Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity Ugh­dar­ras Pàirc Nàiseanta a’ Mhon­aidh Ruaidh

Item 5 Appendix 4a 28 August 2026

Agenda item 5

Appendix 4a

2025/0109/DET

Rep­res­ent­a­tions — general

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The Brit­ish Horse Soci­ety Scotland

Pat­ron His Majesty The King

The Brit­ish Horse Soci­ety Scot­land Suite A3 Stirl­ing Agri­cul­tur­al Centre Stirl­ing FK9 4RN

Email catriona.​davies@​bhs.​org.​uk Web­site www​.bhs​.org​.uk Tel 02476 840749

Bring­ing horses and people together

14^th May 2025

By email to: planning@​cairngorms.​co.​uk; eplanning@​highland.​gov.​uk

Dear Sir/​Madam,

Re: 25/01207/FUL Form­a­tion of 3m wide 9km long segreg­ated NMU route/​path Land 130M SW Of Birch Cot­tage, Avie­lochan, Aviemore

The Brit­ish Horse Soci­ety (The BHS) rep­res­ents the interests of the 3.4 mil­lion people in the UK who ride or who drive horse-drawn vehicles and is the largest and most influ­en­tial eques­tri­an char­ity in the UK. The BHS is com­mit­ted to pro­mot­ing the interests of all eques­tri­ans and the well­being of horses and ponies through our work in edu­ca­tion, wel­fare, safety and access.

Out­door Access

Access to safe off-road rid­ing routes is vital to the health and well­being of horses and their riders. Under the terms of the Land Reform (Scot­land) Act 2003, eques­tri­ans have the same rights of access to the out­doors as oth­er non-motor­ised users, such as ped­es­tri­ans and cyc­lists. Eques­tri­an use should there­fore be included when plan­ning and design­ing routes for non-motor­ised users. Con­sid­er­ing eques­tri­ans in the early stages ensures that pro­jects like this are an oppor­tun­ity to pre­serve and improve access for all, rather than restrict it to cer­tain groups.

Act­ive Travel and Suit­able Infrastructure

Act­ive travel routes are often used by the pub­lic as recre­ation­al routes and are highly val­ued as such. The devel­op­ment of act­ive travel routes should not pre­vent or dis­cour­age recre­ation­al users, includ­ing eques­tri­ans, from exer­cising their access rights. In addi­tion, horses can be used for act­ive travel, and there are riders and car­riage drivers who do so, but eques­tri­ans are often not con­sidered when plan­ning act­ive travel routes. By choos­ing sur­faces and infra­struc­ture that are appro­pri­ate for horses, it is pos­sible to ensure that routes are suit­able for all to use, wheth­er their pur­pose is recre­ation or act­ive travel.

The Import­ance of Off-Road Riding

Most rid­ing acci­dents hap­pen on minor roads. With increas­ing num­bers of horses and riders seek­ing to access the coun­tryside, adequate access to off-road rid­ing should be a pri­or­ity, espe­cially in rur­al and semi-rur­al areas, like the Highlands.

I am there­fore very pleased to note that this route will be for the use of all non-motor­ised users, includ­ing eques­tri­ans. It is import­ant all sig­nage on the route reflects this. For example, shared use NMU signs should include a sym­bol for a horse rider, as well as sym­bols for ped­es­tri­ans and cyc­lists. This will indic­ate to all users that eques­tri­an use is per­mit­ted. An ideal sign is illus­trated below.

The Brit­ish Horse Soci­ety is an Appoin­ted Rep­res­ent­at­ive of South Essex Insur­ance Brokers Lim­ited who are author­ised and reg­u­lated by the Fin­an­cial Con­duct Author­ity. Registered Char­ity Nos. 210504 and SC038516. A com­pany lim­ited by guar­an­tee. Registered in Eng­land & Wales No. 444742

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[Image: A cir­cu­lar blue sign depict­ing sym­bols for a horse and rider, a ped­es­tri­an, and a cyc­list, indic­at­ing a shared route.]

Shared route for horses, ped­es­tri­ans and ped­al cycles only Depart­ment for Trans­port Guid­ance, Know your traffic signs, Bus and cycle signs and road markings

The sig­nal­ized cross­ing of the A95 at the pro­posed Gran­ish Round­about should be suit­able for eques­tri­an users. Eques­tri­ans can be included in a stand­ard pedestrian/​cyclist cross­ing by the addi­tion of a user con­trol for riders set back from the kerb. Wait­ing times should be as short as pos­sible to avoid horses becom­ing rest­less whilst wait­ing. The BHS is here to help and can provide prac­tic­al advice on minor adjust­ments to help make con­trolled cross­ing points safe and access­ible to eques­tri­an users. I have enclosed our ​“Advice on road cross­ings and includ­ing eques­tri­ans”.

The applic­ant notes that one sec­tion of the route the NMU is shared with vehicu­lar traffic at the exist­ing rail­way under­pass and that fen­cing and gat­ing arrange­ments will be developed to reduce the risk to NMU users. These arrange­ments should be fully access­ible to eques­tri­ans. Struc­tures that are not access­ible to horses, such as kiss­ing gates, should be avoided.

North of the exist­ing under­pass, there is a short sec­tion where the route runs along a nar­row strip of land between the High­land Main­line Rail­way and the A95. There is a risk that a horse startled by a passing train could shy into traffic on the A95. Whilst we acknow­ledge that cur­rent ​“Design Stand­ards do not require the pro­vi­sion of safety bar­ri­ers to sep­ar­ate NMU routes from car­riage­way” (Design and Access State­ment, sec­tion 5.5.4), at this loc­a­tion a bar­ri­er is needed to reduce the risk to road users on the A95 as well as horses and their riders. This bar­ri­er could be a stand­ard met­al vehicle bar­ri­er, or an earth embank­ment. Nat­ur­al veget­a­tion, such as a hedge or trees would also help divert a moment­ar­ily frightened horse away from the road.

The BHS is here to help and can provide guid­ance on suit­able infra­struc­ture to accom­mod­ate eques­tri­ans and oth­er access takers. We would be very will­ing to work with the applic­ant on these aspects.

Con­struc­tion Traffic Man­age­ment Plan (CTMP)

Eques­tri­an road users are classed as vul­ner­able in the High­way Code as they are more likely to be involved in a road acci­dent and more likely to suf­fer the worst con­sequences. Few riders access busy roads by choice (although the horse has as much right to be on pub­lic roads as cars, bikes and ped­es­tri­ans) – but they often have no oth­er way to access their safe off-road rid­ing. I note that ​“Pri­or to imple­ment­a­tion, the suc­cess­ful Con­tract­or will be required to sub­mit detailed traffic man­age­ment plans to the rel­ev­ant Road Author­ity, for approv­al.” (Aviemore to Car­rbridge Non-Motor­ised User (NMU) Route – Traffic Man­age­ment Plan, sec­tion 1.4).

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This doc­u­ment should include a clear plan of how all vul­ner­able road users, includ­ing eques­tri­ans, will be accom­mod­ated and their safety pri­or­it­ised along­side con­struc­tion traffic.

Again, The BHS is here to help and can provide advice on how the applic­ant can help keep eques­tri­ans safe on the road. We would be very will­ing to work with the applic­ant on this. I have enclosed a copy of our ​“Guid­ance to drivers of large vehicles” doc­u­ment.

The Horse and the Rur­al Economy

Scotland’s eques­tri­an industry is worth over £300 mil­lion to the Scot­tish eco­nomy annu­ally. This fig­ure excludes the value of the horse racing industry, which is worth a fur­ther £300 mil­lion. Eques­tri­an­ism is there­fore an import­ant part of the rur­al eco­nomy in rur­al areas like the High­lands. Recent joint research between SRUC and The BHS showed cur­rent trends in the sec­tor point to a con­tin­ued increase in horse num­bers and rid­ing activ­ity in all geo­graph­ic­al areas of Scot­land and across a wide cross sec­tion of soci­ety, lead­ing to growth in the sector.

A nation­al sur­vey of riders who had recently giv­en up their horse found that 27% of them had done so because they had lost access and had nowhere to ride. Fail­ing to accom­mod­ate horses on our loc­al path net­works may lead to riders being forced to give up their horses, which in turn may dam­age the loc­al economy.

I trust that the above inform­a­tion is of assist­ance. If you have any ques­tions or would like to dis­cuss the needs of eques­tri­ans fur­ther, please do con­tact me.

Kind regards,

Catri­ona Dav­ies Scot­land Access Officer The Brit­ish Horse Society

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The Brit­ish Horse Soci­ety Scotland

Guid­ance for Drivers of Large Vehicles

Horses are nat­ur­ally nervous of large vehicles, espe­cially if they do not often meet them. If they are very frightened, they can run away in pan­ic. Whilst their rider or car­riage driver will do all they can to pre­vent this, should it hap­pen, it could cause a ser­i­ous acci­dent for the horse and rider or car­riage driver and for oth­er road users.

The main factors which cause fear in horses are:

• Being approached by a large, mov­ing object, which may be unfa­mil­i­ar or intim­id­at­ing to them,
• Lack of space between them­selves and the vehicle,
• The noise of the vehicle, espe­cially air brakes,
• Pick­ing up on the anxi­ety of their rider or car­riage driver.

Horses have keen eye­sight and due to the pos­i­tion of their eyes on the sides of their head, can detect vehicles approach­ing from behind as well as ahead. They also have very sens­it­ive hear­ing and will detect an approach­ing vehicle, and begin to react, before their rider or car­riage driver.

How can you help?

When you meet a horse on the road:

• Slow down to 10mph or less and be pre­pared to stop if necessary.
• Be aware that the sound of your air brakes may spook a horse.
• If a horse shows signs of nervous­ness as you approach, stop, turn off your engine and allow them to move away. Don’t move off again until they are well clear of your vehicle.
• Pass wide and slow, when it is safe to do so – allow at least 2m between your vehicle and the horse, and drive away slowly.
• If you are approach­ing a horse on a nar­row road and wish to pass or over­take, slow down and give the rider or car­riage driver time to find a gate­way, layby or oth­er refuge to cre­ate suf­fi­cient space between the horse and your vehicle.
• Please be patient. Most riders and car­riage drivers will do their best to make way as quickly and safely as they can.
• The safest place for a rider or car­riage driver’s hands is on the reins, so they may only be able to nod their thanks to you, but please be assured, they will be very grate­ful for your consideration.

Thank you for help­ing to keep horses, and the people who care for them, safe.

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The Brit­ish Horse Society

Advice on Road cross­ings and includ­ing equestrians

The law and man­age­ment of pub­lic access rights vary widely between the four coun­tries of the United King­dom. Prac­tic­al ele­ments of the fol­low­ing advice apply in all of them but the leg­al require­ments in Scot­land and North­ern Ire­land may dif­fer from those in Eng­land and Wales.

More advice is avail­able on www​.bhs​.org​.uk/​a​c​c​e​s​s​a​dvice.

IMPORT­ANT This guid­ance is gen­er­al and does not aim to cov­er every vari­ation in cir­cum­stances. Where it is being relied upon, The Soci­ety strongly recom­mends seek­ing its advice spe­cif­ic to the site.

Con­tents

• Light-con­trolled crossings
• Wait­ing time
• Design and construction
• Examples of non-stand­ard light-con­trolled crossings
• Warn­ing signs
• Join­ing a road
• Sight­lines
• Cor­rals or staggered barriers
• Obstruc­tions and barriers
• Trunk roads and dual carriageways

Routes used by eques­tri­ans include bri­dle­ways, byways, unsur­faced unclas­si­fied roads, quiet lanes, per­missive paths, com­mons and some pub­lic open space. These very rarely form a coher­ent net­work, so riders and car­riage-drivers have no choice but to use busy roads, pre­dom­in­antly used by motor traffic, to reach them. The fol­low­ing advice is refer­ring to busy or main roads, which eques­tri­ans will avoid trav­el­ling along if at all pos­sible, unless there is pro­vi­sion for them with­in the verge or oth­er­wise off the main car­riage­way, but will need to cross them, oth­er­wise the road is a com­plete bar­ri­er to a journey.

An under­pass or bridge are the ideal for cross­ing a busy road but too fre­quently are imprac­tic­al and an at-grade cross­ing is the only option, in which case, it may need to be sig­nal-con­trolled so users have the chance to cross.

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May-25

At-grade road crossings

Light-con­trolled crossings

Light-con­trolled cross­ings are the best means of improv­ing safety for cross­ing roads at-grade. Where new roads are planned, the Brit­ish Horse Soci­ety recom­mends con­struc­tion of under­passes where feas­ible as first choice.

Light-con­trolled cross­ings are user-oper­ated by a press-but­ton con­trol, sensor or Bluetooth app which changes ​‘traffic lights’ to stop road traffic while users cross.

The stand­ard design for a multi-user¹ light-con­trolled cross­ing in the government’s guid­ance segreg­ates eques­tri­ans from cyc­lists and ped­es­tri­ans by hav­ing two par­al­lel cross­ings (some­times called a ​‘Pegas­us’ cross­ing, like a ped­es­tri­an ​‘Pel­ic­an’ cross­ing). This fre­quently means that a cross­ing which includes riders is refused because of insuf­fi­cient space and doubled cost, res­ult­ing in a fright­en­ing num­ber of cross­ings used with horses where ped­es­tri­ans and cyc­lists have a pro­tec­ted cross­ing, but eques­tri­ans are forced to risk the uncon­trolled traffic to cross or are pre­ven­ted from cross­ing. This is highly dis­crim­in­at­ory and a situ­ation which can be changed at rel­at­ively low cost.

Con­flict between dif­fer­ent users while wait­ing or cross­ing is the reas­on giv­en for a dual cross­ing, how­ever, evid­ence to jus­ti­fy it has not been seen by the BHS and few sites are likely to have a level of traffic where segreg­a­tion is jus­ti­fied. For instance, riders would avoid peak periods,

For the major­ity of sites, riders can be included in a stand­ard ped­es­tri­an-cyc­list cross­ing by a simple addi­tion of a user-con­trol for riders set back from the kerb with­in easy reach of a rider’s hand (1.7 – 2m). This pro­vi­sion enables eques­tri­ans to cross a road in safety. Con­flict with oth­er cross­ing users is unlikely and avoid­able, as on all bri­dle­ways and byways, by adopt­ing the basic high­way prin­ciple of con­sid­er­a­tion and ​‘giv­ing way’ to oth­er users as appro­pri­ate. The risk of con­flict is far less than the risk to riders from hav­ing to cross without con­trol of the motor traffic.

The Soci­ety sug­gests options depend­ent on the site and num­ber of non-motor­ised users using the cross­ing at any one time. A heav­ily used site may require a DfT-stand­ard dual cross­ing, but for most sites, all users can be adequately served by a ped­es­tri­an cross­ing plus a con­trol at rider’s hand height (1.7 – 2m) set back from the road either:

1. Where a bri­dle­way or byway meets the road cross­ing, the user-con­trol for riders is sited along the bridleway/​byway 5 – 6 metres back from the kerb, or

2. With addi­tion­al user-con­trol on a pole at the oppos­ite side of a ​‘foot­way’ from the kerb so a rid­den horse is as far as pos­sible from the traffic while a rider oper­ates the control

¹ Ped­es­tri­an (includ­ing with mobil­ity aid), horse-rider, cyclist

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May-25

At-grade road crossings

In 2, the addi­tion­al pole can also bene­fit any user, in being a little fur­ther from motor noise and pol­lu­tion, and feel­ing safer. There is par­tic­u­lar advant­age for those with a push­chair, wheel­chair, mobil­ity scoot­er, recum­bent cycle, tan­dem or cargo bike, who are not well-served by the stand­ard kerb­side pole place­ment. A lower con­trol for them can be installed below that at rider’s height, thereby provid­ing for all users in safety.

Lights can be oper­ated by sensor or by Bluetooth devices to accom­mod­ate users (developed for users with dis­ab­il­it­ies but extend­able to all) without them need­ing to manu­ally oper­ate a con­trol. A small device is fit­ted to the con­trol box (ret­ro­spect­ive or new install­a­tion) and linked to a sensor or a phone app (which is advert­ised to users) to activ­ate the call. This option avoids the need for an addi­tion­al pole and the stand­ard kerb loc­a­tion of a single pole may work for all users. In 2022, the cost of the device was around £1,000; an addi­tion­al pole and con­trol box set back from the kerb was £10,000.

Stand­ard ped­es­tri­an cross­ings require tact­ile pav­ing. Tact­ile pav­ing rarely presents a prob­lem to horses in a small area (as found at a cross­ing) so is not a con­straint on includ­ing horse-riders.

Wait­ing time

The wait­ing peri­od between press­ing the but­ton and lights chan­ging to stop the traffic is of primary import­ance for riders as it should be as short as pos­sible to avoid horses becom­ing rest­less while wait­ing. This is the primary reas­on for set­ting call con­trols well back from the kerb, so that traffic halts as a rider reaches the crossing.

On a dual car­riage­way where it is inap­pro­pri­ate to halt both car­riage­ways sim­ul­tan­eously, the Soci­ety strongly recom­mends that con­trol­ler con­fig­ur­a­tion con­di­tion­ing uses ​‘call for­ward­ing’ to halt the traffic on the far car­riage­way as the rider reaches the cent­ral reser­va­tion, so horses are not wait­ing in the centre and a rider is not need­ing to manu­ally oper­ate anoth­er con­trol, and that the near car­riage­way traffic is not released until horses have left the cent­ral reser­va­tion. The aim should always be to avoid:

• wait­ing in cent­ral reser­va­tions, where horse and rider are at greatest risk because of the unpleas­ant environment;
• tak­ing a hand from the horse to press a but­ton, which is a pre­cise action tak­ing atten­tion of the rider from horse and envir­on­ment when it is least desir­able to do so;
• mov­ing traffic both in front and behind the horse.

Design and construction

Recom­mend­a­tions for cross­ing con­struc­tion and dimen­sions were pro­duced by the Depart­ment of Trans­port in Traffic Advice Leaf­let 03/03 Eques­tri­an Cross­ings. This advice

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May-25

At-grade road crossings

has been archived and not replaced but still appears widely assumed. The Soci­ety con­siders the spe­cific­a­tion to be over-com­plex for most sites and not to be relied upon.

It is replaced by The Design Manu­al for Roads and Bridges Volume 6 Sec­tion 5 CD 143 ​‘Design­ing for walk­ing, cyc­ling and horse-rid­ing’ which includes road cross­ings which segreg­ate riders, but the Soci­ety is work­ing with the manual’s revi­sion team to adjust that spe­cific­a­tion as it has been accep­ted as overly pre­script­ive in many circumstances.

The DMRB is a guide for major roads, it does not need to be and should not be applied to every road. High­way author­it­ies may act at their dis­cre­tion on non-trunk roads. If cer­tainty is required, a non-stand­ard cross­ing may be installed by seek­ing con­sent for vari­ation from the Depart­ment for Trans­port, but con­sent may not be neces­sary except on a trunk road.

The BHS emphas­ises the fol­low­ing points:

• Rider-oper­ated con­trols on a cross­ing should min­im­ise wait­ing time as far as pos­sible and may need to be set back from the kerb to reduce the wait.
• The required time at red for a cross­ing will depend on the width of the road being crossed. Walk­ing speed of a horse is between 2 and 4mph, sim­il­ar to a human, plus the horse’s response-to-aids time as well as the human’s response-to-sig­nal, so maybe two seconds to add. A rider is likely to be wait­ing fur­ther from the kerb than a ped­es­tri­an, so the extra two or three metres must be included in the length of ground to cover.
• Wait­ing pens/​corrals are not always neces­sary and should be con­sidered by site, depend­ent on speed of road traffic and incid­ence of mul­tiple users wait­ing to cross.
• Fen­cing around wait­ing areas at a cross­ing in rur­al areas is likely to only be neces­sary if there is a drop or some oth­er haz­ard bey­ond it.
• Wait­ing in the middle of a dual car­riage­way should be avoided. The centre of the dual car­riage­way is a very hos­tile envir­on­ment which most horses and riders will find dis­turb­ing and where it may be too chal­len­ging to reach for a user-con­trol or wait for lights to change. Traffic should be hal­ted on both car­riage­ways to allow a rider to com­plete the cross­ing without paus­ing, wheth­er both car­riage­ways at once or by ​‘call for­ward­ing’ so the far car­riage­way comes to halt before the rider reaches it. It is also recom­men­ded that traffic on the first car­riage­way is not released until after the rider has left the cent­ral reservation.
• TAL 03/03 (archived guid­ance) stated under Shared Use that, ​“it is usu­ally desir­able to provide a cyc­list and/​or ped­es­tri­an as well as an eques­tri­an cross­ing facil­ity”. This is excess­ive in most cir­cum­stances par­tic­u­larly as it almost doubles the costs of eques­tri­an cross­ings, mak­ing them pro­hib­it­ively expens­ive to install so leav­ing eques­tri­ans at risk or obstruc­ted by motor traffic.

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May-25

At-grade road crossings

• The Soci­ety has seen no evid­ence of prob­lems arising while mixed groups wait at cross­ings. Such cir­cum­stances are rare as peak use for ped­es­tri­ans and cyc­lists is unlikely to coin­cide with use by riders.

Examples of non-stand­ard light-con­trolled crossings

As stated under Light-con­trolled cross­ings, a ​‘stand­ard’ light-con­trolled cross­ing inclus­ive of horse riders com­prises two adja­cent cross­ings, one ped­es­tri­an-cyc­list, one horse-rider. The BHS makes the case above that this is unne­ces­sary at most sites and a single cross­ing for all users is adequate. The fol­low­ing are examples where a com­bined single cross­ing is installed.

• A1307 Bab­ra­ham, Cam­bridge­shire – ped­es­tri­an-cyc­list cross­ing with addi­tion­al con­trol at rider height, set back from the road and par­tial aggreg­ate-rub­ber­crumb sur­face 52.140149, 0.202662, streetview
• Gov­i­er Way, Severn Beach, Bris­tol – foot-cycle cross­ings mod­i­fied with addi­tion of set back high­er con­trol for riders at 1 streetview and 2 streetview.
• Hall Road, Would­ham, Kent – non-segreg­ated light con­trolled cross­ing with addi­tion­al rider height con­trol boxes 51.344800, 0.45677246 streetview
• A26 Isle of Man, Glen Dar­ragh Road, Glen Vine – ped­es­tri­an-cyc­list cross­ing with addi­tion­al con­trol at rider height, set back from the road 54.174440, ‑4.557071

The fol­low­ing have dual cross­ings but do not meet the DMRB stand­ard because of lack of space.

• A322 Guild­ford Road, Bis­ley, Sur­rey 51.3206488,-0.6303049 streetview
• A405 Brick­et Wood, Herts 51.7073674,-0.3808824 streetview

Warn­ing signs

Warn­ing signs to motor­ists of horses on the road (DfT P550.1) on the approach to a cross­ing should be con­sidered. These are par­tic­u­larly use­ful where sight­lines are poor for the cross­ing, or a light-con­trolled cross­ing is not appro­pri­ate because of res­ist­ance to redu­cing the speed lim­it to the required level for a light-con­trolled crossing.

User-respons­ive lit or flash­ing warn­ing signs which are activ­ated by the pres­ence of eques­tri­ans can be highly advant­age­ous in alert­ing motor­ists and avoid ​‘sign fatigue’. Such signs are activ­ated by eques­tri­ans on approach­ing the road by a sensor, Bluetooth sig­nal from an app or touch. Rather than the ​‘but­ton’ call of light-con­trolled cross­ings, which requires very pre­cise oper­a­tion, prob­ably at stand­still, a much broad­er mech­an­ism is pre­fer­rable for riders, for example a ​‘wand’ on top of the con­trol box which can be touched at while mov­ing at arm’s length or by a whip. The con­trol and signs must be set

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May-25

At-grade road crossings

back far enough that the signs are activ­ated to alert motor­ists so they have time to slow before reach­ing the cross­ing or sec­tion of road where eques­tri­ans are present. This must, of course, also coin­cide with the eques­tri­an reach­ing it.

Join­ing a road

Bri­dle­ways or byways end­ing at a main road should not have a gate with­in sev­er­al metres of the road edge, partly to ensure there is space well off the road for eques­tri­ans to wait, and partly so that eques­tri­ans are not nego­ti­at­ing a gate while at risk from motor traffic close by.

A gate is a haz­ard­ous manœuvre for a rider, even when the gate is well-main­tained and sited, and sadly, many road­side gates are far from well-main­tained or posi­tioned with flat level ground, no over­head haz­ards and plenty of man­oeuv­ring space. For­cing a rider to dis­mount is not the solu­tion as a rider has less con­trol on the ground and is at increased risk dur­ing mount­ing or dis­mount­ing, even if mount­ing blocks are provided.

A driver of a horsedrawn vehicle requires one per­son to be on foot to open the gate with space for horse and vehicle to wait so a byway meet­ing a road will need 6 metres between the road edge and any gate.

Sight­lines

It is some­times pos­sible to improve the cross­ing point through clear­ing veget­a­tion to increase sight­lines and provide suf­fi­cient space for horses to wait away from the kerb or sur­faced car­riage­way edge. A rider’s sight­line is great­er than a ped­es­tri­an in the same pos­i­tion because of their addi­tion­al height. This fact is often not taken into account and adequacy of sight­line is based on ped­es­tri­an height. Stand­ard sight­line recom­mend­a­tions for a rider are gen­er­ally high­er than for a ped­es­tri­an as tak­ing account of the addi­tion­al response time for horse-to-rider, not just rider-to-traffic but this may be mit­ig­ated by height, the recom­mend­a­tions do not appear to be evidence-