Horrible hack - legal people please look

dwi

dwi

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today was just one of those days when you should have stayed in bed. I fell off Daisy for the first time since we bought her, she slipped when trotting along and I went straight over her shoulder before I knew what was happening. I'm used to being known on the yard for having a sticky seat and I can sit a broncking fit but I was lyng on the ground before I knew what had happened. i didn't have time to try and retrieve it. The only plus side is that at least I've got my first time of falling off her over and done with, she didn't run off as I had always feated and I managed to get straight back on.

We carried on with our hack past some cows that she has seen before but today tried to gallop past. we had just got into the lovely woods we were heading for when we saw an elderly clanking tractor down the end of the path. I didn't want to go near it so we turned away but it cam towards us. Daisy didn't like the terrible clanking so turned to canter off and I very nearly came off for the second time in the same hack. Miserable old g*t of a farmer was telling us to get off his land and and that we were nowhere near the bridlepath.

on the way back we have to ride down a short section of main road which I never like the idea of but most people are fine. A complete idiot of a taxi driver squeezed past us speeding when there was a car coming the other way. He only just brushed us with his wing mirror but its more the principle of the thing. I thought that I got his registration number as he sped off but I must have got it wrong because the police don't recognise it so they can't do anything.

peter natt or anyone else that knows - am I right in thinking that the BHS keep a record of road accidents?

tbh I blame the miserable farmer. no-one wants us on the main roads so instead we try and get onto the access land. My opinion would be that "access land", new forests planted by tax payers money and which have bridlepaths in them shoudl be accessible. unfortunately the farmer was aon a very large noisy tractor so we were hardly in a position to argue the legality of him kicking us off the land

*cookies if you got this far*
 
Yes the BHS do keep records, you should find an access point to the pro forma on the BHS website (probably under Road Safety)

Go back to the Police, you have a partial number, or one that is close to correct, get them to cross check at least with the list of taxi licences issued by the local council. Add that to a description of the driver if you saw him and the car and they may still be able to do something, if the vehicle was not local that would be a different thing
 
taxi had no markings at all on it, only reason I knew it was a taxi was that it had a yellow licence plate on the back, the police are going to call back later so I had wondered about asking them to cross reference the list of licences against my description of the car. I was hacking out with a friend who was really shocked by the incident so she could back my story.

it's not marked as a bridlepath but it is marked on the most recent edition of the local OS map and details can be found here

http://countrywalks.defra.gov.uk/DisplayImage.aspx?Type=Mapboard&IFN=092720074.pdf
 
everything in the national forest is a permissive bridlepath because of the way the forest was created. landowners were given grants to create areas of forest on unwanted farmland and they get ongoing funding to maintain it. as far as I understand its permissive because the status of the land is reviewed on a regular basis, if they made it a full legal bridlepath they'd be stuck with it forever rather than being able to end the access if they cancel the project.

I know its an unusual situation but thats how it seems to work round here, I know lots of people on here live in the national forest, do you ask the owner of the permissive bridlepaths before you ride on them or is my understanding of the legal status of national forest land right?
 
These little DEFRA permissive tracks mean that the farmer who owns the land will be getting paid by DEFRA in order to open the land up for multi user use. Although you can't do anything legally if the farmer withdraws his permission, I'd be tempted to contact DEFRA and say that you were prevented from using the track. Was the farmer the landowner? If not, next time I'd take the DEFRA map with you so that you can wave it at him.

From the look of the map the permissive bridleway mostly follows the path of an existing footpath so should be fairly well signed? I've also found that these permissive DEFRA tracks tend to have maps stuck up at regular intervals so that you know where the permissive bit starts and ends.
 
unfortunately everywhere else near us is well signed but this has no markings on it at all though, you can get into it from a marked bridlepath through an easy to open hunting gate. Why put in a hunting gate if you don't want riders to go through? I have DEA Gold and have taught it to others so I'm very confident that I'm reading the map right and was in the right place

tbh I didn't ask the farmer whether he was the landowner or just being miserable, as Daisy tried to gallop off in horror at the sight of his decrepit tractor I didn't get a chance to ask.

if it wasn't so close to us and such a nice wood I'd say screw it, its not worth the hassle. there are much nicer woods for dog walkers with handy car parks and toilets etc so this one is completely deserted and has beautiful wide, open paths that you can ride along. It's only 15 mins hack from the yard and is ideal for Daisy's stamina.
 
Farmers are always stereotyped as miserable old gits by Joe Public aren't they?

I wonder if there's been some horse riders taking the piddle on his land. I've hacked across permissive tracks and have seen other riders taking it upon themselves to nip into open gateways and access areas they have no entitlement over. We get it here....leave a gateway open and you can guarantee some one on a horse will think it's their right to have a gallop around the field.

Not saying you did anything wrong, but the farmer could've had some issues recently with other riders to make him act the way he did. I got shouted at once and one afternoon I took a bottle of wine to the farmer with my friend (moral support) and he was perfectly fine with us. It turns out he'd had kids on scramblers going across his field the night before, so he was in a grump.
 
I've got nothing against farmers in general, Daisy lives on a working farm and OH's godfather is a retired farmer. my impression that this particular individual was a miserable git is not completely about being asked to leave his land, more that he chased Daisy on his tractor when she was quite clearly panicked by it. It was a complete rust bucket and was so old it didn't have a cab. It was clanking loudly and sounded like it was about to fall apart. Anyone who farms should be able to recognise a genuinely frightened horse and turn the engine off to have a conversation at a civil distance rather than trying to get close enough that we could hear what he was saying over the clanking.

I would never dream of going on land I wasn't legally entitled to but according to the maps its a bridleway.
 
[ QUOTE ]
Do you not have a right to roam or is that just a Scottish thing?

[/ QUOTE ]

Right to Roam in England covers common land, not private farmland. It's a problem we suffer as walkers seem to think they no longer have to stick to footpaths and can trample over our land wherever they please.

However, I'm sure in England the Right to Roam Act only covers walkers on foot and not on horseback.
 
When you asked for legal people to look...are you looking to sue then?
Where any of you injured by the taxi driver? The farmer would be too remote in my opinion.

I would simply put this down to experience. It is only your word against the driver and as no injuries or damage was caused, I doubt the CPS will be interested.

sorry to hear you had such a bad day. x
 
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