Should we think of ditching cars in favour of horses?

Snow Falcon

Snow Falcon

Looking for the light
Joined
1 July 2008
Messages
15,121
Location
Wiltshire
Visit site
It struck me earlier today whilst at the fields that perhaps we should be going back in time to old ways of transporting oneselves about. Horse drawn carriages and riding to work would lessen the issues surrounding petrol & diesels cars. There would be no problems recharging equine powered vehicles then either.

I could ride the 2 miles to work. Pop the pony in a coral on the school field. Job done!
 
I used to pick my boys up from school, riding there on mine and leading one of their sturdier ponies that they doubled on bareback for the ride home. Only about a mile and a half and most of that across common land but even so, 'elf and safety and all that. I suspect social services would take them away from me these days....and ISPCA take the pony for being cruel to it expecting it to carry two small children at once. ☺️
 
I would ruddy love to drive my little horse to work. It would calm the soul much faster than the drive. Not sure I’d fancy it in bad weather though lol
 
There were a couple of old statutes at the UK university where I worked for many years.

One said that staff must live within ten miles of the university. (This is because in the days of horse travel, ten miles was considered the longest distance a man could be expected to either ride or drive a horse, and then complete a full day's work and then drive home again.

The other said if staff go to work on horseback, the University must provide stabling for the horse for the day. (I was sorely tempted to give this one a go one day but never did!)
 
Perhaps all vehicles should be speed-limited to mirror how much calmer life used to be when horses were the main mode of transport?

It wouldn't give the connection of being with a horse, but it could be a start to limiting accidents and calming the world down a little perhaps? And it should also dramatically reduce the use of fuel as people would be limited on how far they could travel, going longer distances only via bus, train, etc.

A bit radical, and I'm sure many would be horrified as it would mean them making major changes to their lives, but I think in many ways, the ways we used to live were actually more healthy for us. Yet we are drifting further and further away from those times in favour of technology and development - which satisfy some aspects of the human psyche, but are detrimental in other ways.

I fear I've diverged from the main train of thought of this thread though!!
 
Last edited:
PurpleSpots said:
Have there been any statistics on accidents and other aspects of that yet? I might have to do a bit of googling!

(It's still a bit quicker than your average walk/trot/canter ride/drive though!!)
Click to expand...

20 mph in Wales stats..

  • In the first three months of 2024, there was a 23% drop in serious casualties or fatalities on 20mph and 30mph roads.

  • The number of people killed on the affected roads is down 35% compared with the same period the year before
I have to say not everybody sticks to it but on the whole I think it's a good thing.

I've always longed for the day horses replace cars. I used to ride to and from school when I was a child, and I've ridden to the local shop and brought the shopping home in saddle bags as an adult.
 
Sugarplum Furry said:
20 mph in Wales stats..

  • In the first three months of 2024, there was a 23% drop in serious casualties or fatalities on 20mph and 30mph roads.

  • The number of people killed on the affected roads is down 35% compared with the same period the year before
I have to say not everybody sticks to it but on the whole I think it's a good thing.

I've always longed for the day horses replace cars. I used to ride to and from school when I was a child, and I've ridden to the local shop and brought the shopping home in saddle bags as an adult.
Click to expand...

Thanks so much for that - my brief googling earlier turned up not alot!

I think it would be great for us if we went back to the days of taking horses and carts/riding everywhere, but not so great for horses in general as we now know so many horses have issues, and I do think it would lead to them being used and abused more if they were relied on as a form of transport, rather than just for pleasure. (Although maybe less so than when they are used in competition.)
 
Cloball said:
I think @spookypony ride to work once?
Click to expand...
No, but I did take my pony to the university several times for a St Martin's Parade with the university nursery! A vet I know rode to work, however, when she was otherwise snowed in!

I couldn't ride to work, now: it would take most of the day, going at Endurance speeds, just to get there, and I'd have to go through large chunks of big city. Fortunately, there's a fast train! I do ride my e-bike to the yard most days, instead of driving, but that's only possible because the weather isn't as horrible here as it is in Scotland. I was full of good intentions re. biking, in Scotland, but short winter days, horizontal rain, and mud quickly sent me back into my car.

On a serious note, I've been thinking about it a lot since changing my habits after moving here. Seems to me that a lot of the initiatives around getting people out of cars involve some blue-eyed idealism that doesn't take into account the nature of people and the places they go sufficiently. E.g. while it's easy for me to hop on a bike when the weather is nice and the roads are flat and there are farm tracks connecting everything and I have the time to build the extra 20min into my ride and I have an e-bike to take care of the hills, I just wouldn't do so regularly, if the weather were ugly and I was more pressured for time by work/family and I couldn't avoid main roads and I weren't feeling physically up to it and I couldn't afford an e-bike.

Same for commuting to work: this country's investment in public transport infrastructure and in affordable transit passes means that it is both faster AND cheaper for me to take the train/subway to work, than to drive. After the floods in September, it took only a few days for the trains to run again at reduced capacity and somewhat slower. After 3 months, the multi-million damage was repaired, and the trains were back up to full capacity. Sure, there's constant complaining about the capacity of the park-and-ride in the nearest city, and about rural buses not being as good as they should be, but I COULD take a bus to the yard at a pinch, and it would be about the same speed as biking, albeit with less time flexibility.

I think to get more people to drive less, it's not sufficient to appeal to their better nature, or to make them feel guilty. It has to be more convenient and preferably also less expensive to use public transit or to walk/bike/ride. And the system has to take account of people who are physically unable to bike/walk, as well, and make sure that they have convenient public transit available: I saw how isolating it was for my mother in Canada to give up her car. The system also has to acknowledge that for certain types of trips, cars are going to be the most convenient solution, e.g. large shopping trips, towing things, certain types of group journeys. The sorts of car-share initiatives that one sees in certain cities have the potential to help there, but I think that to really get people willing to give up their cars, they'd need to be integrated into a reliable publicly-funded system. The second a public system stops being reliable, people head for their cars again, anyway!
 
This thread has reminded me of all the fuss about 15 minute cities, and how the conspiracy theories took off about how people were going to be kept in enclaves and not allowed out of their area
Of course the whole idea was that you should be able to reach everywhere you need to go on foot/bike/public transport, not that you weren't allowed to go anywhere else
 
spookypony said:
No, but I did take my pony to the university several times for a St Martin's Parade with the university nursery! A vet I know rode to work, however, when she was otherwise snowed in!

I couldn't ride to work, now: it would take most of the day, going at Endurance speeds, just to get there, and I'd have to go through large chunks of big city. Fortunately, there's a fast train! I do ride my e-bike to the yard most days, instead of driving, but that's only possible because the weather isn't as horrible here as it is in Scotland. I was full of good intentions re. biking, in Scotland, but short winter days, horizontal rain, and mud quickly sent me back into my car.

On a serious note, I've been thinking about it a lot since changing my habits after moving here. Seems to me that a lot of the initiatives around getting people out of cars involve some blue-eyed idealism that doesn't take into account the nature of people and the places they go sufficiently. E.g. while it's easy for me to hop on a bike when the weather is nice and the roads are flat and there are farm tracks connecting everything and I have the time to build the extra 20min into my ride and I have an e-bike to take care of the hills, I just wouldn't do so regularly, if the weather were ugly and I was more pressured for time by work/family and I couldn't avoid main roads and I weren't feeling physically up to it and I couldn't afford an e-bike.

Same for commuting to work: this country's investment in public transport infrastructure and in affordable transit passes means that it is both faster AND cheaper for me to take the train/subway to work, than to drive. After the floods in September, it took only a few days for the trains to run again at reduced capacity and somewhat slower. After 3 months, the multi-million damage was repaired, and the trains were back up to full capacity. Sure, there's constant complaining about the capacity of the park-and-ride in the nearest city, and about rural buses not being as good as they should be, but I COULD take a bus to the yard at a pinch, and it would be about the same speed as biking, albeit with less time flexibility.

I think to get more people to drive less, it's not sufficient to appeal to their better nature, or to make them feel guilty. It has to be more convenient and preferably also less expensive to use public transit or to walk/bike/ride. And the system has to take account of people who are physically unable to bike/walk, as well, and make sure that they have convenient public transit available: I saw how isolating it was for my mother in Canada to give up her car. The system also has to acknowledge that for certain types of trips, cars are going to be the most convenient solution, e.g. large shopping trips, towing things, certain types of group journeys. The sorts of car-share initiatives that one sees in certain cities have the potential to help there, but I think that to really get people willing to give up their cars, they'd need to be integrated into a reliable publicly-funded system. The second a public system stops being reliable, people head for their cars again, anyway!
Click to expand...
In many areas, winter storms and floods have entirely demolished networks of f.paths, cycle tracks, bridleways and some rural roads - no imminent likelihood of reinstatement, either.
Currently discussing permanent closure of trans Pennine A57, big landslips been worsened by recent moorland policy of blocking all dykes and land drains : ‘hold water back on the moors / re-create moorland bogs’ - great until capacity, and then it all REALLY goes south.... with all the crap straight into the waterways and reservoirs.
Another environmental own-goal, pure genius.
Perhaps read ‘Black Beauty’ / similar, before resurrecting draught horses - ‘transport’ is never about bonding with whatever engine is used, and too many equine welfare issues already.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top