Nasty scary incident tonight

T

Thistle

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I was driving about 60mph on duel carriageway just ouside Hatfield tonight. The car in front put hazzards on and I slowed. There were 2 ponies (possibly youngsters) cantering up the verge, one wearing a headcollar and one with a broken headcollar hanging round it's neck. I slowed right down with hazzards on and tried to straddle both lanes to stop the traffic (a large 4x4 has it's uses sometimes). As I pulled across the ponies dived in front of me and an idiot sped past me half on central reservation. The ponies dodged him and were then gallopping down the middle of the road between 2 lanes of oncoming traffic at 60mph. There was no way I could get back to them at this point as I was totally boxed in by speeding traffic that was swerving round the ponies and carrying on. My OH was in the car and he phoned the police immediately who sent high speed response.

I feel so bad, I was totally helpless and could do nothing to get to them, they were moving so fast away from me, and I was aware that if I got out of the car I would seriously endanger my life.. I wasn't really too sure if I wanted to see anyway as I guess it would be messy.

I may phone the police tomorrow and ask the worst as I need to find out.

I just can't believe the attitude of the drivers.
 
You tried to do what you could. A nasty incident though. Some people have no thoughts but for themselves. Hope the ponies turn out to be OK
frown.gif
 
This happened to me once on a main A road. Just leaving a sponsored ride and horse came out of no where gallpoing down the middle of the road. I lept out of car as had trailer on and could not believe the idiocy (sp?) of most of the drivers. They were all swerving and could see me running down the middle of the road (as if I was going to catch up with, what turned out to be, an ex racer!!) and only 1 person eventually stopped and gave me a lift. Everyone else just carried on. Trouble is the horse kept swerving and the cars kept swerving normally the same way. Luckily I managed to catch this horse a couple of miles down the road.
I do hope these ones are ok. Hopefully another horsey person was further down the road!! I'm sure the police wouldn't have been long getting there either.
 
Good lord, how awful.
You did what you could, hopefully it slowed the traffic behind you a little for them to notice the ponies.
Please let us know if you find out if they made it safely back to their field.

Seems a night for accidents.

Coming home from work, we have a very long 2 miles drive, notice helicopter in the field, was air ambulance, someone was laying in the road on the A34!
Been trying to find out al evening, havent heard anything tho.

Horrid.

(((Hugs)))) and stiff drink
 
At least you had an Air Ambulance where you are. If that was in Herts the poor person would have to wait for a land one and miss the vital 'golden hour' chance to save their life (gets off soapbox now)
 
Did the best that you could - seriously think that drivers need to be educated more on the subject of horses
 
i went for a hack out today, and i totally agree that some drivers are totally ignorant and need educating about the dangers of horses on the roads. hope those ponies were ok xx
 
What a frightning experience, one i hope i never come across!

The same kind of thing happened to some people we know back in the winter. 3 horses ran down the slip road into on coming traffic on the dual carriageway. Sadly the outcome was the worst, all 3 were hit, and had to be shot. One of the horses was hit by our friend who incidently was on the way back from a show with her horse in the trailer behind her car. The police told them it was a good job they had hit one of the horses as it wrote off their 4x4 travelling at 45mph ish, had the horse hit a small car travelling at 70mph..... well you can imagine.

The horrible part of this story was that they were out on a slightly less major road and the horses owner and lots of people had stopped to help and were herding them back down a country lane when a lorry driver ignored the peoples signal to slow down, the horses took fright and they turned back and took off down the dual carriageway. Very sad.
 
You poor thing, I bet your heart was pounding! You could not have done anymore and unfortunately human life has to come first. You were very sensible but not getting out of your car and stopping as you could have caused a pile up or been killed.

I hope the ponies have got away with it and nobody was hurt, I expect you still feel very shaken. Dont feel bad, you did your best, nothing more could be done under those circumstances.
 
Horrible experiene, hope they're alrigh.
Had a similar experience with my boy, the yard rents some fields across the road from the yard as we have limited winter turnout (this road is the fosse way!) my boy was out there and was keen to come in as he always is, one of the grooms was getting some of the others in and only left the rope looped over the gate post. Beastie is a master at getting out of places, so lifted the rope of and opened the gate and instead of going right and home to his breakfast he goes left into oncoming traffic! Luckily instructer was just turning into the yard so saw him do it and there was also a lady in a lorry that stopped and had a spare headcollar. So lucky that he was alright and someone did stop to catch him!
 
God hope they (and people around) were all ok......

I must say that when Ty got loose and galloped down through Banstead, the drivers were very considerate and kept very slow - can you imagine having 15.3 of physco gingerness galloping at you though on a main road - how bloody scary!
 
Thats on my way home from work if it was on the A414, the ponies were prolly from the local travellers camp, these days they usually seem well looked after and are properly secured. One of them was hit by a car and died several years ago and there were also some welfare issues but it all seems to have been resolved.
I hope the ponies were ok and no one was hurt.
I can't believe people would just swerve round them and carry on what utter *******!
 
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