Rant - bad drivers

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Polos Mum

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Sorry nobody else to rant to !

out of my drive is a short (300m) stretch of 50 mph road before the bridleways - I'd love to avoid it but can't.

Today (on the narrow bit where the stone walls come right to the road side so no verge along comes a bin lorry - pretty fast, my friend (correctly) asks them to slow with and signals which they do a touch - my OTTB is getting better every time with traffic but this was too much for him so he span - at which point they stopped.

As we walked past (good boy that he was) I sad "you might need to slow down past horses" the response ............


"I was only doing 30 ! "

Yep right mate - totally sensible speed to drive a huge bin lorry past 2 horses who are asking you to slow down on a narrow piece of road !!


Ahhh

No point to this post other than to rant - thanks for listening if you've got this far
 
We have a single track lane behind our house, I have lost track of the number of head on collisions we've had over the years. There is no speed limit on it and when a young lady who had hurtled round a corner, had to slam on her brakes to avoid my stationery horse I got a similar response. I did point out that if I had been in a car driving at the same speed as she was, she'd be sitting in a total wreck with significant injuries and she actually apologised. Unfortunately, shes just one of many idiots who use the lane...bloody satnavs are partly to blame!
 
They don't seem to know any better. I've taken to drawing a copy of a 5 mph road sign on front of my hi-viz (red circle outline with large number 5 in centre) - thought a familiar sign might point out what we see as the obvious to drivers.
 
hi i have the same problem-our quiet road is used as a cut thru for white van men and 'city' types' racing to get the early train to london, i have a 4 yr old and just started taking out onto the road-the bridleway is 10 mins up the road-no other way of getting there-so fed up of being shouted at and being called' horse snob' that I will just stay in the paddock from now on....anybody else got any advice please?
 
No offence, but i can see it from the truck driver's side too. If he was doing 30 in a 50 zone then he did slow down a lot, and it is only if you have ridden horses that you realise that some horses react extremely fast regardless. Many truck drivers have extremely tight work schedules and any slight hold-up can be frustrating.

I know my views won't be popular with everyone, but I think it is just as much our responsibility to bomb-proof our horses to traffic than to expect all traffic to slow right down on the road. otherwise we are only going to piss off more people. Unfortunately there are a lot more unhorsey people who would prefer horses (and bikes and people) to be not on the roads, than horsey people that want them there, so I can see horses being banned from roads altogether in the future.

I have ridden on the roads a lot in New Zealand, and I can guarantee that the drivers over here are like guardian angels compared to over there, where (in general) they will only slow down for a horse if they think their car might be in mortal danger. I.e. if you are on the road it is assumed that your horse will not react to traffic. Mind you, they don't give way to other traffic or people or bikes either, so it is not a bias against horses as such! I got quite a shock when i started driving over here where they actually LET you join a line of traffic when you have been waiting on a side road.
 
My wife and I hacked out a few weeks ago for a couple of hours and on the way home we have to venture down a very busy country road (approximately 15 minutes hacking)............we actually had a women stop her car on a blind bend in traffic waiting for our horses to pass her so that her children could look at the horses go past!!! The horses were obviously getting a little bit nervous having this clown randomly stop 20 yards in front of them whilst traffic built up. A few choice words when we got nearer made her shoot off but it could have ended so badly. Some people are just muppets!!!!
 
Wkiwi - I absolutely agree with you - but I can only bomb proof my horse by practicing with the traffic, or how is he expected to learn? I'm sure he was pissed off - but he's in the wrong

How do you get the horses in NZ used to traffic without taking them out in it?

Actually it took him longer because he was rushing - I had a flappy curtain sider go past last week at maybe 10 mph no fuss, this guy had to fully stop while I was spinning around in the road - the whole thing would have been far quicker for him if he'd slowed to an appropriate speed to pass a horse (which in a big truck 30 isn't appropriate)

I can't recall the highway code guidance on speed to pass a horse -but it's a lot less than 30
 
Polos Mum said:
Wkiwi - I absolutely agree with you - but I can only bomb proof my horse by practicing with the traffic, or how is he expected to learn? I'm sure he was pissed off - but he's in the wrong

How do you get the horses in NZ used to traffic without taking them out in it?

Actually it took him longer because he was rushing - I had a flappy curtain sider go past last week at maybe 10 mph no fuss, this guy had to fully stop while I was spinning around in the road - the whole thing would have been far quicker for him if he'd slowed to an appropriate speed to pass a horse (which in a big truck 30 isn't appropriate)

I can't recall the highway code guidance on speed to pass a horse -but it's a lot less than 30
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I take a multi-step approach.
Find a field next to a busy road and turn mine out with a bomb-proof horse (learnt that from Black Beauty and the 'train'!!!!)
Find a spot where i have a very large grassy verge near a not very busy road and hand graze the horse multiple times (even if i have to take the horse their by trailer)
Even standing with a haynet at the end of your driveway can help.
Find a quite lane next to a busy road where i can 'park' the horse for at least a half hour at a time (either me sitting on top or hand grazing horse) - must be a large grass verge and room so i can retreat back up the road a bit and work nearer the traffic gradually.
Alongside all this, I will be taking every opportunity to lead and ride the horse near parked or slow moving trucks/trailers/diggers/ etc. etc. (helps if you have farmy type friends, but i have done most of mine without). Ditto getting horse to flapping tarps etc. when there is no traffic around.
Main aim is not to give the horse a fright, and to stay long enough so they start eating. Need to never be in a hurry (take a good book), do it as often as possible (preferably daily) and keep going until the horse is thoroughly habituated to everything (can be surprisingly quick if they have not had a bad experience).

It can take a lot of time initially, but I have ridden most of my horses along main highways in NZ (equivalent of some A roads here) and crossed major bridges near a city without problems. The only ones I wouldn't ride on those types of roads were the major spookers - I could get them bombproof in traffic, but sometimes they ended up in the middle of traffic from spooking at something behind a hedge or similar (fortunately only owned a couple this bad). One of my best horses was riding along a verge once and a kid on a motorbike swung off to play 'chicken' with us; I can only say it wasn't my horse that turned white as a sheet and pulled away - bless him, i think he would have carried straight on and jumped it!

note that sometimes a short exposure, such as a quick trip to the nearest bridlepath, can be one of the worst ways of getting the horse used to traffic, as the horse doesn't get over its tenseness and may end up being 'sensitised' to traffic instead (am i guessing that you might tense up too? My friend used to do this and only realised when she started riding one of my horses who was more sensitive).
pm me if you want more tips, as this is just a brief overview and i do adjust my method a bit depending on the horse.
 
Milngavie1 said:
My wife and I hacked out a few weeks ago for a couple of hours and on the way home we have to venture down a very busy country road (approximately 15 minutes hacking)............we actually had a women stop her car on a blind bend in traffic waiting for our horses to pass her so that her children could look at the horses go past!!! The horses were obviously getting a little bit nervous having this clown randomly stop 20 yards in front of them whilst traffic built up. A few choice words when we got nearer made her shoot off but it could have ended so badly. Some people are just muppets!!!!
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People do make you wonder don't they - I had one pull in front of me, snatch baby/toddler out of car seat (she did it so fast i thought it was an emergency) then shove it at my horse's face and say "could her sproglet pat the horsey" (or words to that affect). This particular horse had been sold cheap more than once because he bit horsey adults, but fortunately for her the horse went absolutely gooey over babies and little children (who would have thought!). I bet she would have happily sued if he'd taken her babies face off though!!
 
My understanding of the highway code that although there is a max speed, the speed of any driver should relate directly to the conditions he meets on the road eg it is correct to slow down if you see a group of children ahead playing on the pavement, I would slow down on a very narrow lane if I saw a dog walker ahead, I would slow down to pass a horse rider giving the rider as much distance as i would a car, I wouldn't try to pass a horse if a car was coming in the opposite direction. There's no mystery about any of this, it's just common sense. All my horses have been excellent in traffic but I can't guarantee they would not spook at something completely unexpected eg on the main road recently which I am on for about 200 metres, they had replaced the footing at the bus stop with a new surface which was a different colour. The horse is fine with buses, ladies with shopping trolleys, umbrellas etc but he spooked at the new surface!Fortunately the car behind had slowed down as there was something coming the other way, if he'd decided to squeeze past, I would have had a problem. It's good that wiki has so may ideas for making his horses traffic proof but you cannot take away a horse's quick reaction completely.
 
oldie48 said:
It's good that wiki has so may ideas for making his horses traffic proof but you cannot take away a horse's quick reaction completely.
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Yes; unfortunately, this is exactly the argument non-horsey people use when they propose horses don't use roads at all. There will never be enough bridle paths, so there is no simple answer for the future of horses. My prediction is that there will only need to be a few serious deaths 'caused' by horses being on the road (regardless of whether the driver was at fault or not) before people start campaigning. There seems to be a trend in this country to think that all horse owners are rich anyway, but even where this is not true it is hard to get councils (in just about any country) to go to the expense of providing off-road riding.
 
wkiwi said:
No offence, but i can see it from the truck driver's side too. If he was doing 30 in a 50 zone then he did slow down a lot, and it is only if you have ridden horses that you realise that some horses react extremely fast regardless. Many truck drivers have extremely tight work schedules and any slight hold-up can be frustrating.

I know my views won't be popular with everyone, but I think it is just as much our responsibility to bomb-proof our horses to traffic than to expect all traffic to slow right down on the road. otherwise we are only going to piss off more people. Unfortunately there are a lot more unhorsey people who would prefer horses (and bikes and people) to be not on the roads, than horsey people that want them there, so I can see horses being banned from roads altogether in the future.

I have ridden on the roads a lot in New Zealand, and I can guarantee that the drivers over here are like guardian angels compared to over there, where (in general) they will only slow down for a horse if they think their car might be in mortal danger. I.e. if you are on the road it is assumed that your horse will not react to traffic. Mind you, they don't give way to other traffic or people or bikes either, so it is not a bias against horses as such! I got quite a shock when i started driving over here where they actually LET you join a line of traffic when you have been waiting on a side road.
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the highway code in uk says slows down and give the horses plenty of room.pass wide and slow.
 
Mmmm, you can't stop children running into roads, people having heart attacks when they are driving or any of the the things that happen to cause accidents but you can drive with awareness of what is around you and that is all I am suggesting and the highway code says drivers should do. Nothing new here.
wkiwi said:
Yes; unfortunately, this is exactly the argument non-horsey people use when they propose horses don't use roads at all. There will never be enough bridle paths, so there is no simple answer for the future of horses. My prediction is that there will only need to be a few serious deaths 'caused' by horses being on the road (regardless of whether the driver was at fault or not) before people start campaigning. There seems to be a trend in this country to think that all horse owners are rich anyway, but even where this is not true it is hard to get councils (in just about any country) to go to the expense of providing off-road riding.
Click to expand...
 
Ring the council and report him, they all know what the highway code says what an idiot. I had the same the other caught up with a lad who went past us too fast. Very country area when I told him off he said I was only doing 20mph!! told him to go home and read his highway code. I slow down for everyone even those packs off cyclists so everyone else can. Sorry had a very stressful week!!!!
 
Jeez - where I live 20mph IS slow!! If a driver passed any of our lot at 20 I'd be thanking him not berating him!! To be fair to drivers 'pass wide and slow' as stated in the Highway Code is very subjective - there is no actual guidance on speed as far as I am aware.

I also have to say that in our area at least I am seeing a lot more nervous and incompetent riders on the roads who have no idea how to cope with a slightly nervous horse and tend to grab onto its mouth rather than riding forward, thereby exacerbating the issue. I also see a lot more ignorant behaviour from those on horses, for example pulling out to pass a row of parked cars when they already have half a dozen cars stuck behind them.
If I'm riding somewhere and it is difficult for drivers to pass me I will always pull in somewhere if possible to let traffic past or if it's not possible I will trot in an attempt to cause minimum disruption. Courtesy has to work both ways.
 
I can see both sides. Yes, 30mph is definitely too fast to pass an inexperienced/young horse. Having said that, how would the driver know it was inexperienced? As far as they were concerned, they did their part by slowing from 50-30mph, which to a non-horsey person would seem reasonable.

Think of the times you've been driving on the motorway and come across 50mph signs in the roadworks. That seems mighty slow. I'm not necessarily defending the lorry driver, but that's probably how he perceived it - 30mph seemed like he was crawling.

Unfortunately us riders get a bad rap for assuming every other road user is in the wrong - and it's getting worse, because "we're" becoming ruder and more arrogant, expecting everyone else to behave as we think they should. Maybe we should look at our faults too.

Ok, so some of us have no choice but to use busy roads, and horses have to learn somewhere, but rather than assume everyone other road user is in the wrong, think of it as valuable experience, and either thank drivers profusely for making the effort (lots of riders don't), or stop riding on busy roads altogether until the horse is "bombproof" (never).
 
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I have ridden on the roads for a good 50 years now and over that period of time the number of motorised vehicles on the roads has dramatically increased. Cars are also far more powerful, go at a greater speed and also quieter. Drivers have far less common sense and are not used to seeing horses on the roads. Far fewer riders hack out on the roads so drivers see far less horses on the roads. Horse riders are the worst people for trying to get more off road riding routes and that is why in some areas there are hardly any or none at all. If you compare the amount of money that has been put in to cycling routes by the government funded Sustrans compared to off road riding routes then the amount spent on off road riding routes is negligible. Yet the equestrian industry is the second largest land based industry to farming. Horse riders need to get their act together and support the creation of off road riding routes by joining the organisations that campaign for this such as the BHS. Unless riders do something for themselves then the situation will become even worse.
 
I think Peter's response sums it up perfectly - times have changed drastically on our roads in a very short space of time, increased suburban and rural development and roads and as horse riders we need to play a part to make sure that voice is heard. In 11 years of horse owning on the rural fringes of a big city which is ever expanding outwards I've seen the traffic on even tiny country lanes just get worse and worse.
 
Polos Mum said:
Crazy that a professional driver, employed by the council thought 30 past a horse was a sensible speed
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I find the police are the worst culprits in the pro driver camp. You'd think they would know!

I live on a very narrow road which laughably has been derestricted to a "40mph walking and cycling friendly road". This road you would be lucky to do 25 on most of it due to the bends, visibility and narrowness. Very little of it would be safe to do 40 on it, particularly if dodging walkers and cyclists.
 
Tell me about it! Glad your horses were OK though. We had a very inconsiderate driver yesterday. We came out of a little, normally very quite lane, onto 'main' (lane, but where we live it's as close to a main road as you get), just as we were turning onto the road, a very fast car rushes down the lane, and then starts revving up hugely as we were in the way. We could tell the sort of person she was, so decided it was safer that we blocked her from over taking, as the road was far too narrow, and round a blind bend. Car coming up in front, so we then do single file. The inconsiderate car driver then tried to knock us off the road and squeeze past the on coming car, so I pushed Sunny's hindquarters out a little, as we would of been squashed, as there was absolutely no room. She then realised that she had to pull in behind us, and went so close up my little sister's gelding at the back, often touching his back legs, and still revving! The on coming car had kindly pulled in, so she had to wait. She then decided to slow down, wait for there to be a little gap between her car and Jaffa (the gelding), before rushing into him again, and revving. We passed the on coming car, and she then decided to over take, despite very clear hand signals from all of us, that there wasn't enough room, and that it was a blind bend, with an on coming car. She completely ignored us, pushed my Father & I into the hedge (on our horses), and almost touched the on coming car, before speeding off. We were shouting at her to stop & slow down when she over took us (at high speed), however she didn't even look at us. I actually had my helmet cam with me, but the battery had died by then. We were all hi vized up (horses too), and she could clearly see how young my little sister was.

I think it's scary how drivers are towards horses now. And there was a horse killed in a car accident out hacking recently, very close to us indeed.
 
FfionWinnie said:
I find the police are the worst culprits in the pro driver camp. You'd think they would know!

I live on a very narrow road which laughably has been derestricted to a "40mph walking and cycling friendly road". This road you would be lucky to do 25 on most of it due to the bends, visibility and narrowness. Very little of it would be safe to do 40 on it, particularly if dodging walkers and cyclists.
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I always find it somewhat amusing when the 30mph limit ends at the edge of a village and then a few meters down the road there's a sharp turn or blind corner or even a series which generally keeps you at 30 or under (or at least should do).

Sometimes I do wish more country lanes were speed limited, least it would remove some of the desire to hit 50-60 on roads where you really can't do that speed for more than 5 seconds before slamming on the brakes hard.
 
There's a 2 mile long country lane round here which is very narrow in places, with some treacherous bends. But, being national speed limit obviously makes it just fine for hi-viz clad idiots to speed in convoy up and down the lane, moving rental cars about for the local airport.

Now they are dangerous drivers - it's only a matter of time until something bad happens. It's like a sport to them, and our only saving grace is that we can hear them coming and take evasive action.
 
Problem is a lot of delivery and rental companies now plan routes with google and sat-navs and track their drivers as well. As a result drivers are under way more pressure to get everywhere as fast as possible; and of course google and satnavs are all very fine on their own, but they are only estimations and don't take into account road conditions or anything else; plus what looks fine on a map can be very different in reality.
 
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