Please watch this video.

Thankyou for sharing this. What a brilliant video... for all the wrong reasons of course!! actually made me feel emotional as I think we've all sadly experienced inconsiderate, uneducated and dangerous drivers. It is so so scary nowadays riding on the roads, if only we didnt have to :(
 
The white lorry passing the pony on the country lane made me nauseous...pony worth its weight in gold. If that had been me and my mare I d have gone under the wheels of the lorry....frightening.
 
cauda equina said:
Has the video been taken down? I'm just getting a page of The Highway Code
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YOU have to click on it then the arrow to run the clip.
Has this been passed to the police I wonder, they could identify vehicle reg nos and pay the owners a visit. TBH preaching to the converted (on here) doesn't help much, we all have to report and report and report. Even if the law doesn't allow for minimum speeds and distances there are dangerous driving categories they could be prosecuted under.
 
I shared on Facebook and when I clicked on my 'share' it started with GOV.com or something like that, I actually thought YES finally, some Goverment body has compilated the video??
 
JillA said:
YOU have to click on it then the arrow to run the clip.
Has this been passed to the police I wonder, they could identify vehicle reg nos and pay the owners a visit. TBH preaching to the converted (on here) doesn't help much, we all have to report and report and report. Even if the law doesn't allow for minimum speeds and distances there are dangerous driving categories they could be prosecuted under.
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Thanks
 
This isn't going to stop, no matter how much we try and educate drivers. I hope the message people take from this video is RIDE WIDE. Block the road. Don't let the motorist even think that there is room to pass you if there isn't. And then at least if they still try, you have room to move over, which you don't have if you are already jammed against the left hand side. The cyclists among us know this as riding high. It's the safest way to go out on the roads.
 
ycbm said:
This isn't going to stop, no matter how much we try and educate drivers. I hope the message people take from this video is RIDE WIDE. Block the road. Don't let the motorist even think that there is room to pass you if there isn't. And then at least if they still try, you have room to move over, which you don't have if you are already jammed against the left hand side. The cyclists among us know this as riding high. It's the safest way to go out on the roads.
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I agree with this. You have to force people to slow down. It can be annoying to be stuck behind cyclists when driving but they are good at forcing drivers to slow down.
 
Sandstone1 said:
I agree with this. You have to force people to slow down. It can be annoying to be stuck behind cyclists when driving but they are good at forcing drivers to slow down.
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I also agree, most of the riders were already so close to the edge of the road there is nowhere to go, it encourages drivers to try and pass or keep going at the same speed, I ride towards the middle if alone and two abreast when in company only moving over when the driver has slowed or on the odd occasion when forced but generally being visible and an obvious hazard is enough to make drivers slow down.
 
Me too , don’t hug the verge in unsafe slow situations and some fast ones .
Some of those drivers where just terrible .
We do a lot of riding side by side it slows the traffic better and frankly watching that who cares if they don’t like it .
 
i generally do a fake spook then pretend to apologise when i hear a speedy one coming, and hope they poop themselves.

space is everything and next time it may make them think, although i make a big fuss of all the goodies who are kind enough to slow down, which is most people i find,
 
Not watched all the video so just from experience but some of the riders round my area really don't help the situation or image they will hack out without hi vis (one being a yard owner!) Some don't even say thank you when you slow down and I was stuck behind one in the middle of the road who was so busy texting she didn't notice me!

If a car is coming up behind I will always if safe trot on to a place that's safe for them to pass as I don't want them to be held up and always say thank you unless they didn't slow at all unfortunately courtesy works both ways.

Like I say just going on personal experience and sure people have lots of scary experiences so no way criticising the people in the video just the ones I've seen.
 
ycbm said:
This isn't going to stop, no matter how much we try and educate drivers. I hope the message people take from this video is RIDE WIDE. Block the road. Don't let the motorist even think that there is room to pass you if there isn't. And then at least if they still try, you have room to move over, which you don't have if you are already jammed against the left hand side. The cyclists among us know this as riding high. It's the safest way to go out on the roads.
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I agree this works, but you have to be quite ballsy sometimes. My old boss would get me to babysit her youngsters with me on a schoolmaster going down the middle of the road with my hand up yelling STOP and then waving and smiling like a loon when they actually did, it did work but I got a lot of abuse.
 
I watched this the other day with my hubby who also rides. It made our blood run cold! Any of those situations could have turned very bad very quickly. Very scary
 
I dont watch this stuff. Same as I stopped myself watching the falling off when jumping videos. It's not good for the confidence and isnt going to do any rider any good! I know its there, I know there are issues with reckless and careless drivers but watching these videos will chip away at your confidence and stop you from hacking!
 
There's some bad driving on that video, for sure, but there are also several cars passing at a fairly normal pace, whilst the riders flap about like loons for no good reason. Hardly surprising that a horse acts up in traffic when the rider gives them every reason to think the world is about to end!!
 
pennyturner said:
There's some bad driving on that video, for sure, but there are also several cars passing at a fairly normal pace, whilst the riders flap about like loons for no good reason. Hardly surprising that a horse acts up in traffic when the rider gives them every reason to think the world is about to end!!
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I must say, I did think some of those horse/rider combinations shouldn't be on those roads! Horses shouldn't be spooking at machinery left stationary in a field - and riders should be reacting much faster if they show any signs of doing so. There were a few instances in the video where I thought the rider could have thanked the drivers who were careful, rather more obviously, too.
 
Speaking as someone who wouldn't ride on the roads if you paid me, can anyone tell me what would happen if you were riding as advised out towards the middle of the road on a bend and a fast car came and didn't have time to stop? The outcome doesn't bear thinking about, but whose fault would that be?
 
Cortez said:
Speaking as someone who wouldn't ride on the roads if you paid me, can anyone tell me what would happen if you were riding as advised out towards the middle of the road on a bend and a fast car came and didn't have time to stop? The outcome doesn't bear thinking about, but whose fault would that be?
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Techinically the person driving too fast to respond to the road... it could be a tractor stationary across the road, or a young child riding their bike on the wrong side.

However for the safety of me and the horse I always keep in when riding around bends as I don’t trust other drivers to slow down for the turn (essentially I don’t even trust them to show self preservation).
 
Pearlsasinger said:
I must say, I did think some of those horse/rider combinations shouldn't be on those roads! Horses shouldn't be spooking at machinery left stationary in a field - and riders should be reacting much faster if they show any signs of doing so. There were a few instances in the video where I thought the rider could have thanked the drivers who were careful, rather more obviously, too.
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i agree, im a bit confused by the one where the two greys start cantering on the road after the car? I dont think you should take your horse on the road if its going to behave like that! Thank god the horse was well behaved when the massive lorry passed extremely close! made me feel sick!
 
OMG, what stupid drivers, the roads are so much more dangerous these days, and all the riders had hi-vis on so the motorist could see them, so good on all those riders for sharing this video, I have two horse I have to ride on the road every time I hack out, and we have been lucky to have so brilliant considerate drivers in our area, but the odd one or two just think they own the road and we shouldn't even be on them, most of our farm tracks have now been gated, and we don't have any safe bridleways to ride on in our area. I hope this video has been sent to the highways department, and possibly the police but I guess there isn't much that can be done, if there is any motorist that are really bad I take their registration numbers and call in to the local police unit on my way home.
 
Cortez said:
Speaking as someone who wouldn't ride on the roads if you paid me, can anyone tell me what would happen if you were riding as advised out towards the middle of the road on a bend and a fast car came and didn't have time to stop? The outcome doesn't bear thinking about, but whose fault would that be?
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I never thought anyone would need advice not to block the road on a blind bend, C !

Trot on round blind bends and get out of the way quickly. There is NO safe place to ride a blind bend.
 
Do you think that we, as riders, are heading into a time where it will be, or should be, compulsory to have 3rd party insurance and to have taken some form of recognised test to ride on the roads?
 
The comments on that video have made my blood boil. No wonder we face so many problems. This is why I can't ride out confidently.
 
moosea said:
Do you think that we, as riders, are heading into a time where it will be, or should be, compulsory to have 3rd party insurance and to have taken some form of recognised test to ride on the roads?
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I certainly think that everyone should have public liability insurance and that unaccompanied children (under 18) should not be allowed to ride on the roads. I would hope that anyone who has a driving licence would have enough road awareness to be able to ride sensibly on the roads but, the evidence (not necessarily this video) shows that this is not the case. I know riders who go around the countryside absolutely oblivious to other road users, fiddling with their phones, letting queues of vehicles build up behind them, as they meander along, not even thinking of trotting on to a passing place and not acknowledging those drivers who have accommodated them.
We don't have many incidents where drivers behave dangerously but we ride to the conditions of the road and thank drivers who take care around us.
 
This makes me cry, the ignorance of some of the driver, especially the driver who passed the black Fell type horse at terribly high speed, and so, so close. Shame on them all.
 
ycbm said:
I never thought anyone would need advice not to block the road on a blind bend, C !

Trot on round blind bends and get out of the way quickly. There is NO safe place to ride a blind bend.
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I had a near miss (in my car) of a head-on collision with another driver who overtook a cyclist on a blind bend on a narrow country road. If I'd been just 5 seconds earlier it would have been really nasty.
 
ycbm said:
This isn't going to stop, no matter how much we try and educate drivers. I hope the message people take from this video is RIDE WIDE. Block the road. Don't let the motorist even think that there is room to pass you if there isn't. And then at least if they still try, you have room to move over, which you don't have if you are already jammed against the left hand side. The cyclists among us know this as riding high. It's the safest way to go out on the roads.
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Exactly my thoughts. Especially when that lorry overtook that poor pony leaving it with no where to go! I would be riding in the middle of the road, like you say to not give the impression to drivers that there is room.

After speaking with people in my office who have no experience with horses, they may think that if you are tucked away in the hedge you are giving them the space to pass. They don't realise that the horse still may spook and you should give them the distance. Sadly a lot of it is lack of education and understanding. And I don't think it is about to change.

I also thought there were a number of clips there where the car wasn't going extremely fast, mainly when the car was coming towards the horses. There was enough space between car and horse. Not like it came from behind out of nowhere, at least the horse could see it. While I appreciate that some horses are better in traffic than others, and horses obviously need educating, I don't feel making a huge fuss out of EVERY driver is the way forward.
 
We have a duty of care to our horses - is it really in their best interest to expose them to such danger? We may want to enjoy our horses by hacking out, but we know that their number one priority is keeping themselves safe. Given the chance I think they would beg 'Please don't put me in that danger.' Some of those horses were petrified - is it worth it just to hack on a road - I don't think so.
 
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