Great News! Rome Bans Horse-Drawn Carriage Rides on City Streets
Horses will no longer be forced to negotiate busy roads while hauling heavy loads for human amusement in Rome, which has banned horse-drawn carriage rides from its streets.
Commenting on the ban, Rome’s mayor, Virginia Raggi, said, “You will never again see tired horses on the streets of the city during the hottest hours of the summer months, because we have expressly forbidden it.”
A Terrified Horse on a Busy Street Is Dangerous, Not Romantic
With the ban, city authorities acknowledge that busy streets are no place for sensitive horses, who often get spooked in traffic, leading to many injuries to horses or humans – and sometimes even deaths. In a split second, a horse can go from appearing calm and sedate to crashing blindly down the street in a panic.
Horses forced to pull carriages are often so debilitated they collapse, and some die in the street from exhaustion.
Aisha collapsed because she was forced to haul heavy carriages full of tourists around New York. She never got back up. 😢 R.I.P. Aisha.
RT if you would NEVER take a horse carriage ride.pic.twitter.com/i8zovdw9pj
— PETA UK (@PETAUK) March 3, 2020
This is especially common in the scorching summer sun, when animals can become overheated and dehydrated. Before this ban, horses were forced to pull carriages through the streets of Rome in temperatures reaching heights of 40 degrees.
Don’t Be Taken for a Ride
Horses are individuals with their own needs and desires who shouldn’t be exploited for tourism. These sensitive, social animals naturally live in herds – and being forced to haul carriages filled with humans is completely unnatural to them.
If you’re a tourist in need of transportation to explore a city, choose a human-powered pedicab, rent a bike from a bike-share service, or simply walk.
What You Can Do for Horses
Rome joins other cities that have already banned horse-drawn carriage rides from the streets, such as Oxford, Barcelona, New Delhi, and Tel Aviv. And cities such as London, Paris, and Toronto no longer issue licences for horse-drawn tourist carriages.
On Mallorca, however, dozens of exhausted horses are still forced to pull carriages laden with tourists through the busy streets. Please urge the mayors of Alcúdia, Palma, and Sant Llorenç des Cardassar to ban horse-drawn carriages and switch to using electric tourist vehicles instead:
