ASHLAND — Twenty-six Amish who refused to pay their fines for violating a law that requires flashing lights on their buggies appeared in court on Friday.
Once there, Ashland Municipal Court Judge John Good ruled out the possibility of jail time for them and instead said he would impose liens on their real estate.
I’m from an area where this can be a problem. In my experience it’s pretty easy to see the buggys during the day, but at night on an unlit state road even with good head lights they can be hard to see until you are practically right on top of them.
Yeah, fuck cars, but it’s just kinda a crap situation in general.
Especially because the buggies are black, which blend in at night/dusk.
Reflective tape is a thing. That can be used without electricity.
They don’t like colours (flashing wealth and putting yourself above your fellow man) I think reflective tape might be just a bit to flashy…
At least where I used to live around the Amish long ago they would put those big orange reflective triangles on each end. The rest was plain as can be as usual. It sounds like it depends on the group but many are fine using something not-entirely-plain if it has a safety benefit. I’ve seen the Amish using safety gasses etc.
Agreed, that would be a good first step in the right direction. It shouldn’t remove the requirement for lights.
Reflective tape should also be on the horses’ gear.
But like deer and dogs are basically camouflaged. So is a fallen tree. A driver needs to be able to avoid road hazards that haven’t been designed for visibility.
If it’s so dark that it’s hard to distinguish non-reflective objects on the road, the driver needs to slow down until their object perception time is well within their stopping time. And that needs to cover the hardest objects to perceive, IMO.
Children, animals, etc are going to be even harder to see I’d think. Seems like people are just going too fast for the visibility they have…
This is probably true. However weather and other factors can add a loss of visibility. Every other vehicle on the road has a lighting system for a reason. It’s safer. Children are not usually roaming around at night.
And you should adjust your speed based on those factors. If you can’t see a giant object, even with reflectors, you are going far too fast.
We should only drive 5mph because a kid could run out into any street, theoretically.
The actual answer is that we take calculated risks all the time and trade safety for convenience every day.
You should be going slow enough that someone can step out suddenly into the road suddenly right in front of you. I’ve had adults do that to me. Guess who didn’t drive into them? I was probably going like 20mph because that’s the speed at which I could do that if needed.
Drive that slow on a rural county road at night and you’re going to have a bad time. There really aren’t that many people just stepping out into the road in front of a car at that time, your speed shouldn’t be dictated on that one factor alone.
You seem to be missing the point that if any people would be walking or biking down a rural road, they can be completely off the road, likely wearing something reflective or high visibility. Buggies are low visibility by design and take up a large portion of the road even when they are as far over as they possibly can be.
I don’t think forcing them to use electric lights is the proper approach, though.
I wouldn’t expect someone to drive that 20mph on a rural street. In that case, it was near a shopping center and I could clearly see people walking on the sidewalk along the road. Hence why I was going slow. It was an example of driving a speed appropriate to the situation, despite what speed limit signs might suggest are okay on the road. In rural areas around here, its things like deer that are an issue. If you’re lights aren’t good enough to see something as big as a cow in time to stop, you are going too fast for the road. Doesn’t matter if its a 70mph road and you have to go 40mph to be reasonably safe.
Don’t take any guff from these swine man. I’m glad to see another safe driver in the thread.
People be like “Well sometimes accidents just happen; can’t be avoided”. Like fuck, where did that idea come from??
On a rural country road a person can’t step out in front of your car because the road generally has about twenty or thirty feet of clearance on both sides. If the road is literally so narrow that there’s trees right beside the car, same as a tight city street full of parked cars, then I’ll definitely go 20 mph there.
I’m armed so any rednecks want to give me shit for going too slow next to their kids they can deal with my own inner redneck.
I’m not going to go faster than is safe, period.
You should definitely drive like 5 mph if you’re passing right next to spots where a kid might be.
The only thing that warrants extra speed is when there’s enough visible, open space such that a kid would be visible for a few seconds before getting to the road at a full sprint.
Like the roads in front of my apartment are listed as 30 mph but I go 20 because it’s so tight with cars on both sides. 30 is simply not a safe speed there.
I’m an Uber driver. I grew up in the country and started driving at age 13. I fucking love to drive, and love to race and do stupid shit. I respect driving and I hope it remains. But stopping distance needs to always be less than visible distance. And if you’re three feet from a hiding spot to the side of your car, your car needs to be going very very slow.
I just always assume there’s a suicidal two year old behind literally everything, just waiting to dive out in front of my wheels. That’s my standard for driving speed. A toddler absolutely determined to get hit, and I’m going to thwart him.
That is 100 percent not true. I run a fleet of commercial vehicles and have driven trucks and buses for two decades. For the most part you are correct. Speed is a factor. But it does not eliminate ALL hazards. Lights mitigate it much more.
If you are driving in conditions where 0.1mph is too fast to see an entire buggy without hitting it, you are going too fast
Look at it from another perspective:
If you’re driving a buggy on a public Right-of-Way, you should ensure it’s visible enough to be seen by someone obeying the speed limit driving on the road.
Reflectors are a partial answer, but they require direct line of sight. If there’s a buggy just over a hill, headlights won’t hit the reflectors until the driver crests the top of the hill, while lights on the buggy will illuminate dust, fog, and nearby foliage that can be seen earlier.
I have lights on my bicycle. There’s no reason a 6-8’-wide black buggy shouldn’t also have them.
A road’s speed limit is the lower one of these two values though:
If you can’t stop within the same distance as you can look ahead, YOU ARE TOO FAST.
If you crash into a stopped car hidden behind a curve or hill, you went too fast. Traffic jams can occur for any reason at any road.
If you run over a child that ran across the road from behind a parked car in a dense urban environment, you went too fast. It is to be expected that children live in urban areas and that children are irrational.
Deer will no wear reflectors (except their eyes of you count that) nor active lighting. If you can’t see a buggy with reflectors, you’re going too fast.
While collision with deer can be dangerous, the reality is it can’t be controlled for, and the result is usually a broken windshield and a dead or injured deer.
A buggy having lights is a minimal requirement that’s easy to implement and helps prevent a much more dangerous type of collision with zero downsides. It doesn’t even conflict with Amish beliefs about technology - not that that should even matter when it comes to policy on public safety.
It’s cheap, effective, and will save lives. It’s a no-brainer.