HORSE road safety advice is award winning in Warwickshire.
Warwickshire Road Safety Partnership has been awarded The British Horse Society Tarquin Trophy for excellent service by an organisation or business in the cause of equestrian safety.
The award recognises that WRSP has gone above and beyond to share advice and guidance to drivers to improve road safety in the equine community.
This includes regularly raising awareness through the media and social media of the updated Highway Code that explains how drivers and motorcyclists should safely pass horses by slowing down to 10mph and allowing two metres when passing them on the roads.
Other initiatives have included dead slow boards being distributed to livery yards across the county to raise awareness of how to pass horses safely. The partnership is in the process of allocating a further eight, and keeps five to help explain the initiative at events such as horse shows and yard and venue visits and to be able to react in the event of a new hotspot.
The partnership also funded high visibility items that were given out at livery yards across the county and at agricultural shows supported by the Warwickshire Police Rural Crime Team.
And WRSP created three animated clips to help raise awareness of the changes to the Highway Code for equestrians aimed at drivers safely passing horses, drivers safely passing horse drawn carriages and information for equestrians on how to keep themselves and their horses as safe as possible while using the roads.
Warwickshire Road Safety Partnership chair Philip Seccombe said:“On behalf of the partnership, I am delighted to accept this prestigious trophy. It demonstrates that by working together to improve road safety in Warwickshire, road safety partners really can achieve great things. It’s great to see this getting the widespread recognition it deserves.
“Equestrians are some of our most vulnerable road users and as a police and crime commissioner of a largely rural county, I know how important it is to help them be safer and also feel safer on our roads. The partnership has put considerable effort into its education programme to raise awareness of the dangers horse riders face, the responsibilities all road users have to share the roads safely and to help riders be highly visible.”
