Stories From Survey

I went back to the results of the survey I conducted for the research half of my major project and looked through all 910 responses to the questions of: "Describe typical motorist behaviour" and "Have you had any accidents or very near misses". The public's answers to these questions helped me create a list of unsafe behaviours and reasons horses have taken fright on New Zealand roads. This list will hopefully help me create appropriate 'Dear Driver' comics that get straight to the root of the problem by providing realistic scenarios and ways they can be avoided.

• People not slowing down
• Speeding by and cutting too close "scare the hell out of riders"
• Tooting horn
• Accelerating loudly after overtaking
• Not moving over far enough when overtaking (giving a wide berth)
• Rattly trailers, flapping balage wrap/tarp
• Ignorant to the risks
• Gravel flicking up when drivers overtake to fast on a gravel road
• Don’t slow down even when they can see a horse is nervous/a rider is having a hard time controlling a horse
• Ignore pleas to slow down, hand signals etc
• Not slowing down when travelling in opposite direction to rider
• Revving motor inappropriately
• If people do slow down it’s usually only to about 80km/h which is not slow enough
• Drive too close behind when waiting to overtake
• People seem impatient to get somewhere 
• Not showing courtesy when a horse is clearly spooked
• Horse panicking and bolting
• A car overtaking another car which has slowed for horse
• Horse getting spooked by things on the side of the road
• Trucks using air brakes
• Texting driver etc, driver not noticing horse/paying attention