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With NYC Mayor Bill de Blasio failing to deliver on his campaign promise to ban horse-drawn carriages from the streets midtown Manhattan, animal advocates with Empty the Carriages have resumed the grass-roots effort to compel tourists to boycott carriage rides. Along Central Park South where tourists board the carriages, tensions are running higher than ever between the advocates and the drivers.

With many tourists opting out of carriage rides, the drivers have filed a lawsuit against the advocates in an effort to curb their impact. Among their demands is a 15 foot buffer zone that would prevent advocates from being able to interact with tourists contemplating a carriage ride.

A NYC horse-drawn carriage driver tears up an activist’s poster

For decades, animal advocates and other concerned NYers have campaigned, in the streets and at City Hall, to ban horse-drawn carriages on the grounds that the industry is inhumane and unsafe. When, in 2013, Mayoral candidate Bill de Blasio included a horse-drawn carriage ban in his campaign platform, the industry fought back with the help of the pro-carriage media, elected officials and actor Liam Neeson.

This 2006 accident in which a horse named Spotty died sparked the movement to ban horse-drawn carriages from Manhattan

Instead of working to fulfill his promise by building a case for a ban with lawmakers, the media and the public, the Mayor abandoned the very issue that helped catapult him to his Mayoral victory.

In the past two days, horses have spooked and crashed in Savannah, Santa Barbara and Belgium. Surveillance cameras in Savannah captured a spooked horse running wildly through the streets with passengers in the carriage. See video below. In Santa Barbara, the local paper reports that “two men were injured, one seriously, on Tuesday afternoon. . . For unknown reasons, the horses became scared and bolted, resulting in the driver losing control and the carriage overturning.”

https://youtu.be/yM7GqU-EcVg

No amount of reform or regulation can stop a horse from spooking and bolting, which is one of the many reasons why horse-drawn carriages should not operate in urban areas. To see a list of cities with active campaigns to ban horse-drawn carriages, please visit Horses Without Carriages International.