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about time too

Almost 10,000 drivers caught speeding in New Forest animal death crackdown

Presumably a pony would stll die at 30mph? After all, they don't necessarily Stop, Look and Listen when they decide to cross the road.

So what IS the speed limit in the new forest? at DET implies, even
at a 20 mph impact a pony will likely still die from injuries...........to say nothing of deer, badgers etc.......and most are at twilight?

surely the better example would be some kind of hi vis attire for domestically/privately owned livestock..........although the stealth camera cash cow DOES have its advantages...........maybe providing some of the afore mentioned hi vis camouflage?

All of the livestock is privately owned.

Quite a few of the ponies and donkeys have hi-vis collars on - but these can come off, as is evident by the 'stash' my friend has on his fence, picked up whilst walking his dog.
Dartmoor owners have started painting their ponies with fluorescent paint.

I noticed yesterday, that on some stretches of road, they've cut the gorse back, to about 20ft from the road, so the animals aren't hidden behind it before crossing the road.

For those unaware classified New Forest roads (A35 A31 ) are mostly fenced which keeps cows, ponies etc from wandering around the roads. Sometimes they get through a hole in the fence and chaos ensues though the police have become pretty good at sorting things out without fatalies. They do this by stopping all traffic instantly until the animal is caught and tethered.

Elsewhere the animals go where they want unless stopped by a cattle grid. Ponies roll over cattle grids, deer jump over them. Longitudinal grids would fix the lycra cyclist problem but I digress.

Imposing a 40mph limit on all of the Forest ( 50 mph blanket limit already in force inc A roads ) and 20 mph on unclassified is under active consideration - a crash stop at 20 mph would result most likely in no collision or 10mph at point of impact. Moreover a 20mph limit would deter people from using Forest roads as rat runs.

Getting wild deer to wear a hi vis jacket is the sort of thing TopGear (original version) might dream up in an Elf 'n Safety episode. Badgers, Pigs? It has been tried for the ponies but a large jacket costs far too much, is easily damaged and too hot. Small bibs are practical for the pones but not seen by the idiot drivers :-( Forest commoners are not, by and large, flush with money.

Personally I would like to see a couple of packs of wolves brought in.

Some of the ponies wear fluorescent collars, not jackets, nor bibs!!
A few pigs wear them as well, for the short duration they're out.

A couple of the commoners don't do themselves or their stock any favours either. Dropping a small herd of cattle off at a crossroads, near housing or near fenced off wooded areas (where fences ensure they're on the road until they reach a moor) isn't ideal.

Why would you want a pack of wolves brought in, to clear the animals off the Forest?

almost 10,000 drivers caught...........does that mean around 250 got away?

yeah my hi vis was a bit tongue in cheek, but it was featured on Country file, fluorescent paint on loose animals.....

It doesn't say how many were serial offenders, nor how many were 'local' - to my mind, the worst offenders!

I suppose the wolves would clear up the carnage. :-S I had read about the flourescent paint Maggie mentions. A lot of drivers have no idea how to drive where there are horses/ponies on the road anywhere anyway. They go far too fast, accelerate by and drive much too close to them. They never seem to think it may be their first time on the road. :-S

At least if the speed limit is dropped some of the animals will have more time to move off the road, also the driver will have more chance of spotting the ones that don't and hopefully more collisions can be avoided.

The speed limit is 40mph, Annx,, but some people believe the are 'important' and drive faster. The problem has got worse since the incredible rise in house prices, resulting in fewer Foresters living there and more 'outsiders'.
'Outsiders' wanting a country house, but feeling the need to get from 'A' to 'B' as fast as possible :-(

Sadly, quite a few foals are killed in the spring.
My first dead foal was when I was 12. Dad and I were driving from Fawley to Lymington, and came upon a freshly killed foal and her utterly distraught mother.
Dad stopped the car and tried to calm the mare. It was heartbreaking - and I'm not the greatest fan of small horses/ponies!!
Shetland ponies - or Shoopies in Shetland dialect - are evil!
But I could feel for the mare.

Friend and I once came across a load of cows that were causing a tailback (I don't like cows, my granny had an evil one, only one in a herd of 12 (the rest were lovely) - she was called Princess, she was a right - cow), but we got out of the car and shooed them a quarter of a mile up the road to a moor. (I can only presume everyone in the tailback didn't like cows either!!) It was quicker than waiting for them to decide which way to go - and what a 'local' - like my friend and me, by proxy - would do!!!
Removing the blockage enables Mr or Mrs 'Important' to get where they need to be without putting their foot too hard on the accelerator!!

This has been a problem in the New Forest for years on end. Many moons ago my mother had a holiday bungalow in New Milton and as a learner driver I became very familiar with the roads both in and out of the Forest, and the ponies were always an additional consideration to be very wary of. Obviously there wasn't anything like the traffic in those days, but plenty of ponies so you had to be a on your toes!! If only people could just be persuaded to drive carefully with proper attention I'm sure the casualty figures could be far less. Living on Exmoor for twenty or so years produced the same problems both with ponies, deer and sheep! The rule of thumb was almost always, that where there was one there would be others following, that way you could manage to avoid accidents.
A couple of packs of wolves?! Presumably that's a tongue in cheek comment - I hope so!!!!

The New Forest hs not become a no go zone for those of ordinary means wanting to buy a house nor has it become the haunt of 10000 millionaires within the Forest cutaillage arrogantly breaking speed limits in their custom RR Evoques and such.

One of my rellies owns a house in Bank. He is not a city banker or anything like that! He has ordinary cars and spends more time on his trial bike than driving.

Most of the people done for speeding live / work locally and drove the usual mix of cars and vans. As somebody posted they just don;t seem to have the necessary awareness of animals. Six points and £ 100 fine might get them to suss it out.

Why not wolves? The reintroduction of wolves into Yellowstone National Park has been v successful and Grandmother wolf has not ( so far ) eaten Red Riding Hood. The colonisation of London by birds of prey has not caused any of the predicted mayhem but has made a dent in the pigeon population.

Wolves are very secretive and private creatures which could live in the Forest without most people being aware of it. The deer population right across the UK is completely out of control and culling is expensive. The forest pony population is also far greater than the grazing can support - most of them end up exported to Belgium returning as pet food etc. AFAICS the biggest problem in bringing back wolves is that they would get fat.

The Forest speed limit on A class roads is 50 mph (eg A35, A337) and the A31/A338 70mph. The A31 has a miserable accident record going back 50 years.

Not sure that tourists would relish the idea of a couple of packs of wolves or the people who live there. Secretive they maybe, feared they most certainly are! A holiday brochure that includes wolf packs ? Not sure that would be a goer!!!

Rollo, it all depends on what you call 'ordinary means'
This article was 5 years ago. I hope you aren't going to say prices gone down since then!!

http://www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/mortgageshome/article-2020237/Average-property-price-national-parks-nearly-100k-New-Forest-expensive.html

My 'driver' was brought up on the Forest - in rented accommodation.
We have a friend who bought a house in Boldre about 20 years ago - he got it for an 'average' price, as he'd been renting it, and the family wanted to get rid of it - and he was on 'ridiculous' wages.
My 'driver's' sister has a bungalow outside Lymington.
She and her husband paid peanuts for it - all on just his wages. Similar properties in the area are going for £400,000.

Driving/walking in the Rhinefield area last week, (we hadn't been in that area for years) we noticed the Keeper's cottage had been sold - that will be one less keeper on the Forest, one new 'incomer' and loads of money for the Parks Authority. A 'detached 3 bedroom cottage with land' isn't going to go for less than £300,000.
This is going on all over the Forest.

£ 300 is neither unaffordable nor out of the way for such a property.

It is prob. a bit steep outside of Greater London for a first buy but a systems analyst on a typical Hampshire salary of £ 60 K and his teacher wife on say £ 30 K would have no probs. Then there is plenty of cheaper property around Hythe, Fawley and so on.

The successful reintroduction of the wolf to the Yellowstone has not only been wonderful for the environment but has boosted upmarket tourism as well. Why not beavers too - they are veggies.

Polar bears are wild in Spitzbergen which is a v popular tourist destination despite them eating a teenager on a school trip ....

It can be far more dangerous to visit Alton Towers.

By not going for less than £300,000, I of course mean more.
'A typical Hampshire salary of £60K???
Where did you get that figure from? Once we take the gross overpayment of the 'leader' of HCC away, from the equation, the 'average' salary is half your guesstimate. This has the average wage for the few 'higher end' jobs in Hampshire:

http://www.payscale.com/research/UK/State=England%3A_Hampshire/Salary

Ex council houses in Hythe are going for more than £200,000 - and prices are even higher in Fawley!!

Hampshire is a prosperous county, really.

Here are some typical software jobs in Hampshire - real ones, not "surveys". I wish we could recruit experienced people for £ 30 K what a hoot.
http://goo.gl/OEBgJQ

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XUwUp-D_VV0

A Wilts and Dorset bus driver makes around £ 35K with overtime and bonus.

Even if the leader of HCC was paid a billion pounds per year it would only affect the average Hampshire salary by one or two thousand pounds. :-)

(Edit) It would put the council tax up though.

Yes, Rollo, those jobs exist - but not to the 'average' bod - and I hope you've noticed, the alary is, on the whole, less than the £60k you stated in your previous post.
As I said, and you chose to contradict, the New Forest is too expensive for 'locals' to buy houses there, it's being overrun with 'newcomers.

HENCE, the 'Commoners' are now instructing the people who CAN afford to buy houses, on the gentle art of 'Commoning'.
As your original report was from the 'Echo', it appears you missed this article:

http://www.bournemouthecho.co.uk/news/13898069.A_new_era__the_five_year___4_4m_scheme_that_will_improve_the_New_Forest/

There was a more detailed report on television, where people were shown by mentors how to release their ponies etc, and what they as Commoners were meant to do in regards to other livestock. The second comment at the very bottom just about sums up why 'newcomers' need to learn how to live on the Forest.