animals Article Public Roads as Places of Interspecies Conflict: A Study of Horse-Human Interactions on UK Roads and Impacts on Equine Exercise Danica Pollard 1,* and Tamzin Furtado 2 1 Safety Department, The British Horse Society, Abbey Park, Stareton, Kenilworth, Warwickshire CV8 2XZ, UK 2 Institute of Infection, Veterinary and Ecological Sciences, University of Liverpool, Leahurst Campus, Neston CH64 7TE, UK;
[email protected] * Correspondence:
[email protected]; Tel.: +44-2476-840516 Simple Summary: The risk posed by traffic likely impacts equestrians’ decisions around road use, potentially limiting or preventing exercise sessions. This study identifies how frequently equestrians use roads and what impacts their ability to do so. Over 6000 UK equestrians completed an online questionnaire about their exercise behaviours, road use and experiences of road-related incidents. Most equestrians use roads regularly. In the previous year, 68% of equestrians experienced a near- miss and 6% an injury-causing incident. Our results found that regional differences in road use and near-miss experiences coincided with off-road route availability. Road use was associated with the proximity of off-road routes, and road-using equestrians covered longer distances. Near-misses were associated with increasing frequency of weekly road use. Younger equestrians were more likely to use roads, but also to experience near-misses. Injury-causing incidents were associated with increasing road-use anxiety or ceasing to use roads (due to strong feelings of danger, compromised safety and conflict with other road users), the proximity of off-road routes, having a near-miss and Citation: Pollard, D.; Furtado, T.