To think it wouldn't kill them to pull over once in a while?

[Featherbag]

We're driving through County Durham, it's a beautiful day and were heading to a lovely village for afternoon tea and ice cream for the toddler. We're on a National Speed Limit road, single lane, stuck behind a horse box doing 23mph. There are 8 cars in front of us also stuck behind it, and I can't see the back of the queue. It's been like this for almost half an hour - AIBU to think it would be polite of the horse box driver to pull the fuck over every now and then to let the queue pass?!

Exit Why?

Cos no bastard will let you out again. And stopping and starting has to be done really carefully. Just pulling out of a lay by and some boy racer comes hurtling along. No thanks. If I am on the road then that is where I am staying.

Then you are an ignorant arse who needs to read up on the Highway code and improve your driving.

And I ain't sucking up nufink.

ODFO

And if I am in front of you tough shit

Oh my goodness Sparkling I mistyped DP for DH hi-la-ri-ous! What a sparkling wit you have (see what I did there?) combined with such argumentative vigour! This is Oscar Wilde stuff combined with Immanuel Kant - imagine if I misspelled 'Kant', that would give you material for the next few pages. Lovely to see the posters following you reliving their school days as well.

The Internet is SRS BSNSS. I don't think we ought to forget that. Ever. Well done, booboostoo, for reminding us.

Well I can't really picture the kind of country road that is windy windy etc but also has long tarmac laybys suitable for HGV's but I don't know the exact road you were on.

I live in a very rural area where horseboxes and tractors are pretty common (as anyone would expect in a rural area anyway) but the roads round here are pretty impossible to pass or pull over on. It IS very frustrating if there is room for a vehicle to pull over and they don't but I think of horse boxes slightly differently really as they need to keep a fairly constant speed, where possible.

what looks to you like a suitable pulling in space may not be to someone driving a heavy vehicle with limited manouverability and animals standing up in the back I regularly drive box, though usually at more than 23 mph :) and acyually finding a layby to pull into (if I want to stop for somereason) is really hard, unless its a proper in/out type layby. You have to appreciate that horsebox then has to pull out back into traffic with limited acceleration.
So yes YABU but i do feel your pain as i feel the same about cyclists while driving the horsebox!

Yep, tough shit, absolutely - or not, if the police pull you over for causing an obstruction, which they tend to do to people who are driving like morons.

Glad you finally laughing Boo - you really were in danger of disappearing up your own backside, but it appears you do have a sense of humour after all. Yay.

Sir When I hadn't pulled my campervan over for 10-15 minutes (due to lack of spotting a layby with enough time to easily stop) and a "dad racer" overtook me dangerously, the unmarked police car in the queue chased him down and didn't stop me. So I think your assertion that the police go around pulling over large vehicles for causing an obstruction is wrong.

If you have a heavy large vehicle (and I imagine its worse with a horse stood in the back) its quite hard to pull into places that a car would do.

Police pull over people who are driving dangerously and being a dick on the road. The person overtaking you, Mines, was driving more dangerously than you. Therefore he got pulled over. It's not rocket science, neither is it proof (nor the opposite) of any point.

I think that until you have actually driven a 7.5tonne lorry with a couple of horses on the back, you aren't really in a position to comment as to whether there were any suitable places to pull over.
I've travelled lots of horses, some good travellers who stand there amiably the whole time even when you have to stop for fuel. I travelled some nervous ones who stomp and shuffle every time you change gear and come off the other end (even when you have driven to within an inch of your sanity to prevent them being jostled or bounced about) so lathered with sweat that they are dehydrated and in danger of a colic. Not really what you want when you are arriving for a competition and your horse is already buggered by the time you get there.
Then you have the horse who is a right bastard to travel. They don't like being on the wagon and they let you know. If you stop, they kick the shit out of the wall of the wagon behind them, sometimes with both barrels. Occasionally when they do this they get a leg over the partition and that can be really nasty. Or they rear and get a foreleg stuck. Or they start throwing themselves around in the back and the whole lorry starts rocking making it a tad difficult to steer, or even keep it going in a straight line. As I said, you really need to experience driving a lorry with horses/other large livestock on it to appreciate just how difficult and nerve wracking it can be to do even the most simple manoeuvre like pulling over. I start slowing down for a junction about 100 yards away.
Finally when you unload them at the other end, if they have had a rough trip they are so keen to come down the ramp they flatten everything in their path. 500kg upwards of pissed off horse in a hurry to get off the lorry with a 70kg person swinging from the end of the lead rope is a hairy experience to say the least.
So yes, I'm genuinely sorry if I've held anybody up in my many years of travelling horses to and from competitions, but I'd rather have a few pissed off drivers than a seriously injured horse, or have their handlers at risk when they have to unload them at the destination.

So what would you (the regular horsebox drivers) do if there was an ambulance or fire engine blue-lighting behind you? Genuine question.

Alpacalypse - I would do whatever I needed to to get out of the way and let them past. It's a case of need really, a person with their life at risk trumps a potentially injured or very upset horse, or the possibility of an accident unloading. But then in my mind, getting the horse from A to B in one piece with as little upset as possible trumps someone behind me who wants to get there 5 minutes earlier so they can have a ice cream.
Of course you can never tell if someone in the car behind has an urgent need to get somewhere, but in the same way, from the outside you wouldn't know what sort of horse was on the box, the happy traveller, the anxious one, the right bastard or the mare and foal.

In an ideal world horses wouldn't need to be transported anywhere. They are not good travellers.

One show in particular springs to mind when a lorry pulled up with a mare and foal in the back, the driver got out and threw up, passenger in floods of tears. Someone had slammed brakes on in front of them about 10 miles from the show, they had to brake hard to avoid collision, the horses in the back went ballistic. When they opened the grooms door the mare had got loose and was half mad, the foal was down under the mares feet and had to be euthanised as it was too badly injured by the mare trampling on it. The mare had cuts all over from bashing into the sides of the wagon even though she had leg bandages on etc. it was absolutely horrific.

Amen to that Twatty.

Sparkling, most horses travel ok with a careful experienced driver, and with consideration from other road users. Most people (like the op) even if they do get very pissed off at the slow speed etc don't sit there hitting the horn and trying to get past if it's not clearly safe to overtake.

My friend's horse hates travelling, she doesn't go to any shows/competitions.

Horrible incident you describe. What was the reason for the jamming on of brakes?

Could say the same for caravans Sparkling.....!!

I have no idea why the person in front slammed on the brakes, we didn't really get that far, we were just helping the poor buggers sort out the horses and get the mare up to the stabling, the foal never got up, the vet put it out of it's misery within a few minutes and then it had to be winched out of the wagon and onto the disposal lorry. It was a lovely foal, black with a white star, he had such a pretty head. funny how you remember the details like that.

What do you mean frosty?

Twatty I just can't imagine how horrible that must have been.