Near miss on hack but police have taken us seriously

Birker2020

Birker2020

Well-Known Member
Joined
29 October 2008
Messages
23,596
Visit site
As title really. Went on hack with my friend yesterday, we were out about an hour and half. We both had flourescent tabards on, I also had flashing bands of lights on my leg and my horses leg, and flourescent on my reins, his noseband, and his tail.

We were coming up the lane (which is 1 1/2 cars width) towards our yard and on the left there are a load of little white rocks (to stop people parking on the verge) before the driveway to a house. The drive way to the house was only about 15 metres in front of my friend. I luckily was about 40 metres or so behind as my friends horse was jogging and faster than my horse and mine is coming back from a suspensory injury so I have to walk only for the time being.

A car came towards my friend approx 40mph. My friend gave the hand/arm signal to get the driver to slow down but the driver accelerated towards us. I put my horse onto the verge but my friend had no where to go although she was aiming to get onto the driveway out of the cars way but didn't have the time due to the cars excessive speed. At the very last minute the driver slammed on her brakes and the car skidded to a halt at an angle, the car skidded as the road was wet as it had been raining. My friend was able to leap out of her way and shouted at the driver. She just took no notice and then accelerated towards me! As I was on the verge well out of the way I knew I was going to be okay so I concentrated on taking down her registration number and put it into my phone. We rang the police as soon as we had put the horses away and they asked my friend and me to come down to the police station and make a statement so we are going tomorrow afternoon.

On talking to various people who hack out down that lane it appears that she speeds on a regular basis down that road and there have been a number of near misses with my friends too. We are hoping the police will go round to her house and give her a warning. I am going to try and film her this afternoon on my camera as she goes down the lane every day to collect her husband from the station and then drives back down the lane on the way back. She is a maniac and clearly very dangerous to horses and riders.
 
Glad the police took you seriously - hope they follow it up!

As if the roads aren't dangerous enough, without imbeciles like this running loose :mad:. Should have their licenses revoked.
 
What a bitch, hope the police throw the book at her. Get all your friends who have encountered her as well to complain and they will have to do something. I can see a time when all horse riders, dog walkers, cyclists, motorcyclists etc will have to wear head cams to prove they are being mowed down by idiots in vehicles.
 
Thats so wierd how i put a near miss thread up at the same time you did- albeit slightly different- sorry-!

Its so good that the police are taking notice in your case, hopefully a warning will be enough to make her rethink her actions. Fingers crossed, she finds another route to drive home!
 
cremedemonthe said:
What a bitch, hope the police throw the book at her. Get all your friends who have encountered her as well to complain and they will have to do something. I can see a time when all horse riders, dog walkers, cyclists, motorcyclists etc will have to wear head cams to prove they are being mowed down by idiots in vehicles.
Click to expand...

a lot of cyclists already are wearing hat cams for just that reason, you should see some of the footage on youtube, there are some really aggressive pig ignorant drivers out there!

OP I hope you and your friend are ok and the driver gets what she deserves and learns from it.
 
We've got one like that round our way - speeding, driving on the wrong side of the road especially on blind bends. He is a prat and an arrogant one at that, and an accident waiting to happen. We have contacted the police and they are taking it seriously but when they go to see him he denies that it is him! We KNOW it is him, I live in a small village where everyone knows everyone else, but its his word against ours so we are all going to try and get him on camera because if he doesn't stop his maniac driving someone/someone's horse is going to get killed.

Glad you and your friend are ok, and I hope you get a satisfactory outcome.
 
Good for you, a couple of years ago we had what could of been a very very serious accident involving a big articulated lorry...

Hacking down a country lane upon seeing us a big articulated lorry moved to the middle of the road and accelerated towards us.. I can still see his face now..

He left us no more than 3 ft space both horses reared and spun, my horse spun away and the other horse reared and spun into the side of it :-( the other horse went down with the rider luckily away from the wheels. I jumped off and grabbed both horses, other horse was now up holding up front leg but luckily managed to walk away with a split lip, brusing and cuts :-( I feared the worst tho..

What I was most angry about was that I never took the numberplate.. The horse and rider on the road were my only thought.. I did take it to the police but nothing ever came of it.... I moved yards a week later!

I have thought for years that they need to do a shock tactic advert, like they do for speeding and drink driving. People don't realise that horses are unpredictable...
 
robthecob said:
I have thought for years that they need to do a shock tactic advert, like they do for speeding and drink driving. People don't realise that horses are unpredictable...
Click to expand...

I've always said that too. But horse riders are in the minority as so they won't waste valuable resources on those in the minority. :( But I've never forgotten as a child the rhyme 'only a fool breaks the two second rule' about keeping your distances on motorways! Its always stuck in my head for some weird reason. :o

But God bless our police force for having the balls to back us up and believe what we have said. The police lady who took my friends call said that unfortunately prosecutions from witnesses of near misses are not always successful. We only wanted to report it so she could have the police at the door reading her the riot act, we don't want to prosecute her!!! :eek:

I think I am going to ask people at our yard who have also been affected by this maniac to write down a statement and sign it so we can take it to the police station with us.
 
I don't know why drivers think they own the road :mad:
1) Horses were there FIRST!!
2) They could KILL someone be it a horse, a cyclist, a rider, their car, themselves! (I believe a HHOer has had a pretty horrific incident involving a driver and her horse was PTS, if you read this sorry I can't remember your name!!! :o)
3) A horse can do alot of damage to a car so have a healthy respect!
4) USE YOUR COMMON SENSE!!!

I did used to have a friend who could make her horse rear on command when she thought a driver was coming too fast :D Obviously she would ensure they were at the side of the road, and the driver had ample time to break/go around/slow down, she wouldn't just make the horse rear on a main road :eek: I tell you what though it made some drivers have a bit more of a healthy respect!

Unfortunately though, some people give horseriders a bad name by hogging the road, not wearing Hi Viz, it is only a small amount of people as I am sure the majority of us take those precautions. However it is enought to anger drivers and tar all horseriders with the same brush :(

Glad you are being taken seriously OP, hope the woman gets a warning! Its just wreckless driving!
 
applecart14 said:
As title really. Went on hack with my friend yesterday, we were out about an hour and half. We both had flourescent tabards on, I also had flashing bands of lights on my leg and my horses leg, and flourescent on my reins, his noseband, and his tail.

We were coming up the lane (which is 1 1/2 cars width) towards our yard and on the left there are a load of little white rocks (to stop people parking on the verge) before the driveway to a house. The drive way to the house was only about 15 metres in front of my friend. I luckily was about 40 metres or so behind as my friends horse was jogging and faster than my horse and mine is coming back from a suspensory injury so I have to walk only for the time being.

A car came towards my friend approx 40mph. My friend gave the hand/arm signal to get the driver to slow down but the driver accelerated towards us. I put my horse onto the verge but my friend had no where to go although she was aiming to get onto the driveway out of the cars way but didn't have the time due to the cars excessive speed. At the very last minute the driver slammed on her brakes and the car skidded to a halt at an angle, the car skidded as the road was wet as it had been raining. My friend was able to leap out of her way and shouted at the driver. She just took no notice and then accelerated towards me! As I was on the verge well out of the way I knew I was going to be okay so I concentrated on taking down her registration number and put it into my phone. We rang the police as soon as we had put the horses away and they asked my friend and me to come down to the police station and make a statement so we are going tomorrow afternoon.

On talking to various people who hack out down that lane it appears that she speeds on a regular basis down that road and there have been a number of near misses with my friends too. We are hoping the police will go round to her house and give her a warning. I am going to try and film her this afternoon on my camera as she goes down the lane every day to collect her husband from the station and then drives back down the lane on the way back. She is a maniac and clearly very dangerous to horses and riders.
Click to expand...

Personaly I would accept nothing less than a driving ban for dangerous driving , a genuine mistake that leads to a near mis or even an aciddent well just not nice for all, but this sort of thing .. well I realy woudnt want to say what I would do but it would most likely involve paint stripper and or a sledge hammer!!!! she woudent be speeding in that car again ....
 
Please could I ask you to report these incidents on the www.horseaccidents.org.uk web site.
This web site will also record the precise location of the incident thus ensuring that if there is a pattern of incidents in an area this can be identified.
If you report incidents to the police always ask for an incident number so as to ensure that the incident is recorded and entered on the system.
If the registration number is obtained then the cars record on the data base can be flagged so that if it is involved in any more incidents the previous incident will be on record.
 
I am glad the POlice force are taking it seriously. Just a shame the judicial system doesnt, or didnt in my case.
 
Damnation - that would be Benson21 I still can't believe that the driver got a ***** sentence that he did :mad:

I think helmet cams are the way to go unfortunately :(
 
Hatcams!! Can you tell me where I can buy one, not just for my riding but also driving, as this afternoon I got threatened by a woman driver dropping her oh and friends at the pub, sat there for 3/4 mins while they got in or out of car, and she expected me to reverse to back towards a blind corner, I didn't so instead she reversed 10ft back had her right wheel sticking out into road, and as I tried to inch past with her OH guiding me. The bitch said hit my car and youll know about it, told her OH she'd threatened me and he saif you deserved it and went into pub, and it use to be such a nice pub at one time.:mad::mad::mad::mad:
 
perfect11s said:
Personaly I would accept nothing less than a driving ban for dangerous driving , a genuine mistake that leads to a near mis or even an aciddent well just not nice for all, but this sort of thing .. well I realy woudnt want to say what I would do but it would most likely involve paint stripper and or a sledge hammer!!!! she woudent be speeding in that car again ....
Click to expand...

The police are limited to what they can do. She was not actually breaking any law (unless there is a speed limit) but they can warn her for driving without due care and consideration for other road users.

I have for many years often been harassed by drivers speeding on narrow lanes and my favourite is a handful of gravel which I will throw at the car. Not my fault that they were speeding and my horse spooked and the contents of one of his feet went over the car.

If the road is straight then I will ride in the middle of it and force the driver to slow, thanking them profusely when they do so.

Paint stripper and a sledge hammer just gets you into trouble!
 
I love the idea of the hatcam tabard. You can get hatcams, they've video'd some endurance rides using them. It is wonderful to hear that a force are actually taking your report seriously. I reported a case of dangerous driving (not horse related), to be told that as I didn't have a witness nothing would be done other than keep him on record in case he was involved in another incident in which case he would then be investigated including the incident I reported. Intensely frustrating.

Someone pointed out to me so few people have close contact with horses these days that they actually don't realise that they will react & what they can potentially do. Also their only exposure is to police horses, not realising these have been extensively trained to cope with such situations & few privately owned horses behave like them.
 
Echo Bravo said:
Hatcams!! Can you tell me where I can buy one, not just for my riding but also driving, as this afternoon I got threatened by a woman driver dropping her oh and friends at the pub, sat there for 3/4 mins while they got in or out of car, and she expected me to reverse to back towards a blind corner, I didn't so instead she reversed 10ft back had her right wheel sticking out into road, and as I tried to inch past with her OH guiding me. The bitch said hit my car and youll know about it, told her OH she'd threatened me and he saif you deserved it and went into pub, and it use to be such a nice pub at one time.:mad::mad::mad::mad:
Click to expand...

I heard mention of something called hawkeye for use in cars, lots of lorry drivers in particular use it, think it was on the news as they had caught someone deliberately causing an accident so that they could claim the insurance!!!
You can get helmet cameras from Amazon.
 
Foxhunter49 said:
The police are limited to what they can do. She was not actually breaking any law (unless there is a speed limit) but they can warn her for driving without due care and consideration for other road users.
Click to expand...

When the policeman and policewoman interviewed me and my friend about the speeding driver they said they had spoken to their Sargeant five minutes before as they wanted to be clear on what could/couldn't be done and their Sargeant said that road users DID NOT HAVE TO BY LAW SLOW DOWN FOR HORSES. :eek:

I find that totally amazing. So as long as you are within the speed limit you can plough into a horse and if it went to court and the prosecution said to the driver "why didn't you slow down for the horse?" the driver could quite happily say "well I was only doing 60mph and it was a 60mph speed limit so I wasn't speeding" AND GET AWAY WITH IT!!!!!! Unbelievable :eek::eek::eek::eek:
 
applecart14 said:
their Sargeant said that road users DID NOT HAVE TO BY LAW SLOW DOWN FOR HORSES. :eek:

I find that totally amazing. So as long as you are within the speed limit you can plough into a horse and if it went to court and the prosecution said to the driver "why didn't you slow down for the horse?" the driver could quite happily say "well I was only doing 60mph and it was a 60mph speed limit so I wasn't speeding" AND GET AWAY WITH IT!!!!!! Unbelievable :eek::eek::eek::eek:
Click to expand...

Nail on the head. :mad: We are so so vulnerable it is just absolute madness. It has come to a point now where horses either should not be on the roads or the law should give us more protection.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top