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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

Funeral Carriage Horse killed by car driver... aibu?

245 replies

AdriftOnMemoryBliss · 26/02/2016 16:13

To think the stupid woman should have the fucking book thrown at her?

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-south-east-wales-35653240

this second article covers it a bit better and has photos, but they've been edited/blurred. they're not graphic, but a couple do show the horse laying in the road as they were taken before it was removed from the scene.

www.walesonline.co.uk/news/wales-news/horrific-aftermath-accident-saw-car-10953991

From what i can gather, the driver overtook the funeral procession and then pulled in hitting the horse so hard it went over the top of its harness mate, and she also smashed the front of the hearse.

The horse had to be put down at the scene.

What on earth is the matter with people that they would so something like this?

OP posts:
LyingWitchInTheWardrobe2726 · 27/02/2016 22:15

We have no idea what happened, all the surmising is absolutely pointless and just sounds silly.

My own experience as a driver tells me nothing except that drivers have lapses of attention, can do foolish things without thinking, can register something very late and over-correct with potentially bad consequences.

Most drivers make mistakes in their driving but I don't believe that they receive the consequences of these bad mistakes. Good drivers acknowledge the mistake and file the information away so as to prevent a recurrence if they can. The unlucky ones don't; unlucky because they may meet another one like them or a set of circumstances that they don't have the skills to avoid, and they will live with the consequences as this particular driver will.

If only we all were perfect all the time and never did anything that ever could potentially cause loss to someone else...

OurBlanche · 27/02/2016 22:16

Crikey! Horses and dogs but not rats! Speciest indeed!

Look, let me be honest. I am going to have to stop posting as I now know more and am really not comfortable with that. I feel conflicted, fair play vs sense of outrage, and all that.

So cheerio! I shall leave the speciests to continue shouting their outrage to the more boring sensible heads Smile

snowymountaintops · 27/02/2016 22:19

She possibly panicked if something was coming the other way. Not making excuses for her as she absolutely should not have been trying to overtake whatever the reason.

Comparing a rat to an amazing animal like a horse is just insulting.

We do get very upset over animals in this country, although of course we also get very upset when we read about people being killed in similar 'accidents'. That lorry driver in Glasgow, how terrible what happened to those 6 people then? Maybe it's because obviously images can be published of dead animals but wouldn't see pictures of people close up thank god.

LyingWitchInTheWardrobe2726 · 27/02/2016 22:21

Yes you would, limited but this has the added interest and draw for some that say they KNOW those involved (however loosely) and are therefore close to the event and therefore have special knowledge. Naturally, they have the right therefore to demand this driver's head on a stick.

People dying everyday by bog standard road deaths are obviously not as noteworthy...

I don't live very far from Bridgend (about 50 miles or so)... so I'm practically family.

limitedperiodonly · 27/02/2016 22:23

To compare such an animal to a rat, unless a beloved pet rat, is fucking insulting.

Why? And why did you feel the need to qualify it as 'unless a beloved pet rat'? It shouldn't matter, should it? Or do you think some animals are more equal than others?

This is an accident involving a death on the road in the heightened situation of funeral. But when all's said and done, it was a horse that died.

What makes that more important than another animal including a human animal?

The driver isn't getting away with it. She's being prosecuted. But for her driving standards rather than the species she happened to kill.

Human beings die on the roads almost every day. We don't have threads about them.

LyingWitchInTheWardrobe2726 · 27/02/2016 22:24

The comparison of rat to horse wasn't literal. I thought everybody understood that?

Yesterday there was mayhem and injury caused by two dogs on a busy carriageway, one dog was killed, three cars piled up and there were some injuries.

I wouldn't compare a dog to a rat, a cat or a horse, or a woodlouse but again, human error to allow dogs to run free... will nobody think of the commuters held up for hours? Shock

OurBlanche · 27/02/2016 22:25

Sorry, I had to respond to that as I would confound that, Lying.

I know the people involved, loosely, and I am not baying for the driver's blood. I have, from my 2nd post, NOT wished for that and have tried to dissuade those that have!

Canshopwillshop · 27/02/2016 22:25

I agree Chiefclerk. On the face of it it sounds like she was just too fucking impatient and had no respect for the funeral procession. Yes, there is a possibility of a medical emergency though there have been no reports that she or any passengers needed medical help.
Bakeoff - I live in the New Forest where loads of horses are injured and killed every year on the roads, I don't think it's just because an animal has been killed that has made this story stand out, it's the whole lack of human respect for the bereaved and her family.

LyingWitchInTheWardrobe2726 · 27/02/2016 22:29

I didn't mean you, OurBlanche, honestly, your posts were very measure and considered. Thanks

MartyrStewart · 27/02/2016 22:31

It's just such a sad story. We don't know the full details, so I won't be baying for the driver's blood, but it does sound like it could have been avoidable.

I actually came across a funeral procession when doing my driving test for the 4th time. I told the examiner that I hope it wouldn't fail me, but there was no way I would overtake. I wish others had given the same courtesy at my Grandparents' funerals.

Original poster
AdriftOnMemoryBliss · 27/02/2016 22:42

ftr, i am not 'baying for her blood' either. I think what she did was stupid, horrendous and idiotic.

I don't think her name needs spreading over the internet, and i don't think her life needs to be ruined.

I DO think she needs to be prosecuted to the full extent that the law will allow in this instance... which i have maintained since the beginning of the thread.

I do however think its insulting to compare a 15yo working animal with 12yrs of training to a rat, and even a dog. Call me speciest if you life, i will wear that badge.

OP posts:
limitedperiodonly · 27/02/2016 22:46

Comparing a rat to an amazing animal like a horse is just insulting.

Can you explain why?

I had pet rats. They are wonderful creatures. I also rode horses but wasn't lucky enough to own one. But I don't understand how you judge a horse to be 'amazing' but a rat to be somehow 'insulting'.

That's what I mean by being speciesist. I was being flippant; but not entirely. If you care about about one animal, why don't you care about another one?

But ultimately I would say that human beings are more important than animals. Though there are many humans I would throw under a bus before my cat.

Anyway, as I keep saying, this woman is going to come before a court of law. Let's let her do it and then we can wave our pitchforks.

Iliveinalighthousewiththeghost · 27/02/2016 22:48

Every life is precious. Even a rat's.

limitedperiodonly · 27/02/2016 22:49

I DO think she needs to be prosecuted to the full extent that the law will allow in this instance... which i have maintained since the beginning of the thread.

Well she will be, won't she?

limitedperiodonly · 27/02/2016 22:51

Every life is precious

You're more generous than me IliveinalighthousewiththeghostWink

Original poster
AdriftOnMemoryBliss · 27/02/2016 22:55

yes, every life is precious. But the loss of this life has much more far reaching consequences.

A rat being run over is neither here nor there. One of a matched pair of bonded teamsters is devastating to their owners, his business and potentially the surviving horses future.

If you can't understand that much, then i can't help you.

OP posts:
Sallystyle · 27/02/2016 22:58

This is really sad. When I first read this I felt really angry, then I remembered that all of us are one mistake away from causing a serious accident. It takes a second to do one wrong thing and bam.. Of course most of us wouldn't do what this woman done but all of us can make a mistake and one day someone might be calling for our blood due to a bad driving decision we made.

This driver made a really fucking huge error, I don't know what the fuck she was thinking but she is human and I don't like to see humans suffer really. If she had done it on purpose then yeah, but she didn't and she has to live with her guilt. I am sure she didn't wake up and decide to run down a horse and interrupt a grieving family, this isn't an evil person who wanted to cause harm, she isn't a cold hearted horse killer, she is a human who fucked up in the worst way.

I will personally reserve wishing people any kind of suffering for those who rape, kill and abuse on purpose and set out to cause harm, not someone who will always regret the time she made a dangerous driving decision.

There isn't really a good excuse for her overtaking the way she did, but she isn't an evil person that we know of, just a human being and there but for the grace of God go I.

LyingWitchInTheWardrobe2726 · 27/02/2016 23:00

Fab post, U2HasTheEdge... I wish I'd been as eloquent.

limitedperiodonly · 27/02/2016 23:19

That's your opinion. As it happens, I don't have my lovely pet rats any more but I do have a cat. If he was run over I would be devastated.

He is a pedigree cat of a distinguished line so I could probably put in a claim, but between you and me, he's a eunuch who costs me more to run than he's worth so I wouldn't get much.

If he pulled a carriage and it was my business I might be worried about the effect on his (late departed eunuch) brother who he was very close to. If so I'd be concerned for my business because they were a very handsome matched pair.

I also think a pair of matched oriental short hair carriage cats would have more value than a pair of horses. But that's probably me being speciest.

In that event I would put in an insurance claim for them but I would try to remember that above all, they were cats.

Meanwhile the criminal prosecution of the woman who caused the accident would go on.

I am trying to help you understand.

ChiefClerkDrumknott · 27/02/2016 23:20

Because we're not talking about a common or garden rat, we're talking about an animal that hours of training, sweat, knowledge and effort has gone in to.

You either value all life equally, so why not see this horse on a par with a human, or you have stages of value, in which something killed for food has value above vermin, and a highly trained animal has value above a meat animal in a society such as ours where meat is freely available. It's an insult to compare a horse that has had a good 10/12 years of training, obedience and love gone in to it to a common rat, which is often used as the common denominator. Which is why I said that the loss of a trained, beloved pet rat would be comparable. But let's pretend that there's not a sliding scale of value of life, because it's not as if people tend to apply one.

So either this horse was the same value as a human, or was worth more than your common rat.

Regardless, I cannot see there was an excuse for overtaking a funeral procession, especially one in which there was a vulnerable road user (the horses&carriage) unless there was a medical emergency. And from the eye witnesses there is nothing to suggest there was a reason to swerve in to this carriage apart from panic due to the driver's stupidity.

ExitPursuedByABear · 27/02/2016 23:25

Amen to that.

Original poster
AdriftOnMemoryBliss · 27/02/2016 23:31

"I am trying to help you understand."

No, you're just being patronising.

OP posts:
ChiefClerkDrumknott · 27/02/2016 23:33

On a slightly different tangent, I wonder if the reason this seems to have struck a cord with many people is that as humans we know the danger of the roads and see what can go wrong. But horses trust us to look after them and after a lot of training come to think that they will not be harmed, despite their best instincts, to the point where they will do what we ask even if in a natural situation they would flee. When this trust is damaged it seems to hurt us so much more because they walked in to the situation blind. Maybe I'm a little too drunk to be thinking about this 😬

limitedperiodonly · 27/02/2016 23:38

The driver is going to be prosecuted for an offence relating to causing a road traffic accident - careless driving, I suppose. That is all that is going to matter.

Not that she overtook a funeral procession and not that a horse died - that's going to be judged as if she'd written off a car and will be dealt with in a civil matter about damages.

That's it. People cause carnage in their cars all the time. And you're getting worked up because it's a horse.

limitedperiodonly · 27/02/2016 23:47

so why not see this horse on a par with a human

Because it's not. However, I am very sad and unless the driver has a really good excuse, I think she is terrible. I think whatever the story, she probably feels like shit too. And so she should.

She is going to prosecuted