Why do they hate us?

Floofball

Floofball

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Just a musing after yet another incident with a motorist.

Having watched 2 cars pass us on a long straight single track road at unacceptable speed (30-40mph with about 1ft clearance past us and mahoosive drainage ditches to my left) another car was flying down even faster. I leg yeilded a couple of steps into the middle of the road but the car showed no signs of slowing so moved swiftly back to the left. As the car got to the front of me I shrugged and looked down at my (very well behaved, thankfully!!) horse, trying to communicate "can't you see my horse" (both hi-viz'd up to the 9's btw). The driver took exception to this and slammed on his/her brakes whilst pressing on the horn at the same time. I stopped and looked around fearing an accident behind us to find the car stopped in the road.
I watched to see what was about to occur - were they going to reverse and give me abuse?? I was ready for them, putting me and my horse in such danger!! They drove off at speed and I have spent the rest of the day wishing I'd got their reg so I could report them to the police. It was intimidation at the least.

I don't know them, they don't know me - why endanger somebody? I can only relate it to terrorism and extremism i.e.we shouldn't be on the road.

Have emailed BHS to report an incident and am now shopping for a helmet cam to get evidence for the next bl00dy kn08h3ad that trys to get me and my horse in a ditch!!

Rant over........
 
I ride on roads that narrow all the time. I ride in the centre of the road and I don't move over until after they have slowed down. They won't risk the damage to their precious car by running into a horse. And the risk that they will is far smaller, imo, than the risk of an accident of they squeeze past me at the speed they otherwise would. Most motorists are great on my roads, but you get some richardheads, that's for sure.
 
If people get that uptight and angry about the prospect of them waiting a few minutes, you will normally find it isn't about you being on the road at all, they have other things going on in there tunnel vision life and have no idea of the bigger picture. They will treat waiting at the petrol station or a slightly late train with the same attitude. Also people feel like no one can touch them in their little car bubble!
 
yvcbm said:
I ride on roads that narrow all the time. I ride in the centre of the road and I don't move over until after they have slowed down. They won't risk the damage to their precious car by running into a horse. And the risk that they will is far smaller, imo, than the risk of an accident of they squeeze past me at the speed they otherwise would. Most motorists are great on my roads, but you get some richardheads, that's for sure.
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Me too. I learnt to do this when I rode a motorbike, you have to own the road to be safe. Glad your safe OP and well done your pony.
 
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There are some angry angry people who get so much very worse behind the wheel of a car. We studied it a bit at Uni, how seemingly nice people can be transformed into raging lunatics behind the wheel!

Maybe get a helmet cam op :)
 
The ones who drive like that are the ones we need to thank the ,oat (for not killing us). Even though we just feel like shouting and screaming, it achieves nothing. If you are polite to them, maybe they might be a little bit more careful pass in the next horse? If you anger them they may pass another horse even more aggressively and cause an accident.

It's a **** situation but you will not achieve anything by giving people abuse on the road - even if they are wrong...
 
EQUIDAE said:
If you anger them they may pass another horse even more aggressively and cause an accident.

It's a **** situation but you will not achieve anything by giving people abuse on the road - even if they are wrong...
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Somebody down the road must've really got on their nerves for them to drive like that at me!
I know what you mean though, I always thank courteous drivers in the hope they'll stay courteous. but how do you point out disrespectful driving without conflict? If you ignore it they think it's ok drive like that, if you point it out it could insight a roadrage incident?!?! Helmet cam and report to the police is the way forward for me I think :-)
 
We've stopped hacking locally because although we have bridle ways etc it's like running the gauntlet with loose dogs, bikes, cars where there shouldn't be etc etc...

We have a track going round the field now, almost a mile going right round with gaps to cut through to change direction.

Boring? Maybe....but much safer!
 
Elsbells said:
Me too. I learnt to do this when I rode a motorbike, you have to own the road to be safe. Glad your safe OP and well done your pony.
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Think I may have to grow some and do this lol. I did try but it was coming so fast I thought I'd be in for a load of abuse so moved out of the way - and still got abused! Also not sure if pony would've won the game of chicken! Was very proud of him today though, a year ago he would've been a dithering wreck when the first car went past - there's always a positive :-)
 
I find that the majority of other road users do take care when passing horses however unfortunately there are a minority of very aggressive and uncaring road users.
I strongly believe in riding defensively on the roads and with both myself and the horse I am riding kitted out in Hi-Viz just to make sure that there is no doubt that I have taken every possible precaution to ensure that other road users can see me.
I always thank drivers for passing slow and wide in the hope that when they meet other horse riders they will take the same care.
When I kept my horse in London there was little opportunity for riding off-road but I would suggest because of the blanket 30 m.p.h. speed limit across most of London and the straight roads with pavements giving motorists good visibility and made it a lot safer than riding along country lanes, trunk roads and dual carriageways.
To me inconsiderate drivers, cyclists, vehicular speed and bright low sunshine pose the greatest danger to horse riders on the roads.
Ultimately what we need is a dedicated network of off road riding routes but until horse riders support this cause more positively this will not happen. (Look at the millions of pounds that Sustrans has injected in to creating safer off road routes for cyclists).
 
Unfortunately there are always inconsiderate and rude drivers out there, but thankfully the majority near me are very good!
I have had one incident where a guy saw us on the road (he was heading the other way), deliberately turned around and drove quickly up to us then proceeded to slam of his breaks and skid the car repeatedly next to us while leaning out of the car window laughing!
He was trying to get a reaction; luckily we have sensible horses so we stood on the verge and waited. He didn't get a reaction, but did get reported to the police as I got his reg.
Nothing went further with it, but at least it is on record if anyone else had an issue with that vehicle.
 
I've come to the conclusion tthat some people are just knobs whoever else is on the road. Example from my drive to work this morning. Doing 50 on a bendy strtch of lane, not narrow but sharp blind bends with hedges, BMW overtakes at a bend would have needed x-ray vision to know if anything was oncoming. A minute later on a straight stretch he overtook a car doing about 60 despite an oncoming van. Pulled in sharpish causing overtaken driver & oncoming van to brake. 2 miles later he is the vehicle in front of me queuing at a roundabout. 4 cars in front of him waiting to turn right/ go straight on, he drove on to the verge to get past them to turn left at the roundabout, tried to force his way into the slow moving queue of traffic at a well known bottle neck. So 3 accidents risked in about 2.5 miles with absolutely no benefit.
 
Luckily the majority drivers around us are very good too however I hack in a highly populated horse area so I guess most of the cars actually own horses although there are a few townies who refuse to pull over and get their cars dirty and simply I don't believe know how to react when they encounter a horse! However from the other perspective I can't believe how many clueless, arrogant,rude horse owner, road users I encounter in a car and quite frankly I hate them too!
 
ive had three bad experiences.
one a car behind us slowed right down, we could hear him going down through the gears, he then floored it past us causing the car to backfire. Both horses had a fit but luckily we managed to stay on and get them under control,unfortunately we were too busy trying to stay alive to get any details of the car.
The second time i was on a single track road and pulled right onto the side, This gave the driver the impression he did nt have to slow down and he flew past , again sending my horse into a fit. The driver actually sought me out and came to my house to apologise, saying he really did nt think about what he was doing at the time. It was a very pleasant exchange and had to admit i admired him for finding me to apologise.
the last one was a lady i tried to slow down as she was approaching a huge puddle, to no avail. Horse went a bit loopy and I behaved in a shamefull way in the spur of the moment, indicating with a hand signal that i was nt impressed.
I think number 1 was trying to be clever, number 2 was in a daydream and number three was in the "who does she think she is" camp.
There are all sorts of reasons why people speed past horses!
 
The roads around me are narrow, winding country lanes. Luckily 90% of drivers are sensible and pass wide and slow. Unfortunately, as with anywhere, there are the few that make hacking an unpleasant experience. I do think that for some it is a lack of understanding of horse behaviour and the damage they could do if they were to react badly, but there are definitely some who are just impatient and rude. I think helmet cams are definitely the way forward. I got one after a couple of friends had some incidents with drivers and the difference its made has been huge. There's someone local to me who frequently used to pass me too fast and too close. The first time I met him with the camera (it's pretty easy to spot) he stopped, switched his engine off and waited until I had passed him before carrying on. It has to be said though, there are some horse riders who do give the rest of us a bad name. Once when I was driving, I came up behind a horse, the rider turned and saw me, and then proceeded to stop her horse in the middle of the road and have a conversation with a pedestrian. I'm not saying it excuses dangerous driving around horses, but you can see why some drivers get irritated at times when some riders can also be rude and inconsiderate road users.
 
ycbm said:
I ride on roads that narrow all the time. I ride in the centre of the road and I don't move over until after they have slowed down. They won't risk the damage to their precious car by running into a horse. And the risk that they will is far smaller, imo, than the risk of an accident of they squeeze past me at the speed they otherwise would. Most motorists are great on my roads, but you get some richardheads, that's for sure.
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Hmm, I would agree with you if the driver is a man, but I NEVER assume a woman driver would think like that I'm afraid. My car got scraped all down one side by a woman driver who decided that as she had a nice big black Audi, the Highway Code didn't apply to her so she ignored the priority sign in front of the single track bridge and went for a non-existent gap anyway. Women drivers tend to dither then make the decision way too late but go for it anyway. I used to dread women drivers when I was cycling to work in my pre-horse days. Men often drive recklessly and way too fast (showing off) but at least they can judge when a gap just isn't going to fit and they drop back.
 
fatpiggy said:
Hmm, I would agree with you if the driver is a man, but I NEVER assume a woman driver would think like that I'm afraid. My car got scraped all down one side by a woman driver who decided that as she had a nice big black Audi, the Highway Code didn't apply to her so she ignored the priority sign in front of the single track bridge and went for a non-existent gap anyway. Women drivers tend to dither then make the decision way too late but go for it anyway. I used to dread women drivers when I was cycling to work in my pre-horse days. Men often drive recklessly and way too fast (showing off) but at least they can judge when a gap just isn't going to fit and they drop back.
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Women can't judge distances as men tell them <-----------this-------> is 6 inches...
 
I met a small lorry on a narrow single track lane at the weekend. He had a load of tree rubbish on the back, which was bouncing up and down as he went over the potholes. I was wearing a hi-viz jacket, and Billy had a hi-viz neck strap and boots. I tried to make eye contact, but he just kept coming, didn't even acknowledge me or look at me, much less slow down! Billy managed to sidestep up the verge (possibly pushed by me flinching away from the lorry). I felt some sort of foliage hanging off the side of the lorry brush my leg as he passed.

Had he slowed down a little approaching me, I would have had time to get into the gateway I was indicating to go into to get out of his way. But since he refused to look at me I don't suppose he noticed that.
 
Some of these stories are horrendous - really puts me off hacking! I suppose this is exactly why people like the BHS push the bridleway preservation thing so much.

I do a little bit of hacking out, single track country lanes with not much traffic, but what there is traffic wise is either a big 4x4 (one that's never seen a speck of muck in its life - you know the type ;) ) , farm machinery and tractors, or (my personal favourite!) 40ft articulated wagons collecting potatoes from the farm nearby. Oh an lyrca-clad cyclists (unfortunately in area that has races on all the time - God forbid you get in their way!).
 
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