Drama on the roads.

Fransurrey said:
Did anything happen with this, police wise? I had a near miss last week and reported to BHS but not police. I did get his plate as he stopped in the village, but wasn't wearing my hat cam.
Click to expand...
The police took it seriously, especially as he is a driving instructor, and had a little chat with him. Had I had hat cam footage, they could have taken it further.
 
It shocks me how comfortable some drivers are in getting so close to horses on the road. Where is their own sense of self-preservation, never mind safety for other road users!?

Riding in single-file with a friend the other day, a driver overtook my horse in the rear and settled between me and the horse infront, forcing me to stop and let her in, because a car was coming the opposite way and she was too impatient to wait until it was safe to actually pass both of us (Narrow village road). I was gobsmacked at how utterly stupid she was being, and she was reported using the hat cam footage. Wouldn't go out without the camera.
 
Without wanting to sound like a grumpy old fart, I do think driving has deteriorated since lockdown, although I have no idea why Covid had that effect (perhaps people got used to very quiet roads?!).

We had a similarly 'busy' hack on Sunday, with two people going straight past us on a very narrow lane and barely slowing down. Then a car overtaking slowly, but too close, and my friend asked them to stop resulting in her getting a mouthful from the passenger - the car was a big new Range Rover driven by a country-looking, middle-class, middle-aged couple! Various other drivers too fast and too close. Our horses are great but my youngster is full of brio and thinks cow parsley is a bit scary when it's blowing in the wind, so having less than 2m space is pretty hairy.

The best fellow road users on Sunday were the motorcyclists - we had a group of 20 go past as we were nearly home and they were very respectful! I made sure I thanked each one.

On the bouncing trailer point, my youngster has developed a trailer phobia recently and I'm sure it's down to one driver who went past us too fast and took him by surprise. He was ok at the time but really doesn't like them now, I need to do some de-sensitisation work once I can find a flat-bed trailer to borrow and get my OH to help us.
 
Friend and I used to do miles of roadwork, always in full high viz. One day, approaching a right turn (for us) we started to move to centre, I moved alongside friend to stop traffic, right arm out and a car came up behind us, screeched to a halt beside me on the wrong side of the road, wound the window down and proceeded to shout and swear - how DARE we ride two abreast and block the road. I leaned down and calmly said 'We do it to slow down morons like you, who can't wait two minutes to pass us, and as we are turning right and clearly signalling YOU should not even be thinking of overtaking.' Mortified silence from the driver, window raised, and he actually reversed to allow us to turn.
We did find, in our area, that if we positioned the horses as we would a vehicle and signalled clearly, then drivers were more likely to respect our space. Having said that, it is very clear that cars are being driven faster than I ever remember.
 
The microcob is pretty bombproof but we got a foul mouthed tirade from a guy in his 60s who had to stop (single track road I was about 10 secs from the passing place he'd just flown past)

Apparently "I was doing ****** 10mph you ****** *******". He wasn't and I hadn't even mentioned the speed when he pulled up next to me so obviously not the first time he's nearly had a head on with a rider.

If I'd had a camera I'd have reported him.

Hand walked baby cob yesterday to get some traffic experience and every single cyclist slowed down and asked if it was ok to pass. All drivers pulled in and stopped. I can only think it's because I was on the ground with my crash hat on. They couldn't care less when I'm on board!
 
Your pony is awesome!

very few drivers we meet go below 20mph although farm machinery is pretty good.
It’s not just us horse riders that get a risky time of it though. The amount of times I’ve been behind people passing cyclists on a blind corner is shocking. And they are always far to close to the bike. If you waited 20-30 seconds you would be able to see if it is clear to overtake!!!
 
Sounds like a good pony. Bailey was brill on the roads, combines, flat bed trucks, tractors, HGV's and buses all round our way but he didn't blink at anything.
Quite often going from the 30mph main road into the 50mph main road (for about 1/4 mile before turning off to the yard) we'd have huge HGV lorries coming towards us and they'd back right off and slow down and I'd wave them through.

They often couldn't believe they didn't need to crawl past us and I'd have to wave them on again.

Yet a 'big leaf' especially the grey furry underside of a big dock would have my huge horse left trembling in fear :)
 
I've reported probably ten drivers with accompanying hat camera footage, and three of them have received points and fines, and the rest have had visits from the police. These were the worst incidents, I could have reported 3 or 4 drivers each time I go out on the road (nice country lane that unfortunately is a rat run between two villages) but I don't have the time, so I stick with the bad ones.

Reporting any incident on the Horsei app at least feeds the statistics machine, but really if you want the police to be able to act, you need the video footage to help them because it's just the driver's word against yours otherwise.
 
It's not just motorists who are idiots. We were stopped chatting with a couple of dog walkers on a bridlepath yesterday when a jogger ran right up behind my horse without announcing his presence. He passed us close enough that if the horse had farted it would have made him blink.

Pony is fantastic, and never moved. I imagine most wouldn't have put up with it. Numpty jogger is lucky to still have teeth.
 
I've given up on expecting anyone other than my horse to behave. I regularly have cyclists, joggers, and drivers flying past without a care in the world.

Last month, I was taking my three-year old on an in-hand walk on a singletrack, accompanied by my friend's 25-year old WB. Someone at a small, private farmyard we passed was lunging a horse, and it was going nuts. Dragon snorting, bucking, tail flagging, the works. Needless to say, our horses found this quite exciting. The 25-year old was lively indeed, and my youngster was passaging sideways down the road but not doing anything worse than that. I was, however, focused on keeping that from escalating. Suddenly, a cyclist whizzed past us, squeezing through the narrow gap between my bouncy, sideways horse and a large hedge, at a rate of knots. It startled me. I yelped, loudly, "Holy f*ck, I didn't see that guy!" Maybe he heard me. Luckily, my horse thinks idiot cyclists are boring and pedestrian, so she didn't react to him. But what a fanny. You don't have to be bloody Carl Hester to see that a couple horses are dancing and snorting around the road.
 
Sandstone1 said:
I honestly think its getting unsafe to ride on the roads these days. very sad but thats the way it is.
Click to expand...

I think it really depends where you are. We ride on the roads all the time, and it's fine. There's always lots of walkers, cyclists and agricultural stuff about, so drivers know to expect non-car traffic and are generally considerate.
 
scruffyponies said:
I think it really depends where you are. We ride on the roads all the time, and it's fine. There's always lots of walkers, cyclists and agricultural stuff about, so drivers know to expect non-car traffic and are generally considerate.
Click to expand...

Yes and I think in some places there’s a mutual respect with regular road users. The ones I see often know I won’t hold them up because I’ll find a hole somewhere, and I know they aren’t trying to put me in a ditch, so we get on the best. But I avoid the school run mummies and Saturday afternoons when everyone is heading for the council tip with their rattly car trailers and bouncing, flapping rubbish ?
 
When we moved here 20 years ago, the lanes were pretty quiet but now they are not. Our nearest village has had a lot of new houses built and we are now on a rat run to get to the motorway or the nearest town. As someone who came to riding late in life, I've always bought established horses for myself that are good to hack and used to traffic but my goodness you need to have your wits about you now. If you are able to hack in open countryside, you are so lucky. Where my share horse is kept it is much quieter but there are not many routes. I do wonder if hacking on the roads will just become impossible. I hope not.
 
  • Like
Reactions: SEL
It's massively unsafe on the roads around my village as we are very close to a big town. The last few months I have worn a techlogic camera. What a difference!!! Its like the drivers etc suddenly see they are on record.
 
Just back from a hack and a pickup had stopped and waited for us. He’d turned the engine off and decided that as we were passing was a good time to start it up ??‍♀️ Tali got a fright but didn’t do anything much but this is the third time someone has done this when I’ve been riding her. We would be better off if they kept the engine running than that. I don’t understand it.
 
Peglo said:
Just back from a hack and a pickup had stopped and waited for us. He’d turned the engine off and decided that as we were passing was a good time to start it up ??‍♀️ Tali got a fright but didn’t do anything much but this is the third time someone has done this when I’ve been riding her. We would be better off if they kept the engine running than that. I don’t understand it.
Click to expand...
I know. I hate that. One of the other things I hate is when they pass so wide they put their wheels off the rhs of the tarmac and send a spray of mud ,gravel and water into the air.
 
Peglo said:
Just back from a hack and a pickup had stopped and waited for us. He’d turned the engine off and decided that as we were passing was a good time to start it up ??‍♀️ Tali got a fright but didn’t do anything much but this is the third time someone has done this when I’ve been riding her. We would be better off if they kept the engine running than that. I don’t understand it.
Click to expand...

Lots of modern cars have stop-start technology, so when the driver stops, the engine turns itself off. Saving the planet by not polluting while idling. When the driver moves their foot back to the accelerator, the engine turns itself on. To the passing rider, it seems as though the person waited at the worst moment to restart their engine, but it's often the car. You can turn this feature off (I did in OH's old VW, because it annoyed me), but most people don't.
 
OP, your horse sounds phenomenal!

My share horse is really good in traffic, but he's a nervous nelly about life in general so I avoid riding him on the roads if I can. He's the sort that would be so busy spooking at a drain that he'd jump into a car that didn't give him enough space, so really not worth the risk. I ride him on the quiet lane down from our yard, which is nice because cars can't overtake you (too narrow) and doesn't have any blind bends and a couple of other quiet lanes, but otherwise we stick to the bridleways that we are very, very lucky to have round here. We have a lot that run parallel to the roads, so you can almost always avoid what would otherwise be quite uncomfortable roads to ride on. This is how I know my share horse is good in traffic btw, because of the bridleways being right next to the road - he's remarkably unflappable about scary things like motorbikes/ horse boxes.
 
There are two ancient trees near me that cars have driven into in the last few weeks in separate incidents. They are not on bends, no other vehicles were involved and I can't remember this ever happening before. Neither of the drivers were hurt and neither of them thought it was their fault although their cars were totalled. . .
 
Maryann said:
There are two ancient trees near me that cars have driven into in the last few weeks in separate incidents. They are not on bends, no other vehicles were involved and I can't remember this ever happening before. Neither of the drivers were hurt and neither of them thought it was their fault although their cars were totalled. . .
Click to expand...
We've got a house with a hole in the wall near here. Car went through a brick wall before hitting the house. Because it's unsafe that side of the road is coned off and I sat at the traffic lights yesterday trying to work out how the h3ll the driver managed it. It's not even on a bend ?
 
Caol Ila said:
Lots of modern cars have stop-start technology, so when the driver stops, the engine turns itself off. Saving the planet by not polluting while idling. When the driver moves their foot back to the accelerator, the engine turns itself on. To the passing rider, it seems as though the person waited at the worst moment to restart their engine, but it's often the car. You can turn this feature off (I did in OH's old VW, because it annoyed me), but most people don't.
Click to expand...

Yes we have a car like this. But I’m still not sure why he couldn’t take his foot off the break a few seconds later when we were clear. But no harm done I guess but maybe he will know for next time.
 
My advice would be to wear long sleeved Hi-Viz jackets so that other road sers can clearly see your hand signals. A good camera is the Techalogic DC-1 as it films from front and behind and they can supply a Hi-Vis elasticated Camera Mounth Strap for riding hats. In addition if you have any incidents please report them to the police and ask for an incident number. Also report on the Horse i App or the www.horseaccidents.org.uk web site who collect statistics of incidents involving horses. If you have a particular stretch of road that you are having problems with arrange for the police to carry out an Operation Slow Pass (Operation Velra) which involves them monitoring vehicles passing horses and stopping them if they are driving badly.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top