Road rage from the rider of a pony and trap!

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DRM

Guru
Location
West Yorks
Imagine what fun it must be to be a resident of Appleby..... putting up with this kind of stuff on mass for a fortnight each year
 

T4tomo

Guru
There is one round my way, she goes fast and in summer heat, the poor things usually covered in sweat and she shouts at everyone cars cyclists, probably pheasants and anything else that comes into the road.

In general the horse riders around my way are difficult, I have had several shout at me for my light pulsing, one had a go on a cycleway/footpath that said no bridle way! haha that was great.
You shouldn't have your light pulsing approaching horses, they don't like it. It takes very little effort on your behalf to turn it off.
 

Globalti

Legendary Member
I have very little experience of Travellers but I have a feeling that an awful lot of what they say is bluster and that if you give as good as you get they will simply see you as someone who can't be intimidated and give up. I admit that I haven't tried this out on a real live traveller though!

Perhaps the driver was going for a Strava and you got in his way?
 

Johnno260

Veteran
Location
East Sussex
You shouldn't have your light pulsing approaching horses, they don't like it. It takes very little effort on your behalf to turn it off.

I stopped and put my hand over it on the 3 occasions that they went mad on me, one time it was on a cycle path that said no bridle way/path.

My family has kept horses before so I'm aware of how spooked they can be, I don't even freewheel near horse as some don't like the clicks.
 

fossyant

Ride It Like You Stole It!
Location
South Manchester
I have very little experience of Travellers but I have a feeling that an awful lot of what they say is bluster and that if you give as good as you get they will simply see you as someone who can't be intimidated and give up. I admit that I haven't tried this out on a real live traveller though!

Perhaps the driver was going for a Strava and you got in his way?

I have - I stood upto a rather large fella (traveller) in our caravan site pub - he wanted the pool table, but my kids were on it - I said he can have it AFTER they had finished their two games as they had been waiting over an hour to get on. My sister thought I was about to die. I'd had a couple of beers by then so wasn't fussed.
 
Hmm, without singling out anyone, something about this thread makes me feel a bit itchy in my skin. Sure, traveller heritage may have had an influence on the particular form of this traffic misbehaviour, but walk on to your average traveller site and you will encounter a lot of people reading the paper, doing the dishes, feeding the baby, etc etc, and not tearing round the roads in an inappropriate manner -and as in the wider society, they will be the vast majority.

The person round my way who drives the Subaru Impreza in a reprehensible manner does so in a community of a couple of thousand people who never do that. And his behaviour does not reflect on my character or education either.

But, blush, an old friend of mine used to drive around the narrow country lanes here in a rather wide trap behind his large and aggressive Irish cob. Any motorists who failed to back up smartly enough got an earful, and risked a pair of large hooves on the bonnet. And this guy was neither traveller nor country toff, just a fully paid up member of the ‘entitled’ middle classes

On a side note: horses have not been told about recumbents yet. Whenever I encounter a horse, I stop, dismount, and engage in conversation, thus proving that I am not, as the horse might reasonably conclude, some kind of weird, alien, fetlock-biting predator! I commend this advice to any riders of unusual bicycles who might not already have encountered it . . .
 

Tiger10

Über Member
Location
Nr warwick
I have - I stood upto a rather large fella (traveller) in our caravan site pub - he wanted the pool table, but my kids were on it - I said he can have it AFTER they had finished their two games as they had been waiting over an hour to get on. My sister thought I was about to die. I'd had a couple of beers by then so wasn't fussed.

Is that how your back got broke ??
 

GilesM

Legendary Member
Location
East Lothian
I have very little experience of Travellers but I have a feeling that an awful lot of what they say is bluster and that if you give as good as you get they will simply see you as someone who can't be intimidated and give up. I admit that I haven't tried this out on a real live traveller though!

I lived in the ROI for 10 years, I can safely say the Irish travelling community (known affectionately by the locals as Knackers) are pretty good at backing up their bluster, just watch the You Tube clip in post #24 to see how much they care about other people or even the police.
 

bladderhead

Well-Known Member
Sympathies for tyred. I cannot think of anything helpful other than to say that is sounds like a really rare type of incident. Probably never happen to you again. I have been the cause of a horse bolting and a horse nearly bolting. Somebody told me that they think a recumbent is a predator. These days, if Dobin looks nervous I stop and get off.
the riders are always polite. Once I was overtaking a rider. I pulled right across the road, gave them a wide berh. The horse's back foot shot out. I saw the bottom of its foot, right close to my face. I was looking at its shoe. I was THAT close to getting kicked.

That person in the Orson cart that chased tyred was a turd, obviously, but let not this incident be an excuse for pikey-bashing. There are some right chavs in the settled community, some of whom ride. They give us non-travellers a bad name.
 
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