I can’t go anywhere without passing at least one Amish buggy. Not that I’m complaining. I don’t mind sharing the road with them, even if it means driving along at 8mph until I can see the other side of the road far enough ahead (there are a lot of hills and turns around here) and make sure that I can pass safely. Even though on Sunday nights, when the Amish are finally done partying like it’s 1899, I’ll often have to pass clusters of 4-6 buggies at least 2-3 times on the way home.
But at the same, I strongly believe that if you are going to be on the road, you need to be licensed. As it stands, the Amish and their buggies are not required to display any type of identification or branding on themselves, their horses or their buggies. I think this needs to change. I don’t know the exact statistics, but I do know that Amish buggies are involved with car accidents. And there are some accidents that are more of a hit & run, where the Amish cause the accident, but then basically flee the scene. And since they have no identification, it’s a little hard to report them to the police and get them tracked down. Describing a dark gray buggy pulled by a brown or black horse is pretty much describing the look of every single Amish buggy out there. Good luck tracking down the one out of thousands that is involved with your particular accident!
I have not had an encounter with an Amish buggy, but I have had several close calls. Yesterday I was cut off by one — it ran the stop sign. The other day one pulled out alongside me as I was going through a T-intersection. If I hadn’t have jerked the car to the left, the horse would have plowed face-first into my front passenger window. And a few weeks ago I was nearly side-swiped by a buggy being pulled by two horses (I was stopped by a red light and it came up along the shoulder).
Now, I do understand and have some sympathy for the fact that these buggies are “powered” by horses. Living creatures. And while they are usually well-trained, things happen. I have seen many Amish horses suddenly rear up or jerk around. I have watched in horror as an Amish driver is desperately yanking back on the reins of his horse, as the horse is trying to drag him and the buggy through a red light and out into a busy intersection (two lanes each way, 40mph speed limit). I have seen horses prance about and roll their eyes nervously, even though they’re kept well to the side of traffic, and most of us drivers give them a wide berth (I personally refuse to pass an Amish buggy unless I can steer my car to the opposite side of the road).
But still… living creatures or not, they are capable of causing accidents, and why should we (the “English”, heh) be responsible for paying for the damages if such an accident were to occur? I have heard stories of insurance companies giving their clients the runaround because there’s no documentation of the Amish buggy that plowed into their car, whether it be because of a side-swiping incident, or as I have sometimes seen, the horse coming too close to the rear of a stopped vehicle.
I really feel that the Amish should be required by law to have unique identification on every single one of their buggies. License plates, if you will, just like all vehicles must have. This way, should some sort of accident occur, even if the Amish were to flee the scene (which has happened many times; there are plenty of local articles and letters to the editor about it), they could still be identified and tracked down.
Wow I didn’t know that there wasn’t identification, I thought that was just common sense. I definitely agree with you there. That’s just good karma.
Hmm, I never realized that they didn’t have identification. It seems a bit strange to me as everything is always registered and kept track of these days.
I agree with you too! Living in NZ I have obviously never encountered one, but yes, they are a road user (and potential hazard) so they should be registered the same as any other vehicle. It’s so basic it shouldn’t even be an issue!
If I hit a dog here in Australia, technically the owner is responsible for the cost of the damage to my car. Usually though, dogs have ID… (unless of course I deliberately run the dog down…)