Hyperthetic question, who do you think would be to blame?

benson21

benson21

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Picture this, if you would like;

Its an autumn day, so chilly, but not cold. Rider decides, around 1pm, nice day for a hack. The roads normally hacked on are fairly quiet, a bit of traffic around, including tractors preparing fields for the next years harvest. Trees and hedges line both sides of the road, for most of the hack. Rider riding a bay horse, who is bombproof on the road. Rider goes out for said hack, wearing hat, bp, cream jods, blue top, but no Hi Vis. A little way into the hack, a car, travelling around 50mph runs into the back of the horse, injuring horse and rider, on a road that was straight, with no other cars around. Who do you think is to blame? The driver, who may be going a tad too fast, or the rider, who is wearing no hi vis?

This by the way was not what happened to me, it is just a general hyperthetical question, which I thought might make an interesting debate on a grim friday morning!
 
What's the speed limit on the road?

This is a hard one. I'm inclined to say its an accident due to both people making errors from the information that is there.
 
The rider may have been unwise but as you put it the driver hit the horse it's the drivers .
If a driver drives into the back of a dark coloured slow moving car it's the drivers fault its no different.
 
I think it would fall to the driver, they always seem to get the blame (rightly or wrongly) for hitting anything slower than them

There are laws for driving without paying attention but none saying you have to wear high viz
 
I'd attribute that to 'somebody's' law, but in real life I believe the rider wouldn't be insured as they weren't wearing hi viz. Not saying that's necessarily fair but we all know what insurance companies are like. I could certainly see the car driver's insurance company using it as an excuse to say the rider didn't take reasonable care.
 
If I was riding along a road and heard a car approaching at 50 I would take some action, either get off the road if possible or ride into the middle of the road and ask the driver to slow down, I would not just continue and wait to be hit, it is very rare that you cannot do something to look after yourself, yes hi vis would help but the rider still has to take some responsibility to ride with care.

I have had, as many of us have, the experience of coming across a horse and rider on the roads that I saw at the last possible minute, the last time it happened to me they were both in hi vis but the quarter sheet on the horse only showed once I was almost level with it, they had pulled off the road, I had no idea I was approaching a pony being ridden in the dark It looked as if it was someone walking a dog.
 
Driver, without a doubt. I always drive along country roads EXPECTING to meet horse riders, cyclists, push chairs.. If the road was straight then the driver would see the horse in time if he was driving with due care and attention.
 
Wagtail said:
Driver, without a doubt. I always drive along country roads EXPECTING to meet horse riders, cyclists, push chairs.. If the road was straight then the driver would see the horse in time if he was driving with due care and attention.
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Ah but I think your sense of expectation is heightened because you are a rider. I have nearly been caught out by cyclists - dressed in dark clothes and I was upon them before I had seen them.
I always wear high viz on a hack whatever time of day at the very least a tailguard and a hi viz jacket.
 
Driver

Would we have the same discussion if it was a lady wheeling a buggy dressed in jeans and a dark coloured jumper... High vis isn't a legal requirement for horses or walkers.

We should all wear high viz but as far as I'm aware the law favours the less dangerous vehicle - so in this case the horse.

If a rider road over a darkly dressed walker then the rider would be to blame.
 
Driver. As others said, hi viz is not a legal requirement. Speed limit might be 60 but the law clearly states "if safe to do so" and high speed on a country road would not be deemed to be safe.

Interesting fact, from someone who has had to do the speed awareness course (!). 4% road fatalities are on the motorway, around 68% on country roads due to the length of time taken to report and find the driver. Even here in leafy surrey, there have been 2 deaths on the A3 in the past 10 years... specifically due to where the driver has come off the road and not been found. In one case for several days and in the other, several months.
 
bikerchickone said:
I'd attribute that to 'somebody's' law, but in real life I believe the rider wouldn't be insured as they weren't wearing hi viz. Not saying that's necessarily fair but we all know what insurance companies are like. I could certainly see the car driver's insurance company using it as an excuse to say the rider didn't take reasonable care.
Click to expand...

I think that's a myth I checked at our insurance review this year .
As a driver you can't hit slower moving things on a staight road in day light and expect not to be blamed.
 
The driver was obviously driving without due care and attention, at best. If the car had hit anything else, vehicle, pedestrain, cyclist, tree, it would also have been his/her fault. That is the law.

Of course the accident may have been avoided if the rider and horse had been wearing hi-viz but there is no legal requirement for them to do so.
 
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