man & 3 horses killed in crash

I had been following this story and praying for the young man to recover....sadly that has not been the case.
My thoughts are with his family and those of his passenger...at this dreadfully sad time.
Bryndu
 
Just heard this on the radio in west london so sad.

I really wish people would check and double check their fencing regularly then might not happen.:(:(:(:(
 
Leviathan said:
i like the deer fending here nice and tall should keep horse in if the fields run along the motorway .http://www.dft.gov.uk/ha/standards/mchw/vol3/section1/h_series.pdf
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Nice idea Leviathan; I should point out tho in both this accident and the one on the A414 which is the subject of the other post, the horses involved are traveller horses (i) being illegally grazed on others land and (ii) having regularly escaped from the fields in the past onto the road and narrowly avoided serious accidents in the past.

These people arent fencing anything, let alone the fencing standards suggested (though it might be useful for responsible horse owners alongside roads so worth posting).

The issue isnt one solved by fencing horse fields, since horse owners generally do, its about what should be criminal behaviour of fly grazing in fields that arent and shouldnt need to be fenced for horses, and what should now be a charge not just of endangering road users but frankly manslaughter.
 
I agree about the fly grazing but am not so sure about the criminal offence or manslaughter.

Trouble is that if you write a law to deal with a specific problem, such as traveller horses fly grazing and escaping onto road, you end up turning innocent people into criminals.

I always remember talking to a girl who kept horses near a motorway. Someone cut the chains and padlocks on TWO gates to use her fields as access for a burglary of a third parties premises. Her horses strayed onto the road and caused an accident. She was being sued for the injuries. Now you can see why, the people actually responsible were not caught. But if it was a criminal offence she would have been charged. Because the bottom line is that her horses did stray onto the road.
 
rockysmum said:
I agree about the fly grazing but am not so sure about the criminal offence or manslaughter.

Trouble is that if you write a law to deal with a specific problem, such as traveller horses fly grazing and escaping onto road, you end up turning innocent people into criminals.

I always remember talking to a girl who kept horses near a motorway. Someone cut the chains and padlocks on TWO gates to use her fields as access for a burglary of a third parties premises. Her horses strayed onto the road and caused an accident. She was being sued for the injuries. Now you can see why, the people actually responsible were not caught. But if it was a criminal offence she would have been charged. Because the bottom line is that her horses did stray onto the road.
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It would not require a new offence - it would be manslaughter through gross negligence which is already an offence - and which the case you cite would not be in any risk of being caught under since the owner in that case would not have been negligent in any way (tho under the current strict liability she could already be liable for civil damages, which is why huge 3rd party insurance cover is something no horse owner should be without).

It would be something that would come into play IMO where all of the following apply (I) horses were on land without permission (ii) fencing was unsuitable AND horses had already escaped from the land and onto public roads causing incidents before AND (iii) owner had failed to take the recommended action to ensure the fencing was made secure.

It wouldnt need to be any wider than that. But there does need to be much more serious consequences for this type of behaviour specifically, as there are more and more people and horses being seriously injured and killed and it has to stop, and to stop there must be a much more serious deterrent than at present.
 
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