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Equestrian road collisions: An analysis of the collision record, riding behaviours and experiences

Trump, Daniel; Parkin, John

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Authors

Daniel Trump

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John Parkin John.Parkin@uwe.ac.uk
Professor in Transport Engineering



Abstract

© 2019 Elsevier Ltd In 2017, 78 equestrians were involved in road collisions involving personal injury in Great Britain, with 22 people being seriously injured and 61 being slightly injured. While the absolute numbers of collisions and injuries relating to horse-riding on the road is low, there is a need to more fully understand prevalent collision types. This paper investigates collisions in Devon, UK, over a period of seven years and ten months, and reports a national on-line survey with 1976 respondents. The majority of collisions in the collision record involve vehicles passing in the opposite direction (26 out of 74) and overtaking (22/74), with rear-end shunts being the next most prevalent collision type (14/74). Strikingly, a large proportion of vehicles, 80 out of 145, involved in ‘collisions’ with horses were reported not to have impacted the horse. Avoiding impact with a horse is not sufficient to avoid injury. Our exploration of these issues at the boundary of collisions and near-misses is of relevance to wider road safety research. Further, 79.1% (1563 out of 1976) of equestrians in the survey reported a near-miss, and 15.6% (309 out of 1976) reported a collision, with 7.7% reporting collisions involving personal injury. We conclude that drivers need to understand horse perception limitations, flight behaviours, and horse rider signals. Collision frequency and severity could be reduced with education-based initiatives. Equally, equestrians need to be skilled in communicating correctly with their horses and approaching drivers. These findings have implications for driver and rider training.

Citation

Trump, D., & Parkin, J. (2020). Equestrian road collisions: An analysis of the collision record, riding behaviours and experiences. Safety Science, 123, Article 104523. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ssci.2019.104523

Journal Article Type Article
Acceptance Date Oct 17, 2019
Online Publication Date Nov 18, 2019
Publication Date Mar 1, 2020
Deposit Date Nov 21, 2019
Publicly Available Date May 19, 2021
Journal Safety Science
Print ISSN 0925-7535
Electronic ISSN 1879-1042
Publisher Elsevier
Peer Reviewed Peer Reviewed
Volume 123
Article Number 104523
DOI https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ssci.2019.104523
Keywords Public Health, Environmental and Occupational Health; Safety Research; Safety, Risk, Reliability and Quality
Public URL https://uwe-repository.worktribe.com/output/4707428

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