Simon Hart – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Transport

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Simon Hart on 2016-03-08.

To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what steps he is taking to improve safety for horses and riders on roads.

Andrew Jones

Rule 215 of The Highway code gives specific advice on approaching and overtaking horse riders and horse-drawn vehicles safely and with consideration. The theory test contains questions about how drivers should interact with horse riders and the hazard perception test includes a number of clips where horse riders are the hazard.

The “Have Some Horse Sense on the road campaign was launched as part of the THINK! Road Safety Campaign and encouraged drivers to approach horses slowly and give them a wide berth when overtaking. This has been supplemented more recently by the THINK! Rural Roads campaign which reminds drivers to take particular care when driving along country roads.