County Spent Hundreds of Thousands on Roads — Amish Traffic Is Damaging Them “Almost Immediately”

According to local officials,Amish traffic in Branch County, Michigan has been destroying roads – despite the county spending hundreds of thousands of dollars to maintain them.

And unlike in other cases, this goes beyond standard buggy traffic. From the Coldwater Daily Reporter:

[Manager Jay] Miller said that despite hundreds of thousands of dollars spent on Ray-Quincy, Copeland, and Hamman Roads over the last three years, both deteriorated almost immediately due to Amish buggies, wagons, and carbide-tipped horseshoes.

Road commission staff recently found a new problem in California Township: Amish using a gasoline tractor with steel wheels and metal studs for traction.

In one instance, an Amish man was called out for training his draft horses with a heavy steel runner sled on one road, causing damage.

The Amish owner “trains the large horses to compete in horse pulls, a popular event at Midwest Amish gatherings and fairs.” Miller sent a letter informing him this wasn’t allowed.

You can see a photo of the damage at top, provided by the Branch County Road Commission.

Note: It appears the photo shows a dirt or non-asphalt road, rather than a paved road, which is typically what one thinks of when considering road damage from buggies. Regardless, non-paved roads must be maintained as well, though much of the story, including on the proposed ordinance (see below), refers to paved roads.

Branch County is home to close to 3,000 Amish people, located in three distinct communities. The largest by far is in the California Township area. They are a conservative Swiss Amish group, among the most traditional Amish. Officials say the problem is “county-wide”, but concentrated in California and Butler townships, with their large Amish populations.

Commissioner: Amish Do Damage – But Don’t Contribute

Do the Amish here contribute to fixing road damage? Commissioner Steve Weigt says no – that “’We’re fixing roads over and over, and (the Amish) don’t pay into it at all,’” since they don’t pay gas taxes”.

Technically the Amish generally do purchase some fuel for purposes such as running gas or diesel generators, but I get his point.

In other communities, local Amish populations have addressed this same sort of issue, and contribute to road upkeep in various ways.

In Indiana, buggy license plate fees go to road maintenance. That’s a unique or near-unique situation, as other states do not require plates on buggies. But other arrangements can be made without a formal legal mechanism to collect fees.

For example, in Holmes County, Ohio, Amish donate $75 per buggy per year for road upkeep.

Cannot Target the Amish with a Formal Law

What about a law to address this? That’s what officials are now considering – namely, “an ordinance regulating steel-on-pavement traffic”.

There was an attempt to address this via legislation in 2019. At that time, lawmakers wanted mandatory buggy licensing, rubber horseshoes, and reflectors on buggies. The legislation failed.

Officials recognize that if this is going to be handled with legislation or an ordinance of some sort, it obviously needs to be addressed generally to cover such traffic from anyone in the county – not from an Amish-only angle:

An ordinance would give the road commission clear authority to address road damage caused by construction and farm vehicles.

Including non-Amish under the ordinance would eliminate questions of authority or selective enforcement.

Former State Senate President Mike Shirkey opposed legislation after others sponsored legislation in 2019 to license and regulate Amish vehicles, but it died in committee.

Lawmakers were concerned about legal challenges for targeting the religious group.

By applying the rule universally — to farmers, contractors, utilities, and anyone else using steel on pavement — commissioners believe the county could strengthen its legal footing and reduce the risk of American Civil Liberties Union or constitutional challenges.

They would like to see no metal – “No metal hooves, no steel wheels, no metal tracks on blacktop” – in the view of Commission Chair Bob Mayer, who compares the damage to that done by heavy equipment.

That may not be great from the Amish perspective – as horseshoes are metal and buggy wheels use metal rims.

If the Amish here were wise, they would maybe try to get in front of this before a law that they have trouble living with is created, and think of ways to at least demonstrate willingness to contribute to fixing and/or preventing the problem. You probably don’t want to get entangled in a situation like plainer Amish have one state down.

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