Drivers keep crashing into Amish buggies, so Ohio enacted a law requiring buggies be festooned with electric flashing lights

People are so up in arms at the seeming contradiction of Amish using a light and a battery on their buggies.

Guess what: most Amish businesses have cell phones. If you drive through Amish country in Ohio, you will see dozens of people in Amish garb riding e-bikes.

I hate cars and judges, and frankly Ohio is a hellhole; but if some lights are going to make people safer it really isn't going to be that big of a burden. If the judge says they have to do it, then their community elders will approve it, nbd.

None of you ever had Mennonite friends and it shows.

I think victim blaming is the problem here.
- By victims I assume you mean unsuspecting drivers coming across a dark, unlighted vehicle in the road at night who could be injured or killed by an accident or serving to avoid one, right?
The idea behind the typical Amish perspective on technology is to preserve community. Exceptions are sometimes made as necessary or reasonable, washing machines being one of the most popular exceptions. It seems to be working well for them.
- I honestly really like that approach. I have a feeling they have a much more warm and supportive feeling of family when all goes to plan and there are no predators.
- Yeah, they can even use computers and Linux distros exist for the Amish.
The Amish Explained.

Wouldn’t reflectors work and be low-to-no technology to allow Amish to keep to their tradition? I’m thinking similar material to diamond grade street signs.

No. I live in PA, and we have a similar law. I remember before it was passed, and seeing buggies with just the reflectors.
Close up, directly in front of lights, you can see reflectors fine, but your lights aren't always pointing at them. Maybe it's a curve or a hill, maybe they are approaching an intersection, but flashing lights can be seen from all angles.
Also, most Amish have no problem using modern technology when required. It's not like a pathological fear, it's a religious devotion to self-reliance. They use cell phones and power tools when they need to, and they hire "English" (non-Amish) to drive them in cars. Some are more insular than others, and they rarely get involved in politics, so they mostly just do whatever is required.
- Maybe it’s a curve or a hill, maybe they are approaching an intersection, but flashing lights can be seen from all angles.
  Note that this law requires Amish use lights even in daytime, which won't be visible around a bend or hill at such times. What's next...telling bikes/peds they also have to go around wearing daytime strobe lights?
The Amish actually do use technology, but they can't use it unless there's no other alternative, for example word processing.
Also, they tend to use Linux.
- That's a broad statement. Different sects and communities have different levels of what they consider acceptable.
- Also, they tend to use Linux.
  I'm assuming only Gentoo, right? Compiling libraries you will never need is the height of decadence.
They already use those. This goes a lot deeper than "buggies are hard to see" and gets into governmentally preferred classes. Requiring the Amish switch from reflectors to lights is an act of both victim blaming and attempted cultural erasure
- Horse-drawn carriages are slow-moving vehicles just like construction or agricultural equipment, or stationary obstacles. They present a danger if visibility is limited by weather or the road's curvature.
  Where I live, every vehicle is required to be illuminated when outside city limits, including carriages, and the horses themselves.
- ...or it's an effort to save lives...

I am looking at all the comments and sub comments and realizing almost all the people commenting don’t realize this is posted in fuckcars.

The entire point of this community is to point out how cars have screwed everyone else from using roads and paths that at times predated cars. Most major city’s could add good bike paths and lighten the traffic by using bikes or any other non vehicle option.

This is what happens when a large chunk of lemmy users browse via all.
The worst is when people come from all and post discriminatory comments in a group that is specifically meant as a support group for vulnerable people.
I hate cars, but I hate dumb arguments even more.
Oh I realised what sub this is but that makes shit arguments not better. This subject makes the sub look stupid, it shouldn't have been posted.

It's the responsibility of the driver not to hit something, not the something not to get hit.

See halfsack's comment. To elaborate on that point, actually good & competent drivers have many responsibilities. Among them is to see....and be seen.
As others have said, a lot of these buggies are all black. And they're puttering around the road, on a dark nights, well under established speed limits. 2 vehicles traveling at very different speeds, the slow one is hard to see. That's just begging for an accident.
At least where I live, it is technically illegal to drive without headlights on when it's raining. If windshield wipers are required, so are headlights. This is to bolster visibility in poor weather conditions. Also just headlights in general, you can get pulled over & ticketed for driving at night without headlights. Why should the Amish be a dangerous exception to the rules of the road??
This alone: Roads funded by taxpayers, which IIRC the Amish are largely tax-exempt. Thus: if they wish to travel on our roads, they need to abide by our rules & not make the roads more dangerous.
To be slightly more accommodating to Luddites, we could put hi-vis reflective tape on the buggies. But again as others have said, the Amish have all kinds of workarounds/exceptions/justifications to get what they want. They have mobile phones. Some have snowmobiles. They have generators, so they're not "tied into the worldly grid" but they generate & use electricity. So maybe they can get used to the idea of battery-powered lights on their buggies, for visibility.
- This comment is surprisingly car brained. Just change a few words and see what it reads.
  As others have said, a lot of these buggies are all black. And they're puttering around the road, on a dark nights, well under established speed limits. 2 vehicles traveling at very different speeds, the slow one is hard to see. That's just begging for an accident.
  As others have said, a lot of these cyclists all wear black. And they're puttering around the road, on a dark nights, well under established speed limits. 2 vehicles traveling at very different speeds, the slow one is hard to see. That's just begging for an accident.
  At least where I live, it is technically illegal to drive without headlights on when it's raining. If windshield wipers are required, so are headlights. This is to bolster visibility in poor weather conditions. Also just headlights in general, you can get pulled over & ticketed for driving at night without headlights. Why should the Amish be a dangerous exception to the rules of the road??
  At least where I live, it is technically illegal to drive without headlights on when it's raining. If windshield wipers are required, so are headlights. This is to bolster visibility in poor weather conditions. Also just headlights in general, you can get pulled over & ticketed for driving at night without headlights. Why should the cyclists be a dangerous exception to the rules of the road??
That's the general idea, but life's not that black and white. It's better if both parties contribute to avoiding collisions. It's the same reason why I'm required to have brake lights and hazard lights on my car.
Absolutely, I still don't ride my bike on the freeway, and I still check both ways before crossing roads, even when there is a crosswalk.
Sometimes reality is at odds with our idealistic views.
It's the responsibility of everyone on the road to follow the same laws. A horse and buggy are about the same size as a car and everyone I've ever seen is painted completely black. Many Amish communities have been running battery powered led signal and head lights for decades with no issues.

It’s fucking stupid. Anyone who can’t see an object in front of their car needs to have their license revoked.

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.
- 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.
  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...

Hey look, Ohio once again going the wrong direction, just like every city I've lived in does with bicycles.

Cars keep crashing into bicycles/Amish? Penalize the bicycles/Amish! How dare they intrude into what has ALWAYS been the domain of cars.

Man, fuck Ohio and fuck cars. If I could ride my bicycle to work every day I would.

Man, fuck Ohio
Clevelander here.
........yeah.
- Condolences.
  Good fishing, though! Just don't set the river on fire. again.
- You have nice mild summers, but it can't be worth that winter.

Non electric reflectors
Change the roads and have separate roads for motorized and non motorized vehicles. Either put separate roads along them, widen the current ones
Move the blame towards the damn people that crash into these buggies, as they obviously are not paying attention to the road
Put more road lights. With LED and solar panels the installation cost for a simple light is pretty minimal nowadays.
Make it a rule that they can not drive at night instead of forcing electric lights upon their buggies. If they still drive at night, they are responsible for their own well-being

People and especially government forget that these kind of rules and laws are meant to protect the people. But instead the people they are supposed to protect are fined, forced to go up to the judge, forced to defend themselves against something that other people are telling them they should be doing. They are now victims because somebody else is supposedly trying to protect them from being victims.

The last one is bullshit. They're not putting themselves at risk, but others too.
It's like saying the solution to DUI is to make it legal but they are responsible for their well-being.
- Yes and i do think that should be the case. There are people that can drive better than other drivers even when they have a beer or a small amount of drugs in their system.
  But then you should also be responsible for everybody's wellbeing
Change the roads and have separate roads for motorized and non motorized vehicles. Either put separate roads along them, widen the current ones Put more road lights. With LED and solar panels the installation cost for a simple light is pretty minimal nowadays.
This is still expensive, impractical, and unrealistic for many rural towns. The last place I lived struggled for two months just to pull together the funds to spray for mosquitos because they already had plans to work on the town's ditches.

I gotta say I already thought this was a thing.

All the buggies in my area all have these lights already.

Festooned is a great word.

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.
...
On Thursday, Good told them that while they may prefer jail, an Ohio Supreme Court case prohibits him jailing defendants that refuse to pay fines for non-jailable offenses.

The State is going to steal their property and render them homeless for following their religion, as if that's somehow better than a short jail term.

It's free (prime farmland) real estate!
It's the American way
Good luck with that, the Amish have more money then they know what to do with. This is just a cash grab.
Their religion is causing danger to other drivers. If their religion is that important they can not use the roads.
- Nah, that's car-supremacist bullshit. There are any number of unlit things that could be in the road that automobile drivers have a responsibility to watch out for: pedestrians, cyclists, deer, etc. The notion that a driver could smash into something because they were driving too fast for the throw of their headlights and somehow not be 100% responsible for it is ridiculous blame-shifting.

why flashing lights and not reflectors?

I believe they were already required to use reflectors. Back in the 80's when I was sometimes in Ohio with my parents we used to pass Amish buggies sometimes, and they always had an orange triangle retroreflector thing on the back.
- I’ve seen the Amish in Ohio in more recent years and I’m pretty sure I always saw one of those triangle retroreflectors on the back of the buggy.

I think this was NotTheOnion for a moment

Why not use oil lamps or candles in wind-proof lanterns? Red glass for rear, clear glass for the front. My grandparents rode bikes back in the days before reliable battery lamps were a thing and that's what they used.

I believe they used carbide lamps and not oil lamps.
The lights must be "flashing" according to the headline
- Ok, but why? None of our motor vehicles use flashing lights, why them?

Not as popular as his cousin Johnny B.

Where did these buggies drive before there were paved roads designed and maintained for multi-ton haulers and passenger vehicles? 🤔

Gravel and dirt roads that were there before
- Surely they were made without the multi-ton equipment that require paved roadways to use.
  If I keep seeing people get hit on any of the poorly designed roads around me, I find a new path or make my own.
  Sorry it works this way.
  Maybe new paths could be forged. Something says you won't be shoveling anything to help out. Enjoy being mad at the world.

Too bad the Amish are anti-violence since the real way to fix this issue is not flashing lights but cleverly places shaped charges that go off toward whatever hits them. If you told this to drivers I think most would start looking for buggies with a bit more gusto.