consultation period will request feedback on a range of options that include building prickle lanes; not building prickle lanes and giving people free money; building extra lanes for cars; and replacing all hedges with roads.

“At the end of the consultation period one of these options will be recommended for approval.”