Safety of Riders and Horses on Rural Roads

Rebecca Pow Excerpts

Tuesday 4th July 2017 Westminster Hall

[Derek Thomas]

I thank my right hon. Friend for her intervention; she is absolutely right, and I was pleased to meet the BHS today to discuss its concerns. A lot of the work, including this debate, that we have been doing over the past couple of years with Debbie Smith, the British Horse Society and many others is about raising awareness of how we should use our roads and consider others’ safety, and pressing on the Government that we believe that there is more they can do to take part in this cause.

For many years, Debbie Smith has been working with others to campaign on behalf of horse riders for safer rural roads. Her most recent petition about passing wide and slow, calling for stronger legal protections for riders on our roads, has reached almost 110,000—maybe now it is 110,000—signatures on the change.org site. I first met Debbie in November 2015 and required little persuasion to join her cause to make our roads safer for horses and their riders. Our initial encounter led to a meeting in February 2016 with the former roads Minister, my hon. Friend the Member for Harrogate and Knaresborough (Andrew Jones), and civil servants from the Department for Transport. We discussed the need for a concerted effort by the Department to make our roads safer. Since then there has been a horse-riding awareness day—earlier this year, in which 15 different locations in the UK took part—and 110,000 signatures on the petition, as I said.

Horse riders make up a significant group of vulnerable road users, but despite there being 2.7 million across the UK, they often find themselves as the forgotten demographic—an afterthought in the minds of drivers and unacceptably low down many politicians’ priority lists. It is for this reason that the British Horse Society launched the horse accidents website in November 2010. Since that launch, 2,510 reports of road incidents involving horses, including near misses and collisions, have been logged by the BHS. That is but the tip of the iceberg. Most significantly, since the launch 222 horses and 38 riders have been killed. This problem is not in decline. In the past year there has been a 29% increase in the number of road incidents involving a horse reported to the British Horse Society.

[Rebecca Pow (Taunton Deane) (Con)]

My hon. Friend is making a very sound case. In fact, it is shocking. I am very nervous of horses, so I go incredibly slowly whenever I am near them because I am afraid of the damage that they might do to me, but does he agree that on the whole many people who drive cars just think of a horse as a horse and forget that they are individuals and that one has to be even more careful if it is a young and nervous horse? The 15 mph and distance from the horse are crucial.

[Derek Thomas]

I thank my hon. Friend for that intervention. I live in west Cornwall, where most of the roads are very narrow and horses and riders enjoy their valuable and important pursuit. It is absolutely right that we raise awareness and help drivers to understand that horses are living beings—they have brains. Something that they see, but we in the car behind perhaps cannot, may well cause them to get spooked. We need to make drivers aware of the risk not only to the horse and the rider, but to them and their vehicle. That might gain their attention. Statistics such as those should cause alarm.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Laurence Robertson (Tewkesbury) (Con)]

Sir David, it is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship.

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for St Ives (Derek Thomas) and thank him for securing and introducing this very important debate. Horses are very important to me: horses brought my wife and me together, many years ago, and I have ridden many, many times. I therefore know that horses, as well as being very big and powerful, are very nervous and volatile, and consequently very unpredictable. That is a big part of this debate.

I also have an interest in the debate as I used to be the chairman of the all-party group for the horse and currently serve as the joint chairman of the all-party racing and bloodstock industries group, and I draw the House’s attention to my entry in that respect in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests. It is very important that we understand that there are very many horses in this country.

I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Cheltenham (Alex Chalk) that this is not just a rural issue. There are many horses in London, for example, as well as in Cheltenham. I am very fortunate that the Cheltenham racecourse falls within my constituency, not his—nevertheless, he is very supportive indeed. My point is that there are very many horses around our towns and cities and, in particular, around our country roads.

I want to pick up on one point made by my hon. Friend the Member for St Ives: speed on rural roads. I myself have been involved in a car accident because someone was driving down a narrow country lane so fast they could not stop—I had stopped and they ran into me. If it had been a horse in that position, there could have been a serious accident. Only some four weeks ago, during the general election campaign, I was called away from campaigning to another similar accident down a very narrow lane, where someone was again going so fast they could not stop. I do not know whether the car they hit was a write-off, but it certainly looked that way. I do not know what the speed limit for that country lane technically was, but, as has been suggested, surely the important thing is that people drive according to the road conditions rather than any arbitrary speed limit. I urge the Minister to consider that serious issue and to review the situation.

[Rebecca Pow]

I know we are tight for time, but my hon. Friend has really sparked my attention. I, too, suffered an accident, in a rural lane in Taunton Deane. The driver had just passed his test and was going at at least 65 miles an hour. I had stopped, because I had seen the lights, and he crashed into me. I could have died; a horse would have had no chance. I wonder what my hon. Friend thinks about the earlier suggestion of a 40-mph speed limit for some of these rural roads, not just because of the horses but for the safety of other drivers.

[Mr Robertson]

I am grateful for that intervention. Even 40 miles an hour on the wrong kind of road could be too quick. This goes back to what my hon. Friend the Member for South East Cornwall (Mrs Murray) said about education being very important, in connection with horses but also with driving safely according to the road conditions. It is often not possible to go faster than 10 or 15 miles an hour on a very narrow country lane to remain safe, so education is crucial.

My final point is that in order perhaps to take horses off roads that might be dangerous we could do with reviewing the rules on bridleways. It might be that many existing footpaths could be made dual use, and function as bridleways as well. That would help to ease the problem.