Hi-vis paint for New Forest ponies?

Nah...Compulsory Pony Lanes is the answer....and hit the arrogant animals with on-the-spot fines when they don't use 'em.

I'd like them to paint the cows too. Even with my powerful front light I came unnervingly close to hitting one in the depths of night recently. Stealthy buggers.

It's the ultimate in victim-blaming - the ponies are doing nothing wrong and they're the ones being made to modify their appearance. The CDA should post marksmen and take out a few speeders, that would ginger up the driving loons a bit.

Law of unintended consequences:

1. Motorists think they've got more time to see the day-glo animals

2. Motorists then drive faster

3. Which leads to..

A better idea might be variable speed limits between daylight and nighttime, .e.g. 40 mph in the day and 30 mph night or in poor visibility. This technology is available. And a much stricter enforcement of the law.

I will destroy you.

"...doesn't do them any harm".

The problem is that the culture of shifting responsibility away from drivers DOES  exacerbate the potential of drivers to harm others on or near the road, including ponies.

As we say here: http://rdrf.org.uk/2013/10/31/hi-viz-for-cyclists-and-pedestrians-sensib... and , for some cases where the SMIDSY excuse is used here: http://rdrf.org.uk/2012/03/01/sorry-mate/

"Anything that helps protect the animals and doesn’t do them any harm has got to be worth a go."

Ban cars from the forest. Problem solved.

Solution is to release moose to roam with the ponies. Should quickly result on more careful drivers, as hitting a moose is not something drivers would care to repeat.

I drive across the Forest pretty much every day and have done for 6 years. The only factor in pony deaths is driving too fast for the conditions (or, more accurately, not being able to stop in the distance you can see to be clear).

The thing with ponies is, their main focus in life is grass and they spend most of their time standing still with their heads down eating it. They're not galloping across the road from nowhere - the only animal you'll have do that is deer - and they're not included in the casualty figures. For the record, 125 ponies, sheep, pigs, donkeys, and cows were killed or injured in 2015.

Getting back to grass, ponies have little awareness that they have an arse and as such you do find them munching on a verge whilst standing in the road. They also have no road sense - they will *walk* out in front of a car if they've set their mind on getting across to that uncropped grass just over there.

In my six years of driving here (20 miles a day with 5 months per year of dark commuting) I've had one near miss and that was at 30mph on a really shitty night. Had I been doing the speed limit (usually 40mph on the unfenced roads) there's no way I would have stopped in time. Of course, if you do 40mph you still get overtaken no matter what the conditions. The thing is, in daytime most of the long straight roads are perfectly safe at over 40mph - deer aren't on the move and all the livestock is busy eating. Most unfenced roads are across heathland and sightlines are good.

If anyone is interested in the cold hard facts behind this story there are accident figures going back to 1956 here

Proof that speed is the primary factor is clear. In 91 there were 182 fatalities, in 1990 after the introduction of the 40mph speed limit that figure dropped to 117 (it went back up the following year but has been tailing off ever since). Lowest on record was 2012 - 68 killed and its hovered around that range for years.

Have to wonder what the point of this scheme is - there are 5000 ponies on the Forest and for the last 4 years the fatality ratio has been around 0.75%.

Why don't the get them to wear hi viz tabards?  They won't wash off.

Or they could just make the drivers behave as if other life forms mattered.

Drive and cycle over Dartmoor frequently, however this is the first time I have hear of these scheme, certainly never spotted any paint on the ponies I came across. 

I thought all pony deaths in the New forest were cased by cyclists on sportives. I shocked to learn that it's in fact motorists casing the death of hounds  of ponys in the new forest. 

Maybe I miss the point, there is fashion out there, that has the same reflectivity of that bloody paint. 

But painting ponies is a bit crazy. After all "my morning" stag and myself get along just fine - so far - without the stag being painted. (Coming to think about it, I'm wearing high vis clothing and use Hope hubs... so maybe the cars need to wear high-vis paint!

Of course introducing speed calming measures would have no effect on the number of ponies killed would it.

Didn't they try something like this Scandinavia, too? (which is where Life Paint came from, cos cyclists and pedestrians are just like reindeer, aren't we?).  IIRC, it made no difference whatsoever to animal fatilities or to collisions between said animals and motor vehicles (or, presumably, for that matter, bicycles).

(Mind you, if we're going to start spray painting livestock, can we please get people to spray paint their dogs that they insist on walking off the lead along one of my local cycle paths...).

Obviously the ponies should also be wearing helmets, otherwise it's just silly.