Horses on roads: the law, the Highway Code and the incident figures.

The UK's Highway Code itself points riders to formal road-safety training, and this page does not replace it. It reports the law, the code and the published incident figures, each with its source and date. Any injury in a road incident needs medical care, and any injured horse needs a vet.

UK law

The 1990 Act: children under 14

The Horses (Protective Headgear for Young Riders) Act 1990 (chapter 25, Royal Assent 13 July 1990) makes it an offence to cause or permit a child under 14 to ride a horse on a road without approved protective headgear, with the standard set by regulations. Liability falls on those responsible for the child, the horse's owner, anyone with custody of the horse, and an employer directing the child's work. A search summary of the legislation site gives 30 June 1992 for section 1 coming fully into force, and says the Act defines "road" to exclude footpaths and bridleways; we did not read those parts directly.

The Highway Code

The Highway Code's page of rules about animals was first published on 1 October 2015 and last updated on 22 October 2025. Rules 49 to 55 cover horse riders. Rules 49 and 54 cite legislation and use the word MUST; most of the other horse-rider rules are advice rather than legal requirements.

• Rule 49 states that children under 14 MUST wear a compliant, securely fastened helmet, citing the 1990 Act and its 1992 Regulations. It advises other riders to do the same, and exempts a Sikh child wearing a turban.
• Rule 52 recommends the British Horse Society's Ride Safe Award to inexperienced or returning riders as a foundation for riding on roads.
• Rule 54 states that riders MUST NOT take a horse onto a footpath or pavement, citing the Highways Act 1835 (section 72) and the Road Traffic Regulation Act 1984 (section 129(5)).

The BHS says that from 1 September 2026 its Ride Safe (Silver) Challenge Award is no longer required for the Stage 1 Ride qualification and becomes an entry requirement before booking a Stage 2 Ride assessment, and that the change is not retrospective.

The 2022 changes

The BHS states that its Dead Slow messaging was written into the Highway Code from 29 January 2022, including advice about feral and semi-feral ponies on Exmoor, Dartmoor and in the New Forest, and that it worked with Cycling UK, DVSA, Living Streets and the Department for Transport on the changes. Secondary sources describe a new hierarchy of road users (Rule H1) and new wording in Rule 215 on passing horses; we did not read those rules on GOV.UK, so their exact wording is not given here.

The BHS campaign and its figures

The BHS launched its Dead Slow campaign in 2016. Its messages to drivers are a maximum of 10 mph, no horn or revving, passing wide and slow with at least 2 metres where possible, and driving slowly away. The BHS records road incidents reported to it through its Horse i app and website, and asks for every incident and near miss to be reported and for footage to go to the police.

• The BHS says 2025's total was 10 percent below 2024, while horse deaths rose by one and human injuries by 8 percent.
• Recorded horse deaths rose from 21 in 2016 to 59 in 2025, an increase the BHS puts at 180 percent, and reported incidents peaked at 3,552 in 2022.
• In 2025, 22 percent of riders reporting to the BHS described road rage or abuse, against 33 percent for 2024 and 40 percent in 2016.
• BHS Director of Safety Alan Hiscox said of the 2025 figures that 59 horses lost in one year is 59 too many.

Two measures from the same data

For 2025 the BHS reports that 78 percent of incidents involved a driver passing too closely and 83 percent a vehicle passing too quickly, the highest share for speed since 2017. The Dead Slow page leads with the 83 percent figure for speed, and the ten-year release leads with 78 percent for passing too closely. These are two separate measures, so an incident can count in both.

What the figures do not cover

The BHS figures include only incidents reported to it. The Department for Transport's road casualty series is based mainly on police reports, and a search summary of it notes that many non-fatal casualties never reach the police. A search summary of Horse and Hound gives a DfT-sourced count of 96 horse-rider casualties of all severities in 2016, far below the BHS's own counts; we could not read the DfT horse-rider breakdown, so that comparison is unconfirmed. The two systems collect different incidents, and neither is a complete count. A BHS reporting awareness study from 2021 makes a similar argument, but we could not read the document.

United States: Florida's 2009 law

Florida's SB 68 of 2009, the Nicole Hornstein Act, created section 773.06 of the Florida Statutes. The bill requires riders under 16 to wear a fitted, secured helmet meeting current ASTM standards on public roads, rights of way, public trails, parks and other public property. It bars anyone renting or leasing a horse to a rider under 16 from doing so without a compliant helmet, makes violations noncriminal, and exempts traditional non-helmet events such as rodeos and parades, private land and agricultural work. Governor Charlie Crist signed it in June 2009; NBC Miami reported that the campaign followed the 2006 death of 12-year-old Nicole Hornstein, who was not wearing a helmet. We read the bill, not the enacted statute, so the current wording is unconfirmed. We found no official text for other states' helmet laws.

For what the injury studies show beyond roads, see what the injury data shows; for competition helmet rules, see helmet rules and history.