A rider who was horrified by the lack of information on passing horses safely in HGV driver training has created a video – which has been been picked up by companies and media locally and across the country.
Verity Perry made her video, titled ‘Pass horses safely: what every road user needs to know” about six weeks ago, but it has already been put into use by driver training providers.
The clip has also featured on local BBC news and a county councillor has promised to share it with bin lorry and bus drivers.
“It’s grown its own legs!” Verity told H&H, adding that the video has been viewed thousands of times on her social media. “It seems to have been better received than I thought.”
Verity explained that she decided to take her HGV test late last year as there are few shows near her home in Penzance. She had to take her theory test the week before the training, so “I took the revision very seriously!”
“I had to pass the theory, so I went through literally thousands and thousands of videos, test questions – and there was so little about horse safety,” she said. “I came across maybe three or four questions; one was about what might spook a horse when you pass and the answer was the sound of the engine, when it’s more likely to be the air brakes.”
Verity added that there was also very little about passing horses in the practical training.
“If you’re an HGV driver, you have to have a CPC, the certificate of professional competence, and to keep that up to date, you have to have seven and a half hours’ training, every year,” she said. “So that’s every single HGV driver on our roads, who could get this information if I made a training video, more for drivers who probably don’t want to watch it!”
So in late March, on a nice day, Verity went for a ride on the roads and asked a friend to video her. She used the hacking footage, with voiceover explaining the issues, the Highway Code changes and British Horse Society stats on road incidents, as well as CCTV footage of a horrific collision involving a car and two horses in 2017.
She posted the video on her social media; her initial idea was to send the link in an email to all the haulier companies she could find in Cornwall.
“I didn’t even think about it going to CPCs to start with,” she said. “I thought I’d send it to all the hauliers in Cornwall but it’s really hard. You can’t just email Biffa or supermarket driver depots; they don’t have emails that laypeople like me can get to.
“So I emailed all the hauliers with an address in Cornwall, then all the equestrian organisations. But the more exciting thing was that one of my friends I do British Dressage teams with, her brother Richard Everitt who runs the CPC RE Consultancy and Training company. He test-drove it with his company and said of the 12 drivers he had on his online update course, only two of them knew what speed you should drive past a horse, which is slightly terrifying.”
Verity sent the video to Radio Cornwall and was interviewed on live radio, then it was picked up by BBC Spotlight and featured on television. She said a county councillor has also been sharing it to Biffa and bus drivers.
“She’s put it with the county council transport manager too; she’s getting it to people I can’t access as a layperson,” she said.
“I’m not a talented video maker or tech whizz but I did the best I could,” she said. “Someone could do a better job but we need to get the video out to people learning to drive.
“I had an app that supported me in my learning; it had the Highway Code, hazard perception and everything so if I could get it on an app – a lot of drivers don’t realise the Highway Code has changed.”
Verity said the video has had more than 11,000 views on Facebook, and the Spotlight segment more than 25,000.
“It’s there to be used as a tool,” she said. “I’ve signed things to say I don’t want to make any money out of it, that’s not what I did it for, but there’s a resource that I hope doesn’t sound patronising.
“I used quite a shocking video, where you see horses being hit, because I thought if it’s not shocking enough, people aren’t going to think. And some people have been really shocked; they just didn’t know. A lot of the blokes have said they were crying watching the horses get hit. I thought ‘Great, that’s what I want, to bring grown men to tears’!”
Verity said any sharing or awareness of the video will help; she has had great feedback from all the coverage, and she was grateful Radio Cornwall repeated the interview, which drivers would have heard on the road.
She said Mr Everett hopes to present the video at national hauliers’ conferences, to companies and those who provide CPC training nationwide.
“It has snowballed,” she said. “Every time I hear it, I cringe, hearing myself on video. But if it’s getting the message out – and it’s there as a resource to train drivers.”
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