had a near miss today

[Annette4]

Was out with my 4yo today with OH on foot with one of the dogs. We don't have the best hacking and Sam has only just built his confidence hack alone and I'm traffic but with a wide berth he's fine. We wear all the high viz I own and he's a pretty wide cob so people tend to respect him.

We went into the village, met a bus who waited for me to nip up a drive so Sam could watch him go past quietly...all very lovely. 200m from home a bus flew round the corner behind us, going over the speed limit who did not slow down or give us any space.

Poor Sam near enough had a breakdown and went to bolt/rear/bronc. Managed to force myself to let go of his head and turn him so he was stood in the middle of the road shaking.

Walked on and he started to relax when 4 motorbikes and 2 cars appeared. All driving slowly and respected my hand signals but poor Sam was about to explode (he does a lovely on the spot canter!) walking past the bikes. Got him up our yard drive and OH thanked everyone profusely for me. I couldn't have thanked them enough.

I've put a complaint in to the bus company so hopefully I'll hear something from them tomorrow but I'm not happy! I was in the 30mph zone, the road has beware of horses signs all along it and loads of bridleways. I'm not bothered by roadwork at all but this has really rattled me! If he wasn't a baby I'd school for a while but he needs riding away

 

[Fjord]

That's awful, how very scary for you and Sam. It's definitely worth contacting the bus company, they should know that their driver behaved like this. I hope it hasn't dented Sam's confidence too much.

 

[mulledwhine]

Defiantly write a letter, disgraceful behaviour

I am sure sam will be fine in the long run x

 

[Shantara]

Write a letter!
A bus drove past us far too fast and far too close (a group of kids, me and a few adults) luckily ponies/horses are great, but it made each and every one of them flinch or jump slightly!
I got a reply the next day saying they'd remind all their drives to respect all road users, especially horses

 

[Rowreach]

Definitely write a letter.

I wrote to a bus company after one of their drivers nearly wiped out two children who were in the middle of their RRS test Not only were the kids bedecked in hiviz, but so were about 8 adults on the route The company gave the driver my phone number and he rang me up and asked me what he should have done (other than driving his bus between the two of them!). He genuinely didn't know what he'd done wrong.

As an aside, Nah, your Bertie Bassett picture is doing the rounds again today on Facebook via a NI horses on the road awareness page