Cellphone video captured a startling sight in Manhattan last week when a runaway horse carriage raced into traffic.
The video shared by NYCLASS on social media shows the driver-less horse carriage heading into traffic on Sixth Avenue, then crashing into several cars. The incident happened last Thursday.
TWU Local 100, the union representing horse carriage drivers, said the incident “falls far short of our standards.”
According to the union, a quick-moving delivery driver passing by may have startled the horse, causing the animal to take off from Central Park down Sixth Avenue. The driver had been standing near the horse.
“The union notified the Health Department, which is the lead regulatory agency in terms of city oversight, when this incident happened on Thursday. The union is now evaluating what internal actions will be taken regarding this individual driver,” TWU Local 100 Administrative Vice President Alexander Kemp said in a statement.
The use of horses to pull carriages through Central Park has been a hotly contested issue for some time. Animal advocates have called for the City Council to take up a ban and argue the horses are put in danger by operating in Manhattan.
“These violent incidents keep happening because forcing horses attached to carriages into chaotic city streets is fundamentally incompatible with their nature,” Edita Birnkrant, executive director of NYCLASS, said in a statement.
The union representative acknowledged the longstanding effort by groups to ban carriage horses.
“It’s time to turn the page and come together to improve even further the good care the horses currently receive while also protecting carriage-driver jobs that enable an overwhelmingly immigrant workforce to put food on the table and take care of their families,” Kemp said.
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