What should I have done? (almost hit horse and rider with my car)

[Redstorm2807]

Posting for traffic as feeling really shaken up by this incident and honestly not sure what I should have done differently.

Driving yesterday afternoon, come out of a village with a 30 limit onto a country road section which is a 60 limit. Accelerated out of village so probably doing 40 ish when I come round a corner and find a large horse with a rider walking very slowly in the road in front of me. There is a car coming in the other direction so I do an emergency stop and thankfully come to a stop a few metres away. The car behind also has to do emergency stop.

The horse thankfully was not spooked by this and continues walking on but the rider is very angry, shouting and waving his hands at me.

I slowly drive past the horse and continue on my way. I always drive very slowly near horses

I don't speed, I'm one of those people who do 30 until the speed sign in a village (we live fairly rurally so lots of journeys are short stretches of 30 through villages then stretches of 60 between).

Thinking about it I'm not sure there was anything else I could have done differently apart from drive at slowly all the time which obviously isn't a sensible option. I could have been doing 50 or 60 by that point if I had accelerated harder in which case I would have likely killed the horse, rider and possibly myself.

I'm still feeling quite shaken the day after and worried about it happening again - is there something I'm missing or is this just the risk we take when driving??

I don't even like driving on 60mph country roads

I’m not sure what your angle is - perhaps you are anti- horses being ridden or existing altogether. But I can say with confidence that the majority of horses would much prefer to be taken out on a nice hack than going around in endless circles inside a small boring school. Accidents are thankfully very rare.

Scary incident that at least no-one was hurt in, but the guidance is regardless of the statutory speed limit you only go as fast as the road conditions and visibility allow, and blind corners should be approached very very slowly. 20mphr would be the max I’d take those.

That said, if it changes immediately from 30mph to 60 at that point, it might be worth writing to the local council and/or your MP because it sounds as though it should be a max of 40 on the approach to a sharp bend AND that perhaps a ‘beware of horses’ sign also be placed there? They tend to only change things where there have been actual accidents, but if you explain that one was very narrowly avoided they may take notice.

This - and also on single track roads you need to be able to stop in half the distance you can see is clear (to account for possible traffic heading towards you)

Thank goodness. No fun having a car bonnet up your backside.
No, not anti horses or anti horses being ridden, though you may like that to be my angle.
I love to see them out and about, just not on narrow roads with a 60 limit, no footpath and nowhere to go out of the way of a loon 🤷‍♀️

The horses (well, their umpty-great grandparents) were using those narrow roads long before the loons started driving motor vehicles. The reason they are narrow is because that's all the width a horse needs. Perhaps the narrow roads should all be made out-of-bounds for any motor-vehicle driver not holding an advanced driving qualification that includes a significant element of content on safe driving on rural roads (renewable every 5 years min) and anyone who doesn't invest their time and effort in learning appropriate road safety for such road types can just restrict themselves to destinations and routes where the roads are wide enough and straight enough to not need additional skill and good sense. Drivers do not own the roads.

Read the road matey. Accelerating out of a village onto a blind bend just because speed limit says you can is reckless and foolish.

As a horse rider, why on earth would I like that to be your angle? I’m pleased that it’s not.

unfortunately, riding on country roads is usually unavoidable in order to get said horses out and about. It’s illegal to ride horses on footpaths or pavements so that wouldn’t help much. Wide grass verges are wonderful when they are there but often they aren’t. Country roads can be, almost by definition, narrow and national speed limit. It is what it is 🤷🏻‍♀️

I'm a horse rider (and I drive) and there are things both rider and driver can do to help stop this sort of thing from happening.
Firstly the corner is the issue. If you can not see around it go slow, you never know who or what might be around the bend secondly what was the horse rider wearing?
I wear a hiz Viz hat cover so I can be seen over hedges at much as possible, my horse wears high Viz too or a zebra stripes fly riding rug in the summer. I do everything I can to be seen. Riders who don't do this are asking for trouble!
I'd say if your on a narrow country lane at least expect so meet a horse, dog walker, cyclist or car and be going slow enough to stop easily.

Because horses require exercise, roads are a means of getting from a to b, many bridlepaths are out of use or gone completely, because going round and round in circles in a school is fairly boring and not good for the horse...

Because it isn't legal to just 'ride in the fields' as those fields belong to other people who likely don't want them churned up with horses.

Why do any road users use roads - the road takes them where they need to go.

OP
Thinking about it I'm not sure there was anything else I could have done differently apart from drive at slowly all the time which obviously isn't a sensible option.

You don’t have to drive slowly all the time but you do have to be driving slowly enough to stop if there is an obstruction. I do lots of driving in our local lanes and I always slow right down when I can’t see around a corner. It’s scarey to think that you think it’s ok to drive fast around corners.

It’s not just horses, cyclists or pedestrians there are lots of other potential hazards. The deer around where I live have a habit of jumping straight out of hedges in front of cars, you see a lot of dead deer.

Have a look at some of your normal routes and see how much time you would actually save by going fast rather than just going at a sensible speed. It probably isn’t going to save you that much time and driving slower is much more relaxing. Chill and enjoy the ride. 🧘🏻‍♀️

If a bend is particularly tight, especially one on a single lane road, I sometimes give a pip of my horn.

I think you just need to put this down to a live and learn situation...no harm done. I do find horses annoying on roads though I must say.

I really think they should put a more sensible limit on place on them. Around here you could encounter horses, escaped sheep and cows, pedestrians with prams or dogs, cyclists. I go slowly around corners and never even approach 60.

SW Highways have a warning advert which basically says that just because you know the roads really well doesn't mean you know what traffic is going to be on it.

Lucky escape, learn from your near miss!

While I would go carefully around the corners on windy country roads, I also think that some vulnerable road users are careless of their own safety and sometimes quite selfish.

And thanks for posting about this and raising awareness. I have a terrifying time walking on sections of local country roads without pavements, where the drivers assume that the road beyond every single blind corner is clear and available to them to take at speed. I have to cross the road sometimes so that oncoming traffic is behind rather than ahead of me when the bend goes a particular way; safer but still not safe.
Roads are not just for cars and lorries, they are for everyone.

Yes, that’s probably a good idea.

Yes.

This is so true, and while we have the option of walking or not walking on these types of roads, the horses do not.

Well, some of us don't really have the option if the pavementless, bendy stretch of road is part of our journey, and we can't drive and there is no public transport. But yes, much worse to be a horse and having to do it because a human being decides on your behalf!

The OP may have owned her mistake, but she's accusing other people of driving too fast around the bends. Hypocrisy does need calling out.

Drivers don't need more than a few seconds if they are driving at the correct speed for the road.

Most people riding a horse don't choose to ride on the roads unless absolutely necessary. But often to go somewhere for a proper ride, you need to get from where the horse is kept to somewhere where you can ride. Which sometimes. Not always, but most often. Requires Riding on country roads to get to.

They don't do it for the share fun of it,

Always predict danger around a bend just in case! Xxx

I was almost taken out by a car on a blind bend while on a horse. Could hear her gunning down tiny lane, so quickly moved to outside of road, so at least she saw me before it was too late. She did emergency stop, then berated me for not thanking her for stopping! She had a saddle in back of massive Range Rover - so a rider presumably 😳

Was it a rural road at national speed limit?

If so this doesn't mean that 60mph is acceptable & there is a lot of misunderstanding of what NSL means. It just means you need to drive to the conditions. Doing 40mph around a blind bend on a single track road is too fast. You needed to do an emergency stop so you were going way too fast. If you had been involved in a collision then you would likely have been charged with dangerous driving (or worse had you killed the person leading the horse)

Single track NSL rural roads have the highest risk of death of all roads in the UK (far higher than motorways)

Locally to us a lot of single track NSL rural roads are being changed to 30 or even 20.

As you were shaken by it & have reflected on it & learned from it I think you just need to move on from it. It's the people who think they have the right to drive at speed & everyone else (cyclists, horses etc) need to get off the road that are most dangerous.