Inconsiderate drivers and the first fall off my horse.

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Waxwing

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I had my first ride today for a few weeks following some minor surgery; my instructor and one of my friends have been riding my horse as she is definitely one who needs to be kept in regular work. I hacked out with a friend and her bombproof horse; they are our regular escorts as mine is only five and definitely benefits from the company of an older friend. Mine was a little fresh to start with be we had had a lovely ride and and apart from a small buck going into the first canter she was pretty good; even the bird scarer we could hear in the distance hadn't caused any major issues. We had finished cantering and were walking on a grass track that runs alongside what is usually a very quiet road; until a white transit van decides to come hurtling along behind us; I sat the first spook but not the second and ended up on the track. Luckily my horse didn't go anywhere just stopped and ate grass, so I could grab her and with help from my friend remount. The van driver I presume saw me fall but didn't stop. Although young my horse is usually ok with traffic; we had been past a tractor earlier with no issues. I will have some interesting bruises in the morning but thankfully I am otherwise ok. I get that horses get scared but the incident today was totally preventable.
 
cremedemonthe

cremedemonthe

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Glad you are ok, on the pass, wide and slow facebook group, more and more reports are coming in every day of people having issues with other road users.
It's sad that as a society, it seems some people have become very impatient and entitled not to mention horse haters.
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Hanno Verian

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Sorry to hear you met such a **** I'm really lucky in that they are rare in my local area, although we have one hack where we have to ride 300m on a grass verge at the side of a very straight A road and get the odd idiot ignoring requests not to hoon past at 60.
I try to ride out with a helmet cam and would happily submit any footage to the local police via their web portal, its very effective because you get the sound and can see the effect on the horse with the cam. Touch wood I haven't needed it but I would rather have it and not need it. It might be worth thinking about, particularly in the case of commercial vehicles you can contact the MD/CEO via linked in make them aware of how their staff are behaving
 
Rowreach

Rowreach

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Hope you are not too bruised OP, and I'm glad your horse didn't leave you.

I have a hotline to the police at the moment, and they have been brilliant in following up my complaints (backed up by Techalogic videos). I reckon every ride I could report at least 6 drivers, but I generally stick to the worst couple, or repeat offenders.

I make a point of contacting any company whose drivers are good, because that never hurts and can also encourage companies to educate their other drivers.

I have a particularly horrible bit of road that I can't avoid - you'd think it was a nice quiet country road, but unfortunately it's a rat run between two villages. And has the local tip on it, so Saturdays are the worst with everyone loading up car trailers with their old rubbish and rattling along at 50mph.
 
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Hanno Verian

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Rowreach said:
Hope you are not too bruised OP, and I'm glad your horse didn't leave you.

I have a hotline to the police at the moment, and they have been brilliant in following up my complaints (backed up by Techalogic videos). I reckon every ride I could report at least 6 drivers, but I generally stick to the worst couple, or repeat offenders.

I make a point of contacting any company whose drivers are good, because that never hurts and can also encourage companies to educate their other drivers.

I have a particularly horrible bit of road that I can't avoid - you'd think it was a nice quiet country road, but unfortunately it's a rat run between two villages. And has the local tip on it, so Saturdays are the worst with everyone loading up car trailers with their old rubbish and rattling along at 50mph.
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Well done you!! I'm really glad that they are taking it seriously, I wish more forces here would
 
Berpisc

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I am not quite sure what to make of drivers at the moment, I was driving home from work yesterday in very gloomy/foggy conditions (through the bottom end of Rotherham then into the countryside); I saw too many drivers with no lights on so I started to do a rough count. At one point 1 out of five drivers had no lights on. I suspect the level of awareness extends to other road users such as horses all to often.
 
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Hanno Verian

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Berpisc said:
I am not quite sure what to make of drivers at the moment, I was driving home from work yesterday in very gloomy/foggy conditions (through the bottom end of Rotherham then into the countryside); I saw too many drivers with no lights on so I started to do a rough count. At one point 1 out of five drivers had no lights on. I suspect the level of awareness extends to other road users such as horses all to often.
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A lot of that is down to Auto headlights, people have them in the auto position and dont realise that in fog even though visibility is poor it is still too bright to trigger the auto headlights on older cars, we were paradoxically probably safer with the old On/Off switches, although the other contributing factor is stupidity.......
 
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