Farmer tells drivers to slow down after cow deaths

Michelle stands in a field with grass in the background. Cows are visible behind her in the blurred background. Michelle is wearing a red shirt and has brown hair.

Michelle Bowsher says her family fear their phone ringing late at night with bad news about her cows

Alex Meakin

A farmer has urged drivers to slow down after years of seeing her cows being hit and killed.

More than 100 cattle graze on Dorney Common - which has a 60mph road through the middle of it - between Dorney in Buckinghamshire and Eton Wick in Berkshire.

Michelle Bowsher said the 1.1km-stretch (0.7 miles) has cattle grids at both ends but other warning signs were often ignored.

Dorney Parish Council said 31 cows have been killed on the common between 2009 and 2023.

The picture shows a road with a warning sign next to it. The triangular warning sign with a red outline and a white centre with a black silhouette of a cow in it is to the right of a strip of tarmac to the left. On both sides of the road is lush green grass.

A road sign at Dorney Common warns motorists that cattle are in the area

The animals graze between the end of March and the end of October every year.

Buckinghamshire Council said it was "aware of this issue, which is clearly concerning" and was "actively monitoring speeds" at the site to see if the speed limit needed to be reduced.

A fundraising campaign to buy reflective collars to improve the cattle's visibility at night has raised more than £2,000.

Ms Bowsher, whose farm owns almost all the cows on the common, said: "[Drivers] quite often go over 60mph... At night-time it's pitch black, there's no light at all... they will graze all of [the common] day and night.

"...people hit them, leave them with pretty horrific injuries [and] sometimes just drive off.

"...we've been putting cows out on this common since, I think, the 1940s. But with increased traffic, more and more people have got cars, it didn't used to be such a risk.

"We love our cows. We don't like to see them in that state, injured and just left lying there.."

She urged drivers to: "Go slowly, drive slowly, be careful, the cows have no road sense they will step out in front of you. Just take your time.

"If you do hit a cow it will do an awful lot of damage to a car, it will probably write it off. I don't want you to be injured, I want people to be safe but I want my cows to be safe."

The image shows cows on Dorney common. The sun is shining, the grass is green, the cows are eating grass.

Cows graze on the common between the end of March and the end of October every year

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