Lee Wants No More Death & Injuries On Our Roads
My name is Lee and I’m 50 yrs old and have been riding since I was two.
I wanted to say a huge thank you to the Pass Wide & Slow NZ education campaign because it’s long overdue. My road riding experiences have scarred me for life.
“The biggest impact and something I will never forget is a call from my best friend’s mother that my 16-year old friend is dead.”
She and her horse had been hit by a car “can you come, can you come”. I drove out and they were loading my friend into the back of the ambulance. Her horse was lying on the road in pain. I went and borrowed a gun from someone I knew and put the horse down. My friend died on the way to hospital. It was horrible.
My own experience of riding on the road.
I was riding on the verge, leading another horse and found myself being harassed by a drunk driver.
My horse flipped out, went over the bonnet of the car and I broke the windscreen. I was 18-years old. The driver drove off. I caught my horses and rode back home. I later learned I had broken my back as I couldn’t move my legs or hands. It was more than a year off riding before I got back in the saddle.
Years later, riding a different stretch of road in a different community on a different horse
“ I was harassed by a car, where the driver was beeping his horn and trying to get his vehicle between the horse I was riding and the one being led. It ended with the horse I was riding, rearing and falling on the road. ”
He was a 17.1hh grey. A neighbour heard the commotion and came out and found me lying on the ground. They called the NZ Police. The Police did nothing and made me feel stupid. They said ‘it was your fault, you shouldn’t be riding and leading a horse and you were probably in the middle of the road’. I was not!. After everything I had been through I was pedantic about riding on the verge and my safety. I later learned from others living on that stretch of road that a vehicle had done this before with other horse riders.
The community was upset with what had happened to me and tried to look for the driver. He was never identified.
As was a volunteer Firefighter I’ve witnessed and attended three incidents involving horse floats.
Ngā mihi Lee
Lee was a volunteer Firefighter. PWASNZ thank Lee for her service to our community and for sharing her story here. Connect HERE to share your road riding story.
One I will never forget was when I was sitting in a café and I saw a horse float going through a roundabout, but being pushed by another vehicle.. I could see the panic of the driver being tailgated. The float tipped over with two horses in it. I was first on the scene. It was horrendous. I ended up sitting on one of the horse’s heads to keep it calm and called the Fire Service. One horse was put down on site in order to extract the other. Jaws of life gear were used to dismantle the float to get the horse out. I will never forget that.
Two other incidents I attended in my role as a volunteer firefighter involved horses falling through floorboards in horse floats. On both occasions the horses were put down and it prompted me to raise my concerns with transport authorities to ensure WoF checks look at the condition of a floats floorboards.
I would like to remind all drivers that the decisions they make when approaching and passing a horse on the road can have lifelong impacts.
“Be resepectful. Slow down and give space.”
