this post was submitted on 04 Aug 2024
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Fuck Cars

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A place to discuss problems of car centric infrastructure or how it hurts us all. Let's explore the bad world of Cars!

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[–] [email protected] 80 points 4 months ago (3 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 19 points 4 months ago (1 children)

I think victim blaming is the problem here.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) (20 children)

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 swerving to avoid one, right?

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[–] MediaSensationalism 16 points 4 months ago (2 children)

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.

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[–] moistclump 80 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) (3 children)

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.

[–] themeatbridge 81 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) (20 children)

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.

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[–] [email protected] 12 points 4 months ago (2 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 23 points 4 months ago (1 children)

That's a broad statement. Different sects and communities have different levels of what they consider acceptable.

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[–] partial_accumen 9 points 4 months ago (1 children)

Also, they tend to use Linux.

I'm assuming only Gentoo, right? Compiling libraries you will never need is the height of decadence.

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[–] [email protected] 10 points 4 months ago (2 children)

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

[–] rtxn 7 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) (1 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 22 points 4 months ago (6 children)

I hate this framing. The danger doesn't come from the slow moving buggies, it comes from cars moving too fast to stop within the driver's line of sight. Instead of a buggy, the "obstacle" could also be a pedestrian, a deer or a fallen tree. Should blinking lights be required for those, too?

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[–] irish_link 64 points 4 months ago (3 children)

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.

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[–] Phegan 35 points 4 months ago (5 children)

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

[–] CoffeeJunkie 19 points 4 months ago (1 children)

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.

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[–] halfsak 12 points 4 months ago

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.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 4 months ago

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.

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[–] [email protected] 33 points 4 months ago (2 children)

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

[–] TonyOstrich 37 points 4 months ago (25 children)

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.

[–] NewWorldOverHere 23 points 4 months ago (2 children)

Especially because the buggies are black, which blend in at night/dusk.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 4 months ago (3 children)

Reflective tape is a thing. That can be used without electricity.

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[–] [email protected] 28 points 4 months ago (1 children)

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.

[–] Lost_My_Mind 11 points 4 months ago (6 children)

Man, fuck Ohio

Clevelander here.

........yeah.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 4 months ago (1 children)

Condolences.

Good fishing, though! Just don't set the river on fire. again.

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[–] x00z 23 points 4 months ago (3 children)
  • 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.

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[–] ThatWeirdGuy1001 16 points 4 months ago

I gotta say I already thought this was a thing.

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

[–] kerrypacker 11 points 4 months ago

Festooned is a great word.

[–] grue 9 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) (7 children)

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.

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[–] Fedizen 8 points 4 months ago (1 children)

why flashing lights and not reflectors?

[–] [email protected] 7 points 4 months ago (1 children)

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.

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