My office building is right next to the Hickstead show ground, which some of you may know holds major showjumping competitions. I turn straight onto a slip road which is only about 100m long until I hit the A23 Northbound, so I've got a pick up some speed for filtering.

So, I pull out and give it a bit of welly (as it's FRI and the weekend is now on me) and suddenly "Wayhey, what the hell is that?!?!?" It was mud... everywhere!!! Horses nowadays need transporting in rather large box things. These park in muddy fields. said mud then sticks to tyres and hey presto, this is then spread across the road. A Car probably won't have a problem with it... but a bike! It's not like it's small pieces either, it's huge, almost Badger sized, lumps that get left in the middle of the road. I have to slow down and almost emergency stop before I get to it all. And to make matters worse, horse boxes just pull out without thinking! And they're so bloody huge they take up the whole road, can't accelerate and thus hold up everyone.

These probles further cement my theory that horses shouldn't be on the roads in any way. I't dangerous for the horse as it's vunerable. Dangerous for the jockey as the horse can spook, rear and throw them off. Dangerous for bikers as hitting a horse is as good as hitting a wall, and those transporters are death traps.

Get horses off the roads, it'll save lives. Have paths at the side of the road they can walk down, at least they'd be able to run then.

Yamaha FZS 600 Fazer ... in gold! 

Ride safe, and look out for the Rainbow of Death!

^{There're only 3 kinds of people in the world, those who can count, and those that can't.}

^{Roses are red, Violets are Blue, I'm a schizophrenic ..... and so am I!}

^{Take pity on the man who invented the drawing board, when he screwed up, he had nothing to fall back on.}

^{Stuff everything, I've always got my bike.}

Horses don't pay Road tax or MOT. Well, the MOT I understand (I'd like to see one of those on a car lift at Hi-Q!) but they are a road using creature, albeit not designed for the roads. Now, you could argue "Well, cyclists use the road and they don't pay road tax" and you'd be right, they don't. Because it (along with a horse) isn't an engine powered machine, road tax laws don't apply. But, here's my crux...

Horses shit. It's a fact. And it's not like they can go and use the lavy or get a roll of Andrex from the local Qwik Stop. So, this mess is left where it lyes... in the road. How many times have you been riding and seen a mound of poo in the middle of the road? I bet we all have at somepoint or another. On a bike, especially if it's on the 'line' can be lethal. In this months edition of 'Bike' mag there was small article where a guy had lost the front end to a horses bowel content. So, who's left to clear up this mess? Nobody. Farmers don't go around with a shovel and remove it from the road. The Jockey won't alight and move it themselves. It's left to nature to sort it out. Rain comes (in throws at the moment) and washes it away... (or makes the road even more slippery!) ready for a freash mound of dung to be laid down. Charge the beasts road tax and I think this will get them off the road. It might pay for the poopscooper or something.

This, to me, is wrong. Why are horses allowed to pollute and degrade the road like this and nobody so much as batters an eyelid. Horses were used before the advent of cars, and I suppose in a way, were our first ever major form of transport. They are fantastic for cross country and off road riding... but that's where they should stay. As I said in my last post, don't stop riding them (It'd be like someone trying to tell me to stop riding my bike (Good luck with that!)), just not on the roads. It's dangerous all round.

What I find funny is that there are fields everywhere in rural England with public footpaths to walk down. Put the Horse on them, you'd be going with the road anyway, just in a much safer (for all) way.

Yamaha FZS 600 Fazer ... in gold! 

Ride safe, and look out for the Rainbow of Death!

^{There're only 3 kinds of people in the world, those who can count, and those that can't.}

^{Roses are red, Violets are Blue, I'm a schizophrenic ..... and so am I!}

^{Take pity on the man who invented the drawing board, when he screwed up, he had nothing to fall back on.}

^{Stuff everything, I've always got my bike.}

If they stop horses using the roads (after all, they have fields to ride in), the next step will be to stop cyclists using the roads (after all, only kids ride bikes, and they should be at home in front of a nice safe computer game) and then motorcycles (no-one actually needs to ride a bike, what wrong with a nice small hatchback) and 4x4s (they should all be in fields and farms where they belong), and then it will be large and/or powerful cars (climate criminals, unnecessary, see bike comment above) and then it will be anything remotely interesting as a way of getting about.  And soon we will all be driving Govt-approved NuLabour Toyota Priuses at a legally-limited 30mph on approved routes to approved places wearing our approved safety suits.

Or we can keep the liberties we have today, and accept that sharing the roads with other people is occasionally inconvenient, but always remembering that the alternative is much worse.

That's my rant.

--

2003 ST1300 Pan Euro
1995 Yam XT600E
http://goingfastgettingnowhere.blogspot.com/

I just feel a horse on the road is more of a danger than a motorbike or even a ped. It's not as if they keep flowing with traffic, they plod along at walking pace and hold everyone up. Plus the whole pooing on the road thing is really bad. I suppose you get fuel/oil over the roads from cars/loories which is wrong - but at least they're supposed to be there, it's what the road was made for. Horse Poo can be classes as a natural hazard, but it's one that can be sorted without expensive methods... don't allow tham on the road. You could say, "lets chop down all the roadside foilage to get rid of leaves" but it's not practical as whichever road you're on, there are trees on it and it would take a lot of man power and money to do. The same could be said with rain. We can't stop it from falling (although with Climate change we could say we are changing the weather gradually... not for the better mind you!)

To stop the Poo, sign a petition, pass it by government, done. Less hastle, less fuss and a lot less money spent...... Problem is, like you pointed out above, where would it lead on from there. Poosibly exactly as you laid out above, but I don't think they'd ban any form of motor vehical... We pay tax, we buy fuel, we line the governments pockets... horses don't.

Yamaha FZS 600 Fazer ... in gold! 

Ride safe, and look out for the Rainbow of Death!

^{There're only 3 kinds of people in the world, those who can count, and those that can't.}

^{Roses are red, Violets are Blue, I'm a schizophrenic ..... and so am I!}

^{Take pity on the man who invented the drawing board, when he screwed up, he had nothing to fall back on.}

^{Stuff everything, I've always got my bike.}