Memorandum from The British Horse Society
(BHS) (RS 29)
The British Horse Society (BHS) represents the
interests of the 4.3 million people in the UK who ride or who
drive horse-drawn vehicles. With the membership of its Affiliated
Riding Clubs, the BHS is the largest and most influential equestrian
charity in the UK.
The BHS has a riding and road safety training,
education and examination programme. Every year some 4,500 riders
take the Society's riding and road safety test. Last year this
programme received the prestigious Prince Michael International
Road Safety Award. The Prince Michael International Safety Awards
recognise the most outstanding examples of international road
safety initiatives.
The BHS also works for safer on and off-road
riding and driving through an improved public rights of way network.
The BHS works in partnership with other user groups, local and
central government to make rights of way useful and open to all.
The BHS has more than 800 access and safety
volunteers across the country working to achieve greater safety
not only for horse riders and carriage drivers but other road
users as well, in both rural and urban areas.
The Strategy for the Horse Industry in England
and Wales, published in December 2005, was prepared by the British
Horse Industry Confederation in partnership with the Department
for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, the Department for Culture,
Media and Sport and the Welsh Assembly Government.
Aim 5 of the Strategy is to "Increase access
to off-road riding and carriage driving", two of the objectives
of which are:
— continuing safety education for motorists,
riders and carriage drivers; and
— ensuring urban and suburban riding
and carriage driving are promoted and improved as well as rural
riding and carriage driving.
The British Horse Society welcomes this new
inquiry into road safety. There is no doubt that targets for casualty
reduction have greatly assisted in reducing the scale of deaths
and injuries on the roads and focused the attention of local authorities
to achieve these targets.
However the Society estimates that at least
3,000 road accidents every year involve horses. At present there
is no unified national system for recording horse related road
accidents. The Society records those incidents that it is informed
of but believes that this only represents the tip of the iceberg.
It has proved impossible to get an accurate
picture of the extent of road accidents involving horses as every
police authority has a different procedure for recording such
incidents.
Most police authorities only record accidents
where horses are involved if the rider or some other person has
been actually injured. They do not record those accidents where
there has been no human injury but where there has been injury
to a horse. Records are also not kept of near misses which are
of course accidents waiting to happen in the future.
The Society considers that much more could be
done to record equestrian related accidents so that a true picture
of the problem can be given, so that appropriate measures can
be taken to reduce such accidents.
The Society also believes that much more can
be done in respect of educating motorists as to how to pass riders
and carriage drivers safely.
Many young people who take their test in an
urban environment will never have experienced driving past a rider
and horse or indeed be aware of how a horse might react. They
need to have a greater awareness of the problems of all vulnerable
road users and what to do when they come across them.
Consideration should be given to making the
Pass Plus Scheme compulsory, with this scheme including an element
of animal awareness, and more training in respect of passing vulnerable
road users.
Two recent examples of accidents involving horses
are as follows:
On 27 January 2007 in the Willingham/Rampton
area a horse was destroyed when it shied in front of a bus when
the rider had asked the bus to slow down and the horse shied when
the air brakes sounded and was hit by the bus.
Another horse and rider fatality occurred in
the Wisbech area on 31st October 2007 when the rider, a girl of
9, was injured along with a second woman aged 37. The horse was
killed when it was struck by a blue Peugeot 306 on the B116 at
Leverington Common. An 18 year old man was arrested on suspicion
of dangerous driving and bailed until 9th January 2008.
Under section 71 of the Highways Act 1980 a
Highway Authority has a duty to provide by the side of a highway
maintainable at the public expense by them which consists of or
comprises of made up carriageway added grass or other margins
as part of the highway where they consider the provision of margins
necessary or desirable for the safety or accommodation of ridden
horses and driven livestock.
Greater provision of such margins and maintenance
of those margins by local Highway Authorities would enable horse
riders and other vulnerable users to get off the carriageway.
Many such margins are unusable during the summer months because
of Highway Authorities restricted maintenance programs and many
margins are only cut once a year, or at the most twice a year
with the effect that vulnerable road users are forced onto the
carriageway.
Whilst traffic signs must be clearly visible
to drivers of motorised traffic, local authorities should be dissuaded
from erecting signs and other paraphernalia so as to obstruct
such margins.
The Society believes that speed limits need
to be reduced to protect vulnerable road users and has adopted
the recommendations as set out in DfT Circular 01/2006 as follows:
— in respect of A and B roads 40 mph
where there is a high number of bends, junctions or accesses,
substantial development, where there is a strong environmental
or landscape reason, or where the road is used by considerable
numbers of vulnerable road users; 30mph should be the norm in
villages; and
— in respect of C and unclassified
sealed roads 40 mph on roads with a predominantly local, access
or recreational function, or where the road forms part of a recommended
route for vulnerable road users. 30 mph should be the norm in
villages.
In respect of road pricing the Society believes
that any road pricing proposals should be structured in such a
way so as to ensure that more traffic is not pushed on to minor
roads, to do otherwise will only encourage more traffic to use
minor roads thereby further endangering vulnerable road users.
As from April it will be necessary for all counties
to offer Driver Improvement Schemes for drivers caught speeding.
The Society believes that vulnerable road users (including horse
riders) should be mentioned during these lessons.
February 2008
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