Following an incident on the M3 on Friday morning which resulted in the death of five animals, Aisling Meehan examines the legal issues of livestock on road.

While the incident on Friday was an accident and the circumstances are different, farmers are entitled in general to drive their animals on the public road. Part V of the Road Traffic General Bye-Laws 1964 deals with animals on public roads.

Section 30 deals with a driver’s duty when passing animals and provides that a driver meeting or overtaking an animal on a road shall either reduce speed or halt the vehicle, if requested to do so by a person in charge of the animal.

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As the person in charge of the animals, the farmer is entitled to stop vehicles and keep them behind the animals moving along the road. Section 31 deals with the duties of the drover and provides that the person in charge of an animal, which is being driven along or on to a road, shall take all reasonable steps to ensure that the animal does not obstruct other traffic or pedestrians.

This does not necessarily mean that farmers have to allow traffic to overtake the animals, but it does require the farmer not to intentionally obstruct traffic or pedestrians.

The person in charge of the animals must ensure that traffic overtaking the animals has room to do so safely; if there is not enough room, the drover should be entitled to stop the traffic overtaking the animals. It is often thought prudent not to allow traffic to overtake the animals if the road is populated with animals to such an extent that there is no avenue for vehicles to pass safely. However, this will depend on the circumstances such as the distance the animals will travel on the road and, also, the number of animals being moved.

Poor light

Further, the legislation provides that during lighting up hours a person in charge of animals on a road shall carry a lamp showing a white light visible for a reasonable distance in the direction of which the animals are travelling and a red light visible for a reasonable distance in the opposite direction. Lighting up hours are defined as the period beginning a half-hour after sunset on any day and ending a half-hour before sunrise the next day.

Practical advice

Animals which are being driven on a public road should always be accompanied by at least two people – one person at the front of the animals and one person at the back.

The more animals that are taken on the road, the more persons that are required to gain control of the animals if a drover is to comply with his/her duty of care under the law. Each person should be well positioned to warn oncoming traffic as to the presence of animals on the road by way of flag-waving or hand signals or warning light, or a combination of all three.

Duty on local authority

Section 13 of the Roads Act 1993 places a specific obligation on the road authority to maintain public roads. It is an offence to permit dung or urine from an animal to be left on a public road where this is a hazard to persons using the public road in the absence of the consent or lawful authority of the road authority.