COLUMBUS, Ohio – In an attempt at saving lives and improving road safety, Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine signed a bill in August that requires Amish buggies and other animal-drawn vehicles to display a yellow flashing light while driving on public streets.

Statistics back up House Bill 30. According to data provided by the Ohio State Highway Patrol, three of the top four counties in Ohio for vehicle versus buggy crashes from 2017 to June 2022 are Wayne (146), Holmes (85) and Ashland (76). Geauga County, another highly populated Amish area in northeast Ohio, had 91 similar crashes. Knox (43), Stark (31) and Ashtabula (36) were the next closest counties.

The years 2017, 2019 and 2021 all exceeded 150 such accidents, with six fatalities in 2017. After buggy-related accidents, age was the next most common variable for accidents, with mature drivers and teens topping the list. There were 120 vehicle-buggy crashes in 2020, 60 percent of which occurred during the daytime.

Republican State Reps. Darrell Kick, of Loudonville, and Scott Wiggam, of Wooster, co-sponsored the law that is intended to reduce the crashes between Amish buggies and motorized vehicles.

“The bottom line is, we believe fully that this will save lives,” Wiggam said. “The speed difference is just too great. That speed difference is sometimes 35 to 50 miles per hour, and something really bad has happened quite often in the state of Ohio, and we want to reduce that. We put flashing yellow lights on things we love, from school buses to ambulances, and we put flashing lights on emergency vehicles, police and fire. Everything we love, we put flashing lights on, especially when you’re talking about scenarios where something bad can happen. We need to put such lights on these buggies.”

According to Kick, a lot of older Amish are just not up to speed on the technology of the better reflective tape for the morning and evening. He would like to see visible flashing lights similar to what’s on top of school buses today.

“Whether they’re transporting people or buckboard with animals, the flashing light and reflective tape will be required,” Kick said. “We think this can be done pretty easily now with the technology available. That’s kind of where we are on this issue. We all share the roads, and this issue spurred us to move forward on this.”

This bill has been many years in the making. Kick introduced it to the Ohio House of Representatives six years ago after a few buggy-car incidents in Ashland County.

“This bill passed the House last year, but this one and others got sidetracked,” he said. “It never made it back out of the Senate last year, but we got it done this year and sent it to the governor.”

Wiggam was urged to take action on this bill after he received a petition with 250 Amish residents’ names on it.

“We’ve had Amish come into our offices, asking us to do something,” Kick said. “One of our favorite testimonies was from an Amish man who said, ‘This is not so much about religion as it is about tradition. And tradition can be changed.’ I think that moved just enough members who didn’t want to inflict religious burdens on the Amish. But we’re still going to have some bishops who aren’t happy with it.”

The State of Ohio and the State Highway Patrol did a study and came to the conclusion that flashing lights would be the safest and most effective action to take.

The bill clarifies and restructures the law regarding slow-moving vehicles, and revises the lighting and reflective material requirements applicable to animal-drawn vehicles. Specifically, the bill requires certain animal-drawn vehicles to have a yellow flashing lamp mounted on either the top-most portion or the rear of the vehicle or on the top of the vehicle at all times, and during the period between sunset and sunrise, at least one white lamp on the front and two red lamps (or one red lamp and two red reflectors) at the rear.

The bill specifies that the micro-prism reflective tape used on animal-drawn vehicles can only be red, amber, white or silver in color (under current law, black and gray reflective tape are also options).

A violation of the state’s slow-moving vehicle law is a minor misdemeanor. In the case of the commission of a minor misdemeanor, a law enforcement officer generally does not arrest a person, but instead issues a citation.

Vehicle-buggy accidents occur in Indiana, Kentucky and Illinois as well. In May, a child died, and an adult and two other children were hospitalized, after a car hit an Amish buggy on state Route 218 in rural Adams County, Ind. According to deputies, the car was driving about five miles over the 55 mph speed limit.

Indiana state law required that four-way flashers be used on all horse-drawn buggies for nighttime driving.

In March, a driver slammed into an Amish buggy on Wax Road in Grayson County, Ky., critically injuring both riders in the buggy. The driver of the car was not injured. Authorities said according to marks on the road, it appeared the driver of the car failed to see the carriage until he was about 20 feet away.

In Kentucky, owners of horse-drawn buggies need only use slow moving vehicle emblems at the back of the buggy.

In July, a car plowed into an Amish-driven buggy, sending both occupants of the buggy to the hospital. The accident occurred at U.S. 30 and Millard Road in rural Morrison, Ill., in Whiteside County.