A driver caught on camera skidding past a rider at an “extraordinarily” high speed has been spoken to by police.
Vikki Fowler was metres away from the entrance to the gallops she was heading towards in Lancashire when the car sped past leaving little room on Saturday (9 March).
Footage from her helmet camera, which has been viewed hundreds of thousands of times since she posted it online, shows the black car approaching at speed round a corner, and catches the screech of tyres as it starts to skid.
“There’s no way of knowing what speed he was doing,” Vikki told H&H. “It’s national speed limit there, but he’d just come round an S-bend, he couldn’t see where he was going.”
Vikki said when the driver saw her, from about 300 yards away, he “slammed on his brakes”.
NB: Please be patient waiting for the facebook post containing the video to load below. If the video fails to load, click here to view
So today I could very possibly have died, Boo too. As well as this idiotic driver. That, or he could have been up on a…Posted by Vikki Fowler on Saturday, March 9, 2019
“He was drifting sideways. When he realised he was coming towards me, he put his foot down, got out of the drift and ended up wheelspinning and setting off even faster, right next to me.”
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Vikki said that, ironically, she was heading to the all-weather gallops to avoid riding on the road, but praised her 10-year-old Welsh section D Boo’s temperament.
“Luckily, he’s absolutely bombproof,” she said. “I don’t think many horses would have stood as still as he did; he didn’t move a muscle.
“I think we were both frozen to the spot, waiting to see if he was going to hit us.”
More frightening though, Vikki said, is the fact that had it been something wider, such as a tractor or lorry, on the corner, she does not believe the driver would have been able to avoid an accident.
“The road’s barely wide enough for two cars, let alone anything like that; he’d be dead,” she said.
“My horse is an absolute idiot most of the time; being good in traffic is one of his idiosyncrasies, and about 10m up the road, there was an upside-down bucket and he’d spooked sideways at it – there are so many ways the situation could have gone wrong, it’s terrifying.”
Vikki reported the incident to police and submitted the footage – from a camera she had only had since Christmas, and which she does not always wear.
Lancashire Police confirmed officers had given the driver some words of advice.
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Eleanor is an experienced journalist who spent over eight years working for local and national newspapers before joining H&H as news editor in March 2016. Passionate about equine welfare and exposing the truth, Eleanor has reported on all aspects of the industry, from Brexit to anti-bullying campaigns, and from dressage rules to mules. Her sport of choice is showjumping, in which she competes her own horses, and she also enjoys reporting at local jumping shows through to international championships.
