Last week鈥檚 accident involving a horse-drawn carriage should not stampede Victoria city council into banning such modes of transportation.
Two people suffered minor injuries Friday when a horse was spooked and bolted into the oncoming lane. It is not something to be casually dismissed, but buses, trucks, cars and bicycles cause injuries almost daily, and we haven鈥檛 banned those.
Victoria has one or two incidents like this each year, and each of those incidents results in pressure on municipal officials to ban horse-drawn carriages.
Horses have been on Victoria鈥檚 streets since European settlers first came to the Island. They were largely displaced by motorized transport for understandable reasons, but it would be sad to see them pushed off city streets entirely. They are a laid-back link to the past, a glimpse of what life was like before the roar of motors dominated the streets.
Some see using animals as beasts of burden as a form of slavery, but horses these days are well fed, loved and cared for. Pulling a rubber-tired carriage along a paved road is light work for a Clydesdale bred to pull plows and freight wagons.
Certainly, the horses should be inspected regularly to ensure they are treated properly and are in good health, but if they are shod correctly, harnessed properly and handled by well-trained drivers, the risk to animals and people is low.
Care must be taken by drivers of both horses and vehicles to ensure safety, but it would be a shame to banish horses from our streets. That would mean the cars have won.
