Who are they and what planet are they from?

[NightFury]

You don't meet them often but when you do you know it.

I met one yesterday. An idiot driver who somehow thought the appropriate way to pass someone leading a horse is to scrape by as close as possible beeping the horn. Fortunately my mare was v. brave and well behaved.

Why do some idiot drivers do this??

He also swore at me and shook his fist. Fucking idiot! I am afraid I used bad language and gave him the finger.

I have also been googling to try and find the contact details for the company painted on the side of his car so I can phone up and complain.

Haven't found them yet as I did not see all of the name.

Bastard.

That was lucky, people like that don't seem to realise how much damage a horse can cause to car. Had to squeeze past a van last week, the driver just kept coming (ignoring two passing places where any normal person would pull in) even though the road wasn't nearly wide enough and flanked on either side by ditches. Perhaps she thought I could will myself and horse to evaporate, instead I was willing him to double barrell the van once we'd passed.

Best one this week was the village 'keep fit with your babies' group. 4 of us riding up the main street on the way to the bridle path, when about a dozen people with buggies ran up behind us and overtook us really close, and fast! And this is a village where there's a horse to every 2 households!

Both ponies fine, big horse very spooked (ran off as fast as she could in TROT! need to get her fitter )

But it could have been really nasty, Kids, ponies, cars and babies in buggies!

report to the police, unacceptable!

Not much point in reporting to the police I'm afraid as I have no idea what the number plate was, what make of car it was or what the driver looked like and we don't have cctv anywhere round here to catch the bastard on.

I am just truely amazed as to why he beeped. It's a fairly wide road there, I heard a car coming and was squeezing my horse to the side to go up onto the pavement (no pedestrians in sight) and then he beeps and drives past really really close.

Don't these idiots realise how much my horse would damage their car?

We get this a lot in our area and it is a very horsey area too. Drivers have no repsect and then think they can wind the wondows down to give you abuse and then speed away!

Bizarre people

I've had so many near-misses in my time. And I hate to say it but school-run mothers are the worst offenders ime.

Near misses due to crap driving are one thing and I'm afraid I have had plenty of those.

But actual agression and downright dangerous behaviour I've met only twice.

Luckily I AM a school run mother so am never riding at that time of day. Had complete nutter drive past me at about 60mph yesterday. They're everywhere. I don't think this old lady even noticed me even though I had the ghastly high viz thing on.

Thing is I sometimes see riders in totally mad places too. Like on the A4. I drove past thinking what total loons they were. No WAY under any circumstances, would I be riding there even though my girls is superb in traffic. They had saddle bags so I guess they might have been on a long distance ride and didn't know the back routes or something - but still!!

Had a hack like that the other week - we were coming down a dead-end lane where there's a path down through the forest for the horses. Some STUPID-faced wench actually overtook us AND a parked car on this narrow, narrow street and she passed within inches of my mare. Seriously - the legal speed limit there was 30kph and she was going a further 30m before pulling in to her house. So rather than wait 15 seconds she could've had a serious accident.

My language was somewhat "flowery" and I displayed an impressive array of hand signals and my only regret is that my whip was in the wrong hand and I wasn't able to beat the shit out of the roof of her car.

I'm becoming more and more despairing of drivers and I'm frightened for the future when I want to take my son out. My mum used to be able to have us on a lead-rein from her horse. :(

mitchy's right - If my 700kg lump landed on her convertible she'd have shed a lot of tears. The horse-face caaah I mean, not my nag!

Blimey - Did you get a number? Can you report it?? Some people are just unbelievable, as was the tale of the buggies - do people imagine the buggy will save their DC from a hoof in the head??? I personally haven't seen one with a hoof proof visor.....

Funnily enough I used to ride in London, the traffic could not have been nicer, more considerate and generally more aware of the possibilities of a hoof through the windscreen. Since moving back to the country the traffic generally scares me rigid!!

I have actually had my stirrup hit by a wing mirror once. Tosser!

Nope, I didn't get the number. I was too busy dangling off the end of the lead ropeeven though lovely mare was lovely she did jump a wee bit.

The moral of all of these tales is to get your public liability insurance up to scratch.

I have to ride in town all the time now and it's a lot less scary than when I used country roads! Luckily most people round here are very considerate of horses (I seem to spend all my rides thanking people profusely) and I've only had one real idiot driving up behind me revving his engine because he could't wait for 30 seconds. However I do live in fear of meeting an emergency vehicle with the sirens going as I'm not sure dhorse would cope with that!

I find cyclists are my bugbear at the moment, they ride so fast and never let you know they are coming up behind you, then they whizz past without warning. Someone from our field even had one overtake her on the inside and he had to ride up a grass bank to do it but he didn't slow down.
A couple of weeks ago I was crossing the main road from a side street. Opposite there was a cut-through into another road (it had been blocked off with concrete bollards and the pavement carried on across), so it was literally across the road then two steps across the pavement to be out of the way of the traffic. A van driver stopped a good distance back to let us across and then the traffic the other way stopped too so over I went. Dhorse was just stepping on to the pavement when a cyclist came at high speed (all in his racing gear - twit) between the pavement and the van and shot across behind dhorse's back legs. I'm sure he touched his tail. Of course he leapt in the air (couldn't blame him) and was a nervous wreck all the way home. The cyclist was lucky not to have been kicked off of his bike but I suppose he was going so fast that he was safe. I only knew what had happened because my mum was walking with me.

An all too common story but good to hear you came away unscathed OP.

Sadly rudeness isn't resticted to the other road-users - there are plenty of riders out there who don't even acknowledge drivers who slow down or give them a wide berth let alone nod or wave a thank-you.
Makes my blood boil ....no wonder non-riders think we're all arrogant arseholes.

I was out on our quiet single track country lane with DD on his Shetland and DD on lead rein on another. An elderly woman in an expensive car came up behind us. As they were both quite wobbly, we continued at walk and I indicated to the driver that I would pull in at the next drive. As we weren't fast enough for her, she beeped her horn. Then she did it again. An argument ensued over wether she was a total idiot or not and wether she was more entitled than me to be on the road as she paid her road tax. When I pointed out that I also pad road tax on my own car, she got really irate, returned to her car and sat with her hand on the horn until she could get past!!
There Is no helping some people.
Where we are, we find that the most considerate drivers are the boy racers. Old ladies and fat cats in jags are ignorant tossers!

@Saggyoldclothcatpuss - that is unbelievable! What a stupid old cow.

Why don't people realise that horses have their own minds, they are a prey animal, are sensitive and can spook as a result of cars beeping their horns? I will never forget the advanced driving course I did where they showed us a photograph of an accident involving a car and a horse. I nearly puked on the table. No-one survived that one. No-one.

Country lanes can be very scary. We have one "chemin rural" near us that I avoid at harvest time as it is narrow and sunken down with time and between 2 massive maize fields. If you meet a maize chomper coming up it or driving along in the field it is terrifying. Mind you even parked those machines are terrifying - with those great big toothed disks of metal at the front - they look like something out of Mad Max meets Farmer Palmer.

Thankfully my mare is pretty bomb proof when it comes to tractors, cars, trailers, lorries etc. It's just piles of leaves, twigs and people with umbrellas or nordic walking sticks that get her!

@CluckKate - I know what you mean. We have a couple of sourpusses at our yard who, when I am driving I will pull over for and let them past, do they ever smile and nod a thank you? Do they hell! I know that I can't always wave a thank you to considerate drivers as I can't take a hand off the reins but I will always smile and nod. Ho hum!

Not riding out today though as dear mare still has sore toes and it is pigging cold and I have still to dig out my winter thermals!

And don't even get me started on tractor drivers! My local farmer and effin humungus tractor driver says horses shouldn't be on the road and refuses to slow down. I once stood in the middle of the road with my arms wide to slow him as he came along towing a giant 12 fork plough and my friends new forest pony jumped in the ditch in terror. He refused and I had to jump out of the way. I soon gave him a wake up call, dd is friends with his dd and we took her out with us. Its a bit different when youR own child is in danger of being impaled on a farm implement! We live in an arable farming, major artery road, cut through hell!

Kate - you raise a good point. Of all the people at my yard I'm the only one who says "thank you" to drivers - conversely, I'm the only one who gets really upset if they come too close!

I've actually had my mare hit by a car, he was inching past slowly but she was jigging around and going backwards - you'd have thought he could've waited just a few seconds until the situation was under control. Thankfully no damage to her but it's unbelievable.

Worse than car drivers? I was out riding the other week when I realised there was a shooting party about 150m to my right - I was coming along a path on the ridge of a hill and they were using dogs to beat out the pheasant towarsd me. They'd put NO notices up that they were hunting and I didn't know whether to turn around or carry on - but I did assume that they wouldn't actually SHOOT in my direction what with me being on a 17.2hh orange horse so not exactly camoflaged! Oh how wrong I was. Twats.

I must be very lucky as all the tractors , shoots, etc around here are great. Also my girl is pretty much bombproof. They don't shoot towards us but they don't stop shooting either. My girl doesn't mind the bangs too much. The only things that slightly gets her worked up ist he drivers who are OVER cautious and creep along behind you even though there is plenty of space to pass. I think she is expecting them to go past and when they don't she thinks WTF are they doing?

A tip for the bike hating horses. When my girl was a real baby she hated bikes too. DH (when he was still just BF and still wanted to impress me) came out on a hack with me on his bike. We stopped every 100 yards or so for him to fill her with Trebor mints. She soon learned bikes were OK.

This makes me so mad. I have heard absolute horror stories involving horses and traffic.

A friend and her horse ended up underneath a lorry as it pushed past her. Thankfully there was no physical injury but the horse is now a complete nervous wreck away from the yard.

I have been hit by a car when out riding, and the horse sat on the bonnet leaving a huge dent. Horse was fine though.

One that makes me giggle when i think about it (mostly to do with how my friend tells the story) was when my friend was riding out with the string at a large racing yard on an enormous 2yr old colt. A girl come whizzing past on her scooter scattering the string. The big colt landed on the scooter, my friend and the girl were thrown clear and unharmed, the colt got up, not a scratch on him, but the scooter was completely crumpled. My friend had to comfort the girl as she was in such a state of shock.