Why put your horse at risk, riding on the road

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Yesterday morning at about 9am i was on my way to work, driving down a main road which has a 60mph limit, the road is thru the country, but isnt a country road as such.
I was doing about 55mph and came to a corner, braked for the corner so was probably doing 50mph-ish and as i came round the corner i came pretty much face to face with a horse and rider
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i slammed my breaks on but the rider started gesturing at me to slow down and being quite rude.
Ok so i know i was going too fast and i was cross initially with myself as i always always slow right down to pass horses and even turn my music down, but the more i thought about it, the crosser i got with the rider of the horse. What was he thinking putting his horse in that position, in the middle of a 60mph road on a bend
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It was almost like he was out on a personal crusade to get car drivers to slow down for horses, he had no need to be in the middle of the road, altho it was a bend it wasnt a totally blind bend or particulaly sharp, the road was also plenty wide enough for 2x cars and a horse and infact there was a bloomin wide verge where he could have actually have been seen by people on my side of the road earlier than from his position in the middle of the road!!
Gah!
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Sorry pointless post i just had to rant!
 
I hate riding down major roads like that, we have a few where I ride and I prefer to avoid them as people come screeching around the blind bends and nearly hit us. I would never dream of putting my horse in a situation where she was deliberately in the way of a car! It makes me sick to the stomach just imagining it!
 
Although not defending the rider, this is the reason I always drive at a lot less than the 60 limit on rural roads. I live on a b road, but it carries quite a bit of traffic. Shortly after leaving home to go hacking there is a sharp bend, because the highways dept spend very little maintaining these roads the side of the road is all broken away and full of potholes, there is no grass verge just a bank. To ride round this corner you have to ride towards the middle of the carriageway, scary but there is no choice. On more than one occasion I have met cars coming the other way who have drifted over the white line round the corner, you can at least hear them coming so pull over as much as possible, but it can be scary.
I also have to walk round this corner with 2 dogs, I walk facing the traffic but on that side there is still little verge, so I have to walk in the road with the dogs on the verge (I work onthe principle cars will try harder to avoid me than a dog
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). Not really trying to have a dig at you, but please bear in mind that sometimes riders/pedestrians really have nowhere else to go.
 
The rider should have been on the left of the road .

As you where coming up to a blind bend you shoud have been going sufficiently slow so that if there was something in front of you ( a broken down vehicle, a cyclist a pedestrian) that you could have breaked in time.

Sounds like both of you need to improve your road skills. Suggest you do an advanced driving course and the rider the BHS road safety course and exam.
 
Murphysminder there was a plenty wide enough verge for the rider to have been on, the verge is wide enough easily for 2 horses to ride abreast down.

Owlie185 the bend was not a blind bend as i already pointed out.

Yes i agree i was going to fast, i already said that in my post, but the last thing i expected to see in the middle of a busy-ish 60mph road was a horse and rider, if it was a smaller country road/lane then i would have been doing at least 15-20mph slower and would have crawled round any bends incase of horses/cars/dogs etc. as i always do. (as already said!)
 
I suppose it could be argued that if you couldn't see the horse and rider on your approach to the corner (even though they were in the middle of the road ....) then this could in fact be interpreted as a blind bend?
 
I did say I wasn't defending the rider in this instance, just trying to point out that horses do have to be on busy 60 mph roads too, and there may be an other case on a similar road where this could happen perfectly justifiably. Please just remember the next time you are travelling down a similar road it might just be the one I live on
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And incidentally, a local teenager fell off his bike on the same bend when he hit one of the potholes, luckily there were no cars coming.
 
[ QUOTE ]
I suppose it could be argued that if you couldn't see the horse and rider on your approach to the corner (even though they were in the middle of the road ....) then this could in fact be interpreted as a blind bend?

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I agree. Also, the verge isn't really a safe place to ride, there could be anything in it. My horse once fell down a manhole with the cover missing on a verge, I didn't see it because of the long grass.
 
I try not to ride on verges because around here they are full of drains and rabbit holes, although I guess in this instance I would have prefered to have been on the verge.

Could the rider have been in the middle of the road to be better seen by cars around the bend? Don't know, just a thought, as on bendy-narrow-but-still-"2"-lane roads (with the addes bonus of high hedges) I have been known to ride along the middle, to maximise the chances of cars from either in front and/or behind me seeing us.
 
Narrow overgrown grass verges are too dangerous, broken glass, rabbit holes, sharp metal bits, missing drain covers BARE ELECTRIC LIVE CABLES etc , and it gives drivers an excuse to pass too fast, large wide grass verges with good ground I will always use rather than the road.
Sounds like the rider was a bit of twat in the middle of the road.
 
If you read your highway code you will see that horse has the right to be on the roads....even if you were not expecting it to be there......

Ok...so the rider shouldnt have been in the middle of the road, no arguing that......but would you have been on here ranting on about the stupidity of a farmer driving along in his tractor at 10mph (or whatever they do) that had the audacity to be where you didn't expect him?

Always expect the unexpected.....(no, not the spanish inquisition
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)
 
is this not exactly what so many people here do, for the specific reason of slowing down drivers? As for the abuse, well, I hope those here who also do this will now think again as to what effect it has on drivers.

Hopefully some lessons will be learnt from your post as seen from a drivers perspective.
Oh, and you need to slow down a bit.
Thanks for posting
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Cyclists often ride in the middle of the road, and while its annoying, they mainly do it to stop speeding drivers from squeezing past to over-take where its not safe to do so (especially like on blind bends
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), maybe riders are cottoning on. Thing is, they are assuming the drivers are actually looking where they are going - so will see them- and that they are going slow enough to stop when they do. As horses are very slow moving they're more likely to get run into.
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Riders can't win.

It is solely up to the drivers, ie YOU OP, to bare in mind that if you can't see round a bend up ahead you should go round it slow enough to stop if there's a hazard in the road.
 
I have no idea why someone would ride in the middle of the road, if thats what they were doing - perhaps the horse shied. Perhaps they were avoiding something at the side. Perhaps they were trying to turn right. Anyway, horses do have the right to use roads other than motorways and other prohibited ones. Very occasionally I ride along a very busy A road, because I've been on a very long ride in unfamiliar territory and thats the only way back.

As a driver, you should drive at an appropriate speed for the road and conditions. It could have been cyclists up ahead, or several horses. Don't you always think when your'e driving, "Am I going to be able to slow down in time if theres someone out riding their horse along here"? I do.
 
Interesting post. I hate riding on the roads And will avoid it if I can, mainly because, in general, most drivers go too fast and aren't paying proper attention to their surroundings. In this case I think you were both in the wrong...you have to expect the unexpected, and accept the fact that you are behind the wheel of a potentially lethal machine.
 
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