They were too "frightened'' to use the diaper devices, said their spokesperson Ms Deirdre Flood.

She revealed that insurance companies had warned they would refuse to insure buggy drivers if there was just one accident due to the diapers.

And, according to Ms Flood, there will be if they are forced to attach the lightweight vinyl devices to their horse and buggies to catch droppings.

The horses will "buck and bolt'' with the slightest irritation to their rear ends, the full-time carriage driver said. Most drivers were so fearful of the possible consequences -- smashed up carriages and personal injury included -- that they will not even try out the diapers on their horses.

"One or two drivers tried them and their horses either booked or kicked up their legs,'' she said.

They would rather risk prosecution than comply with the Corporation of Hamilton ordinance, she said.

"We are not wearing them! How can we?,'' Ms Flood charged. "Everyone will have to be prosecuted because we are standing by our convictions. You won't find any driver wearing a bag.

"Colonial (Insurance) has said if there is one accident attributed to the diapers on the horses our insurance is finished. The consequence of that is our livelihood is finished. We need insurance -- for the tourists' safety and there's always a chance of a car hitting one of us.'' Buggy driver of 16 years Mr. David Sousa added: "Each step my horse takes he'll get hit with the bag -- especially in windy weather like this -- and I won't be driving the carriage.'' But the Corporation is refusing to back down over the new law. It was officially passed yesterday and is set to be enforced on May 1 after it is written up, Corporation secretary Mr. Roger Sherratt said.

This will give the carriage drivers and owners, who were advised of the new law in January, a month "to get their acts together'', he said.

They will have to clean up their acts like their counterparts in the rest of the world who use diapers, he said. He did not buy carriage drivers' arguments that the proposed diapers would irritate their horses and cause an unpleasant odour for passengers.

The devices, which cost around $100, were in fact "nothing like a diaper'', Mr. Sherratt noted.

They were contraptions to collect droppings and could be attached to the carriage without touching the horse's bottom, he said.

He added it was entirely up to the drivers' discretion as to what brand of horse diaper they buy. "There are a dozen different types,'' he said.

Mr. Sherratt said the Corporation had been in talks with carriage drivers for more that two years over the problem. In that time they had contacted a number of cities where horse-drawn carriage rides were offered to find out how they tackled the problem of smelly and unsightly horse droppings being scattered through busy streets.

And it had found most of the cities around the world, from New York and New Orleans to Nassau and Prague, used horse diapers.

"We have received photographs of horses quite happily wearing the diapers from cities in at least three continents,'' he said. "We have very good reason to believe they are effective.'' There did not seem to be any other way to address the problem, he said.

And there had been "a lot of public pressure'' on the Corporation to address it -- from restaurant owners, city workers and the Opposition which claimed the droppings were a health hazard.

The Corporation wanted to work with the buggy drivers on the issue, Mr.

Sherratt said.

It planned on making available to them a power hose and a special bin to dump the droppings in.

But they must start using the diaper devices by May 1, he insisted.

However, Ms Flood said it was not that simple.

Horses in cities abroad where diapers were used had been trained to wear them from a young age.

Bermuda was only now putting a diaper law into force and local horses were already too mature to be trained to wear them, she explained.

In American cities, she claimed, carriage drivers "drugged or doped-up'' their horses to get them to wear the diapers.

"Do we really want that for our horses?'' she asked.

Carriage drivers understood the horse dropping problem in Hamilton.

But they felt there was a better way of tackling it than making diapers mandatory.

The experimental droppings shoveller they had last season did not work every day and often "disappeared'', she said.

But when he did work, there were no complaints, she said.

"All we need is a responsible, full-time person to clean up after us,'' she said. "I'm sure there is someone unemployed who can do it.''