A WIDER AUDIENCE

FORMER Top Gear presenter

Chris Goffey has been promoting responsible driving around riders by writing in the BHS magazine as well as motoring titles.

“I think [the BHS] has done a very good job with its Dead Slow campaign,” he said. “15mph is a nice thing to try and remember for people who are not in our world. At

[that speed] you can stop dead very quickly or you can swerve a bit more.

“But how do you try to get that message across to the wilder members of the motoring fraternity?

“The one thing I have put over, which has gone out in several magazines — Piston Heads was one and some of the performance car titles — was that it’s great fun driving fast, but if you do come round a country bend fast and you did meet a horse then [the consequences can be] very sad for the horse and the rider.

“If you do hit a horse hard you’re going to sweep its legs away, it weighs half a tonne, and it’s going to come up the bonnet and it’s going to come through the windscreen. Your air bag and seatbelt won’t help you a lot and if it comes through the windscreen it will kill you.

“As car design progresses cars are getting very safe, people are starting to rely on object recognition in the car technology, on their engine, brakes, stability control. But I think the mental image of the body of a horse sliding up your bonnet and smashing through your windscreen is quite a strong one, and if we can somehow get that message into younger minds it might do quite a lot of good.”