Crucial to report all incidents to improve riders’ road safety

COLLECTING evidence and reporting are vital if equestrians want to see real improvements to road safety, riders have been told.

It is nearly five years since the Pass Wide and Slow and the British Horse Society (BHS) Dead Slow campaigns were launched, so what has happened in that time and what action is needed now?

There have been 1,037 incidents reported to the BHS’s horseincidents.org.uk site for 2019/20 (news, 26 November), compared to an overall total of 2,000 reported in five years between 2011 and 2016.

While the BHS stats now include incidents involving semi-feral New Forest and Dartmoor ponies (127), this does little to dent the significance of the rise.

But campaigners are hopeful increased awareness of why and how to report is the real reason behind the year-on-year spikes.

BHS director of the charity launched the Dead Slow campaign in March 2016 owing to the “alarming increase in road incidents reported”.