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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

To think that horses don't belong on the pavement?

22 replies

AlistairSim · 18/03/2008 16:34

Why would you need to ride on the pavement? Really??

Not a little pony either but a great big, massive toothy beast.

What's that all about?

OP posts:
TheArmadillo · 18/03/2008 16:35

town? countryside?

Original poster
AlistairSim · 18/03/2008 16:40

Small market town.

Oh hell, it's all country to me, I'm from London.

But a residential road, not a tiny winding lane.

OP posts:
Seabright · 18/03/2008 16:41

Not unreasonable at all! I pisses me off too. Also, horse riders waving you to slow down when you're already doing about 10mph.

If your horse can't cope with that, don't ride it on the road!

Eve · 18/03/2008 16:48

...so what is the rider to do, ride on the pavement and hack you of or ride on the road and hack the driver's of. Probably they wanted to be safer on the pavement.

Were they galloping along the pavement putting you at risk?

....and as for slowing cars down, I ride on a road where its a clear 40 throughout the whole of the new forest and 90% of people who fly past me are doing in excess of 40!

I ride along a road for 10 mins before I get to open forest and bridlepaths.. and trust me its truly scarey!!!

If there was a pavement I would be on it

lucyellensmum · 18/03/2008 17:08

As far as i am aware, horses always have the right of way on the road, one of those old bye-laws apparently. I guess it depends on the situation, if i were riding on the road and there was a pavement i might chose to ride on it if it were safer but not to the detrement of pedestrians.

But YANBU, cos i am jealous of anyone who has a horse so ner ner ner.

I hate riding on the road and always avoided it when i went riding but it is sometimes neccesary, i dont get any pleasure out of playing dodge the HGV though. Sadly, lots of drivers have no consideration or idea how to pass a horse. Slowly but with lots of space, i think it is often worse to coast along behind though as horses have bad peripheral vision and it must freak them out

2shoesistheeasterbunny · 18/03/2008 17:13

horses have right of way on the road.
not sure about the pavement though,

Taweret · 18/03/2008 17:14

If there is one pavement, one pedestrian, and one horse, then it makes sense for the pedestrian to have first dibs on the pavement.

goingfor3 · 18/03/2008 17:16

After seeing a horse lying under a sheet on a road I would much rather see them on the pavement .

dejags · 18/03/2008 17:17

I'd ride on the pavement if it were clear. I would certainly not expect pedestrians on said pavement to give way to me though. I'd step out onto the road to go around anybody using the pavement.

As for waving drivers to slow down - no matter how much you trust your horse, there is always the possibility that it may be spooked by traffic. The reasons for asking you to slow down are more than just for horse/rider safety but also for the safety of the drivers. Horse V Car collision = not a very pretty sight, especially when said horse has spooked and run off at a gallop into the oncoming traffic.

lollipopmother · 18/03/2008 17:17

I walk my horse down the pavement all the time, if someone is on it then obviously I'll walk on the road to pass them. Better that than have some idiot drive past too close, once a car hit my foot I kid you not! And another time a car was so close behind my mum's horse in a traffic jam that it shat on the bonnet - a true story!

snorris · 18/03/2008 17:18

I ride my ponies out on the roads round residential streets and it annoys me too that others have been riding on the pavement. I'm not saying I'm perfect and never do it but it is only as a last resort not a regular thing.

Also,when I'm riding it is a bit disconcerting though to know a car is coming towards you with no obvious sign of slowing down.
As a car driver too it makes me mad to see them out without hi-viz gear either.

snorris · 18/03/2008 17:19

Horse riders without hi-viz,obviously

dejags · 18/03/2008 17:20

Incidentally - this did happen to a friends' horse. The most placid, easygoing mare you have ever come across, spooked one day - she had never done it before.

She threw my friend and ran into oncoming traffic - she tried to jump over a car and landed on top of it. Extensive damage to horse, rider, car and driver .

2shoesistheeasterbunny · 18/03/2008 17:21

I always thought if you were driving past a horse you were supposed to slow.....right down and turn your music off.

lollipopmother · 18/03/2008 17:22

It's scary when a horse spooks, there's nothing you can do about it and it's not always predictable, sometimes it just happens. What I can't stand is drivers who believe they own the road, don't slow down and then get a nark on when the horse gets spooked because they have to slow down and wait a whole three seconds before you can get the horse out of the middle of the road!

snorris · 18/03/2008 17:26

Sadly there are those that give both sides a bad name. I always make a point of being visible and thanking drivers,but so many people where I am do not and think they are invincible . I can see why drivers think like they do-it makes me wonder why I bother sometimes with the attitude I've had off certain riders.

Original poster
AlistairSim · 18/03/2008 18:11

I do like horses, I don't see them and automatically think "walking cat-food", in fact I have one but really, this is not a busy road traffic-wise.

Actually, thinking more about it, it was the rider's attitude that annoyed me. She really looked down her nose at me and not just because she was up so high!
We have a high proportion of the huntin', shootin', fishin brigade around here and perhaps she mistook me for one of her serfs and thought I should have jumped into a hedge whilst tugging my forelock.

OP posts:
hercules1 · 18/03/2008 18:16

I wouldnt think to have a problem with this at all. I always go very slowly when passing horses as used to ride when I was a child on the road.

Countingthegreyhairs · 18/03/2008 18:32

I didn't used to ride on the pavement and would try to avoid doing so, but there might have been a reason why this rider didn't want her horse in the road (it was young, nervous, first day out after injury or spooking incident, new horse she was getting used to, companion horse absent etc.)

There's absolutely no excuse for not acknowledging a car for slowly down though (except when horse is fighting for its head, and you are struggling to keep control, juggling reins and stick etc). Gives all riders a bad name.

I actually broke up with a boyfriend in my youth because of his attitude towards riders on the road and his tendency to speed up as he passed them .

Horses aren't machines and it's scary having to ride on the road. It's a necessity now so many bridle-paths have been closed though . Sometimes a pavement is the only safe, albeit unsatisfactory (for riders and pedestrians) alternative.

Original poster
AlistairSim · 18/03/2008 18:32

I was walking on the pavement.
Horse was walking on the pavement.
There were no cars.

It's weird.

OP posts:
edam · 18/03/2008 18:37

Of course horses don't belong on the pavement! The fact that some drivers are clueless/inconsiderate does not mean riders (or adult cyclists, for that matter) can be equally inconsiderate in turn.

Pixel · 18/03/2008 20:43

Well this is what the highway code has to say.'54
You MUST NOT take a horse onto a footpath or pavement, and you should not take a horse onto a cycle track.'
The only time I've ever done it was when walking ds on his shetland to avoid going past a parked removal van and out into oncoming traffic. It wouldn't occur to me if I was riding. The most dangerous roads to ride on tend to be ones without pavements anyhow.

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