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Your help needed: bus campaign to help keep horses and riders safer on the roads

Eleanor Jones Eleanor Jones

    • Campaigners trying to improve the safety of horses and riders on the roads are raising funds to display awareness messages on the back of buses.

    Debbie Smith, creator of the Pass Wide and Slow (PWAS) campaign, has set up a GoFundMe page. She hopes to reach £5,000, which would mean the message would be displayed on 30 vehicles across the country.

    Debbie told H&H the aim is, as always with the campaign, to educate drivers on the appropriate and safe way to pass horses. The graphic will display the new 10mph limit and minimum 2m distance, as set out in changes to the Highway Code, which came into force a year ago.

    “There will always be some people who don’t want horses on the roads and we won’t get through to them but a lot of people are scared of passing horses, or don’t know how to,” Debbie said. “We hope this will help.”

    Donate to the fundraiser

    Debbie said the idea had been floating around for a while but she was not keen on the responsibility of handling other people’s money.

    “But we did a poll on the PWAS Facebook group and people seemed to like the idea,” she said. “So I said we could do a GoFundMe, then all the money is in a controlled area, and if we don’t raise enough, it can go back to the people who gave it; it’s safe.”

    Debbie has secured approval from a bus company to run the message.

    “There will be five buses, spread out in each of six areas,” she said. “We’re keeping the message simple, so hopefully people driving behind the buses will think ‘10mph, 2m, I can do that’. We’ve agreed a price with the bus company so we can’t get too excited but we’re ready to go once we raise the money. The group has 40,000 members on Facebook and if everyone donated £1, we could do this six times over.”

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    Eleanor Jones
    Eleanor Jones

    H&H news editor
    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.
    Eleanor Jones

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