funded roads, whether it be county, state or federal, they need to use the "garish" sign for the safety of others using the road as well as their own safety.

Safety is not garish by any means...especially in this situation.

Black buggy, dark night, highway shared with cars and trucks, what could possibly go wrong. We have a lot of Amish around here and most times at night the first thing you see when approaching a buggy is that orange triangle.
stupid people do stupid things

goggles or to have a heads-up IR display on their cars in Amish buggy areas. No problem with garish colors, no problem seeing the horse and the buggy occupants, even on the darkest night.

Or, the buggy can simply hang a couple old-fashioned 18th Century tech mirrored kerosene lamps off the back.

Either way, problem solved.

I suspect there may some enduring ill-feelings on both sides, looking at the expressions in that photo.

Wonder if anyone's actually suggested this sort of compromise?

But no, I haven't heard the kerosene lamps suggested before. I can't think of an objection based on Amish beliefs or highway safety. But there will be,

How about waiving the requirement for "slow moving" orange reflective signs, and just specifying that the rear light source -- regardless of whether electric, kerosene, nuclear power -- has to exceed a minimum intensity?

Mirrored kerosene lamps probably aren't very visible under bright sunlight, they don't emit the right color of light to indicate a traffic hazard (to the extent they are visible, they might look more like oncoming headlights, a potentially dangerously confusing signal), they aren't automatically "on" all of the time like a passive reflector... and they're still "garish".

At a certain point people have to pay the price themselves for their self-imposed restrictions rather than expecting others to bear the burden they've taken onto themselves, or expecting others to grant certain believers special privileges. If your religious rules are so important to you, you should be willing to sacrifice something to uphold them.

Freedom of religion to me means no one's go to stop you from worshiping (or not) as you like, but only to the extent that you allow others the same degree of freedom, and it doesn't mean that other people should be expected to bend over backward to accommodate and facilitate your ability to live by whatever strange rules and codes of conduct you might adopt in the name of religious belief.

As for the problem of looking like headlights, cover the burning wick element in red glass - incandescent taillight, just like the good old days of steam trains - fill up the container with kerosene, light a match, close the glass cover, problem solved. Not garish.

We make reasonable accommodation for lots of things, not just religion.

...but speed, to alert drivers that the buggy is a slow moving vehicle, not just that the buggy is there.

Also, red glass is all the more "garish".

If the statistics show buggy accidents are a real concern, and that the right kind of markings reduce those accidents, then letting people out on the roads without proper markings is a less-than-reasonable accommodation.

And that's apart from the fact that your less effective suggestion would likely be dismissed as garish as well.

to the speed of the vehicle, not just its presence.

I've driven in rural areas with tractors, overloaded trucks, horses, and pedestrians in the road and never hit any of them.

This unwillingness to accommodate this group strikes me as an unreasonable form of bigotry.

such as allowing grey reflective tape.

What relevance does your individual sample-of-one statistic have to do with anything?

Most traffic safety laws are based on the fact that 100% of the people aren't going to be as careful and attentive as they should be 100% of the time.

The real question, which none of us seems to have solid statistics on, is this: What's the difference in accident rates between places and times where and when different safety regulations have been in effect?

If there's a statistically significant reduction in accidents with the "garish" reflectors these Amish don't like, then they should either have to use them anyway or stay off the roads. If other alternatives which these Amish will accept produce similar safety results, fine then, let them have their way.

If the actual freedom to believe and worship of these people were at stake, I'd be willing to accept even some deadly risk to stand up for their freedom. When the issue is helping to alleviate believers from the costs of their own self-imposed rules, however, and the cost to others is risk to life and limb, that's too much accommodation and facilitation.

many really can be attributed to a lack of reflective triangles? Were there other factors such as excessive speed, impaired or reckless driving, etc.

No, this question is not as one-sided as you seem to assume.

I did say that no one on either side of this argument had presented statistics, didn't I?

If no one can document the accident rate claims, however, I'd err on the side of public safety, not excessive accommodation that privileges some people with exemptions others don't enjoy. Freedom of religion remains regardless, people just have to accept that not all of their religious choices are free of personal costs, that they don't always get to spread the costs of their choices onto other people.

If the reflective markers don't produce any benefit at all, no one should have to use them, Amish or not. If different forms of markers are effective, everyone should have those options, Amish or not. I shouldn't have to be Amish to use a lantern or gray tape if those work just as well bright orange triangles.

In fact, the only way for religion to really be an important issue here is if you think there's a fundamental right for religious believers to make other people with differing beliefs bear a burden for their choices. If you argue that the law has no safety merit, then the law is a bad law for all people, regardless of their beliefs.

I felt the same way about a court case a few years ago when a Muslim woman was insisting that her driver's license photo be taken with her veil on. That makes the photo worthless as a form of ID, of course. She did not win the case, and I'm glad she didn't. If photo IDs aren't really that important, no one should be required to carry them. If they are important, no one should have a special privilege of being exempt that other people don't enjoy.

That's something that is best done on the basis of a body of admitted evidence, including expert opinion, in light of applicable law and precedent. The rest is just opinion - everyone's entitled to one, of course. I would say, absent evidence, do not assume that unproven "public safety" concerns trump claimed religious freedoms. These questions are for a Judge and a Jury to decide, or a Court of Appeals.

Last edited Mon Mar 19, 2012, 08:36 PM - Edit history (2)

...what you think should be relevant to the law, and I have a hard time seeing where religion matters in this.

Either the law is excessive for all people, making demands that don't have any real or significant impact on public safety, or there is a real safety issue, and someone's self-imposed religious rules shouldn't entitle them to be a greater public hazard than other people are allowed to be.

don't require slow moving vehicle signs on tractors and trucks? Because I think most states do require that.

And you've never heard of one of them getting hit?

How is it bigotry? It is about safety. If you are going to travel on the roads and go below the speed that the state statutes set then you need to have a slow moving vehicle sign for your safety and the safety of others on the road. I'm not saying they have to shave their beards, or go to public schools, or serve in the military, or use electricity for fuck sake.