New Forest pony time. The rest of the year, the lives of the ponies are relatively unhindered unless they need veterinary attention or additional feeding, when they are usually taken off the Forest. The open nature of the New Forest means that ponies are able to wander onto roads. The ponies actually have right of way over vehicles and many wear reflective collars in an effort to reduce traffic fatalities, but despite this, many ponies, along with commoners' cattle, pigs, and donkeys are killed or injured in road traffic accidents every year. Human interaction with ponies is also a problem; well meaning but
Road traffic safety rural car occupant casualties are in cars that hit roadside objects, such as trees. Improvements in driver training and safety features for rural roads are hoped to reduce this statistic. The number of designated traffic officers in the UK fell from 15–20% of police force strength in 1966 to seven per cent of force strength in 1998, and between 1999 and 2004 by 21%. It is an item of debate whether the reduction in traffic accidents per 100 million miles driven over this time has been due to robotic enforcement. In the United States, roads are not government-rated, for media-releases