A man on horseback was hit the other night in my town. The man had borrowed the horse from a friend to go for a ride. They had to put the horse down and the man is in the hospital! The person that hit them kept going and turned off his lights!!! The cops found his car in his driveway and arrested him. He claimed someone had stolen the car and just brought it back. He was just going to report it he claimed!!! Can you believe that! I just heard about this today and I was horrified. I live in a small rural town in Southern California that is geared towards horses. We used to always say there are more horses in town than people.

Lately there has been a lot of building going on (a lot of new houses going up). The houses are being built at the foot of our hills. These houses are supposed to be horse property with half acres, except the back yards are mostly slopes. So, the people moving in for the most part aren't horse people.

I've even noticed it's getting extremely dangerous to ride the streets and that's mainly all that I do. Just a couple of weeks ago I went out (it was between rain storms and the ground and streets were all wet) when this woman drove past me going about 50 or 60 mph (with a stop sign ahead)!!! Our speed limit is 25mph!!! I was staring at her thinking where's the cops when you need them and she hit a water puddle right across from me!! Then to make matters worse her car backfired!!! I was so so mad I wished she would get into a wreck. If my horse had spooked I could have been killed!!!

Ugh I'm so sorry. That is horrible. Some people just don't realise that they are putting more than just their lives in danger.(refering to drivers) Be careful while riding on the road since it is overly dangerous. Roads= just accidents waiting to happen.


RIPMDF

Dude, that's scary. I would NEVER ride on the roads around here, and I'm in the foothills of South Carolina = horse country. People are to dangerous these days. They just don't think about what in the world they are doing! If they have never been around horse they don't have a clue how easily one could spook. Sounds like your neighborhood used to be cool, but you better take some action now to keep the newbies in check. If they are driving that fast not only are they endangering the horse/rider but also the neighborhood kids. Check with authorities to see what can be done about having police patrol your area more, also see what has to be done to get speed bumps installed on the roads. That'll slow them down and it'll be fun to practice jumping your horse! I hate that guy had to put his horse down, you know nothing will be done to the driver... Give us updates if you can.

We have very little crime here in our town. I know what you think about California, but it's not like that in our town. I think it's because everyone is so busy with their animals they don't have time for anything else. It used to be that way, with all these new people the crime's rising and we are even getting grafitti on our walls. We only have a few police officers in our town, so they can't patrol everywhere.

Speed bumps are a good idea. I'll have to check into it. We got a newsletter the other day, that was telling people that if someone riding or leading an animal and they raise their hand for a driver to slow down or stop, then it's the law that they have to. Well I have had to do it a few times and even then some people didn't even stop.

I need to get a camera so I can get pictures of people's license plates.