A HORSE rider mum told of a scary incident with a driver on a busy A-road in Buckinghamshire.

Kate Dawson, a single mum and horse owner from Ashley Green, urged drivers to be more patient after one of Kate’s horses and its teenage rider were taken over by an aggressive driver on A416 from Berkhamsted to Chesham on December 21.

Kate took to OurChesham Facebook group to send a strongly worded message to the driver, who was forced to slow down when a Royal Mail lorry behind the rider wasn’t able to overtake safely, and traffic built up.

She explained that decimation of public bridleways in the last couple of decades meant horse riders were “forced out on the road.”

She said: “We have no desire to ride on any road, be it a main road or a quiet road, because people do drive like lunatics, and everybody’s in a hurry.

“If you’re not a road user without an engine, you genuinely don’t, I don’t think, have any concept of what it is like to be a road user subjected to the behaviour of cars.

“Even when people think they’re slowing down for a horse, it’s actually often not slow enough, and people don’t, unless you’re a non-engine road user yourself, you don’t have a concept of how slow the slow needs to be.”

Kate, who has become “neurotic” about knowing where and when her riders are back due to safety concerns on the roads, was in her yard around 40 metres away, when she could hear the long, continuous honk coming from the road, where the teenager rider, a friend of her daughter’s, was at.  

“My horses are pretty well behaved, but if somebody suddenly came out of a driveway and spooked the horse and jumped sideways, and hit a car. But as a driver you have to be able to stop or get out of the way, because the damage is unbelievable, it’s horrendous,” Kate, whose horses have legal and public liability insurance for accidents, said.

Hearing that Buckinghamshire has the highest horse fatality rate in the country sent “shivers” down her spine.

Buckinghamshire had 65 incidents last year, figures from Bucks Council road safety initiative Travel Safe Bucks showed.

In the south of England, horse-related incidents on the roads increased by 150 percent in 2022 compared to 2021.

Ahead of Christmas, Thames Valley Police urged drivers to make sure to leave at least two metres between the car and the horse when passing and to drive slowly.

Kate felt drivers were more courteous to a person that a horse.

She continued: “I don’t know how to change this. The South East of England is very over-crowded, we’re all very busy and try to pack a lot in our schedules.

“I think people don’t have a great deal of empathy in general, but if you don’t have a cyclist, or horse rider or a walker in your family, you don’t naturally have any empathy for them.”

In November, horse riders were “nearly killed” after an impatient BMW driver overtook them on a blind bend.  

What does the Highway Code say? 

 

  • Drivers must always pass wide and slow with at least 2 metres of space 
  • When you see a horse on a road, you should slow down to a maximum of 10 mph.
  • Be patient, do not sound your horn or rev your engine. 
  • Keep your speed down at bends and on narrow country roads.