New Law Aimed At Amish Community Would Ban Steel Wheel Buggies, Require Manure Cleanup
A proposed ordinance in Bedford County, Pennsylvania would force local Amish to adapt their buggies to be more “road-friendly”, at least from the perspective of some residents.
At the same time, others are concerned it could “disproportionately impact” the Amish community. From the report at WJAC:
BEDFORD COUNTY, Pa (WJAC) — A proposed ordinance in Bedford Township is drawing scrutiny ahead of a vote scheduled for July 21st, with some residents raising concerns it could impact the local Amish community hardest.
The ordinance, advertised by the Bedford Township supervisors, would prohibit vehicles with metal wheels from operating on township highways. It would also require owners of horses and other large animals to clean up or contain animal waste on public roadways.
I’d say it would clearly impact the Amish community beyond pretty much all others in the community (horse owners who ride on public roads might be another group, but that’s not a common situation). The reason for the ordinance is not unusual:
According to the proposed ordinance, the township has noticed damage to public roadways caused by metal tracks and wheels, along with the uncleanliness and potentially hazardous nature of animal waste on public property.
As far as the concern “it could impact the local Amish community hardest” – obviously it will do just that, because this ordinance is above all about the Amish residents of the community.
Not The First Example Of This
And it’s not the first of its kind. We saw something like it in Lycoming County, PA some years back, which proposed a similar set of requirements, including one that horses wear horse diapers.
In another case, lawmakers in Wisconsin addressed buggy damage caused in some cases by horseshoe studs meant for winter use on ice being used in warmer months.
More recently the road damage issue has come up for discussion in Amish-heavy Branch County, Michigan, where steel wheels and carbide-tipped horseshoes have been blamed for destroying road surfaces.
So this is not a unique issue, and it’s understandable that those responsible for budgeting for road repair would want to address damage created by buggy use.
And it’s true that Amish buggies do contribute to the wear and tear and even do significant damage to road surfaces. Some communities deal with this by assessing an annual buggy fee. In other places, the Amish make voluntary contributions.
In other places, local governments attempt to deal with it by passing laws like this one. Under the proposed ordinance in Bedford Township, violations would incur fines of $250 to $500.
This may be even more about the horse-drawn farm implements than buggies, even though “buggies” is the language used in the report. Metal-wheeled carts and other wheeled equipment are sometimes moved from farm to farm and in theory would cause greater damage than lighter buggies. See an example of one above, from the WJAC video report.
Amish Ways In A New Community
Reporter Baylee Wojcik says she reached out to the Township with questions, including on what specifically prompted this proposal, but they declined to offer comment until their official meeting takes place. She also reached out to the ACLU of Pennsylvania, without response at the time of the report.
As you might guess from the buggy top, the Bedford County Amish community is a Lancaster County-related group. The community was first settled just a few years ago – in 2022 – and numbers a bit over 100 Amish residents.
So this is not an established settlement where the Amish and non-Amish residents have completely figured out how to live together, to put it bluntly.
The attempt to pass a new ordinance suggests that perhaps Amish residents were not minded to contribute voluntarily for road upkeep, or, that that idea wasn’t tried.
There can also be related tensions under the surface that drive these types of attempts by local officials. I can see their perspective, but obviously not every community comes to this point when trying to address the effects of horse-drawn vehicle traffic.
I would suspect that they don’t have the greatest relations with the local Amish, if it is going in this direction. The Bedford Township supervisors’ vote will happen Monday.
UPDATE (July 17) – Local Amish Comment On the Proposal: We May Have to Leave
WJAC has followed up by getting input from the Amish community on the ordinance, now just a few days away from a vote. From the report:
We spoke with a leader in the Amish community who said that “if push comes to shove,” much of the local Amish community may have to move out of the area.
That member of the Amish community asked to not be recorded in any way and to respect his beliefs, we sat down with him for an off-camera conversation.
He explained that the Amish community pays school and property taxes, and if this ordinance passes, much of the community would be forced to leave the area.
Sometimes outside bodies attempt to impose rules on the Amish, perhaps expecting they will adapt when faced with a change in the law.
But not all Amish comply when outsiders try to force a change to their traditional ways.
One example of this can be seen in Ohio, where a flashing light requirement was accepted by most Amish – but predictably rejected by the most traditional groups, who are now suing the state over the law.
And it should be said that not all Amish are the same – among the over 3,000 Amish church congregations in North America, you’ll find very progressive groups, and very conservative groups, and everything in between.
Metal-rimmed wheels are something you see in a lot of Amish churches; more progressive churches do use rubber on their wheels.
But based on this leader’s comments, it doesn’t sound like they are going to be too open to putting rubber on their wheels if the ordinance passes.
More from the Amish leader’s comments in the latest report, including how and where the community’s members typically use their buggies:
He says that members travel to church through the township, typically using back roads.
He adds that the community is not willing to give up its lifestyle that has been theirs for 200 years.
He noted that typically throughout the week, he and many others in the community get rides from neighbors and Sundays are normally the only days that buggies are typically used.
This would sound typical for a lot of Amish communities, where the buggy is used not necessarily every day, but most often for the ride to and from church.
The Amish leader also says one other thing that caught my eye – of the 31 Amish families in this community, “90 percent” of them are involved in agriculture.
That’s a pretty high percentage compared to many communities. As I noted above, it’s often the heavier metal-wheeled wagons and other farm implements that create road damage.
In the following two photos, you can see examples of farm wagons – the first equipped with metal wheels, and the second with rubber tires:
The report added this, for what it’s worth:
While driving through the area, our crew made an effort to look for wheel marks on the roads but did not see any potential damage that stood out.
Finally, the Amish leader – who I’m assuming is the bishop or a member of the church ministry – “stated that the community does not want to be a burden and that they enjoy living in the Bedford area.”
Hopefully they will be able to come to some sort of resolution that allows them to do just that.
Rubber rims?
While visiting the Arthur, Illinois, community some years back, we had lunch with an Amish family. The woman showed us her buggy and I noticed it had rubber rims over the steel wheels. I mentioned that and she enthusiastically told me how she liked how it smoothed out the ride and made it much quieter. She thought it was a great improvement over plain steel rims. Yes, they had to replace the rubber rims periodically, but it was worth it. And this was not some youngster. She was well into her 60s.
Dunno if this community would like the idea, but at least one other Old Order community has done it. That would help the road damage. Won’t do anything about manure 😉
Good thing to note Joe, yes the rubber rims are more common in more progressive communities, not sure how that would fly in this one. They may be compelled to at least consider that solution in the end.
Another money-grab
” it could impact the local Amish community hardest.”…..can any semi-intelligent logic offer to identify ANY other persons affected by this ludicrous proposal? While I have no insight into local politics here, it’s obviously time to dispense with the current crop of “supervisors” and inject some intelligence into local “government.”
Buggies and horse manure
First of all for you not do intelligent English horses eat grain and other grain type material when digested and expelled from the horse is good fertilizer. This is not like dog food that is made from what ever. Being English, I would muck a horse stall over a dog kennel any day and yes I have done both.
Second, talk about wheels has to do with comfort where Amish feel rubber tires is comfortable. Well what about 18 wheelers they do more damage to a roadway that a buggy. You know if you quit picking on the Amish instead of talking and asking for help I’m sure there would be cooperation. If me being English can talk to them what’s wrong with you???
Bill
18 Wheelers weigh far, far more than a horse drawn vehicle of any kind.
Trucks vs buggies
A registration for a tractor trailer is THOUSANDS a year…. Not to mention all the FET and other taxes imposed on them that are supposedly going to road maintenance. NOT even close. The weight distribution over the wheels per quare inch is where those skinny steel wheels do the damage. I am NOT against the Amish at all….. However, they DO need to pay to keep the roads upkept as well as anyone who uses them.
I totally agree with this. Also semi trucks constantly lose rubber on the roads, who cleans that up? Those big chunks of rubber aren’t good for the environment and can’t be used as fertilizer either. But of course the community that needs little if anything from the government are the ones they want to pick on.
New law aimed at Amish
If people are going to complain about the horse droppings that’s mostly grass and grain, then complain about the people cutting grass and throwing it into the roadways causing motorcycle accidents.
You’re going to make more money from the people cutting grass and it going into the roadways causing accidents as 2 tires on wet grass is like riding on ice.
Amish been living in there world not bothering anyone!! they don’t come for the English!! They stay amongst themselves don’t forget those big trucks and cars that do more harm! them those metel wheels on their buggy for real about the horse crap I can see cleaning up after them, but fine someone else to Champlain!!! about Please leave those folks alone!!! thank you from and English girl
Yeah ok, a horse and buggy are damaging the roads. Not the half baked way of paving the roads, outside edges at one time, center of the road another, grinding rumble strips into asphalt (basically planting pothole seeds). PA roads in general are sad and pathetic.
Dig A Little Deeper!
With an Amish population in the county of a little over 100 total citizens compared to the county wide population of English of approximately 47k, who is really causing the damage to the roadways? Rubber wheels for the buggies would definitely be better and would make the ride smoother but IMO seems like horse droppings and steel wheels are a petty gripe from a few board members that have an underlying personal problem with the Amish. Semis, county trucks, heavy farm equipment and traffic from English vehicles cause way more damage to county roadways than fewer than 50+ Amish households.
Delusional
The fact you have no problem with people letting their large animals crap all over the road and just leaving it there says a lot about you. Enough with the horses already. They use gas powered farm equipment, they get people to drive them around in cars….for Christ sake just quit the bull and start using cars. I’ve seen the Amish on a tractor pulling a flatbed trailer with little kids sitting on it down 30 and to the Walmart on 10. They’re some of the most unsafe people around who don’t follow our laws. Let’s not even talk about inbreeding.
Amish regulations
I live with the Amish in clarion, county pa. I am best friends and do everything with them, including making hay and caring for calve barns. The metal wheels are definitely hard on roads and manure is extremely dangerous on roads due to motorcycle and pedestrian usage. I understand old school, but I really do feel that its time to stand up to their unreasonable beliefs. There has already been 2- horses that were pushed so hard to travel that they both died from the heat! No matter how much I care for them, I think enough is enough, they are getting killed on the roads and highways and it needs to stop and reinvent some rules and laws.
Fair contribution
It ok for them to pay for what road Rights they get. They get a lot of freedom in a country where they have sent 0 sons to die to protect those rights.
This seems to be a rather draconian solution. Did the supervisors research how other Amish/English communities such as Lancaster County have addressed these issues. I can see a fair road use tax being implemented similar to the proposed Electric Vehicle road taxes proposed in the state, but several hundred dollar fines per person per incident just seems excessively punitive.
As to the droppings, I doubt that equine droppings are any more of a health hazard than road kill and I don’t see anyone getting exercised over forcing cleanup of that!
It’s a good question Beth – I was left wondering how much dialogue has actually happened here between the Township and the Amish residents.
More Laws
We need another law that stops them from letting their horses crap all over the streets just leaving it there.
Baffled
Did you even read the article?
The Amish are some of the richest people in the state. They can easily afford to update their vehicles and farm equipment.
Coming from the plain community, using the reasoning that it goes against the plain Amish community’s religious belief,no longer works. Almost every single Amish person I know has a cell phone in Lancaster County. If that is a possibility, then so is updating your vehicles and paying to use the roads,just like we have to. The matter of the manure being left all over the road for others that choose not to have manure all over their vehicles should have been addressed years ago. The plain people in Ohio have had that rule in place for years. I’m not allowed to leave pieces of my car on the highway. The rules should apply to everyone the same. The cost of maintaining the roadways is climbing every year. Pennsylvania is 36th on the list of overall road conditions and cost effectiveness. We need to work to fix some of that.
So who cleans up the big chunks of rubber that semi trucks leave all over the roads? Those are more dangerous than horse droppings.
Road cleanliness
If the Amish have to clean up the manure from their horses, ALL motorists on public roads should be responsible for cleaning up any roadkill they create, trash that blows out of their vehicle onto the road and those retreads from the trucks that REALLY damage the structure of the road surface.
Stop
Stop picking on a small minority. Can’t you people send your time and money on something more important? Time is money. Wasting taxpayer’s money on stupid attacks on people your will not understand!
Funny
Wasting taxpayers money????
They don’t pay taxes…the rest of us pay to clean up the roads.
Wake up Peggy Phariss.
They actually do pay taxes.
Nothing against Amish , however I do believe that they should definitely clean up after their animals just as we all clean up our dog excretion
Steel wheels
You had better think this one over! Banning steel wheels is STUPID! Perhaps requiring rubber tires OVER the steel wheels would make more sense.
Many, many automobiles and trucks have steel wheels. But they have rubber tires. The language as I’m reading it would levy fines on any vehicle with steel wheels. Big lawsuit
Would be headed Bedford County’s way as is.
Banning metal wheels on buggies
Why is this not a law to be put in place across the board, the state.
I live in Lancaster near a large Amish community that is scattered among some towns. The ruts caused by the buggies are rather deep and of course the length of the roadway. No one tends to these ruts, they’re hardly ever filled in.
And why aren’t the buggies licensed like vehi cles are…they’re a moving transportation and do harm to the roads. Plus if a horse is down, limping or not well we could report it to the authorities. The animals here have no rights, the least we could do is speak for them.
Well....
Nothing wrong with putting tires on buggies, just makes sense. And yeah having a catch bag just for sanitation purposes isn’t a bad idea
Stop picking on amish
People are not seeing the big picture.Amish want to live life the way there folks did no crap from today’s people.you can’t make money off them.So you come up with ways steal from them a buggy dose not cause the damage a 80000 lbs truck will. My father was Amish and I was not but I understand how the Amish live .
Good
Good they should the Amish is a stain on America
A fair ordinance
The county will have to give everyone a steel-wheel and horse if they want one. Stops the disproportionality.
Steel rims
Ut a 1-2 ton snow plow doesn’t cause damage to the road, along with all the salt
New Law for Amish
LEAVE THE PEOPLE ALONE. THAT HAS BEEN THAT WAY FOR YEARS OR GENERATIONS OR MAYBE EVEN CENTURIES. WHY DO YOU PEOPLE WANT TO CHANGE THE WAY THEY LIVE. HOW ABOUT WE CHANGE THE WAY YOU LIVE YOUR LIFE.
City folks
Your dumb enough to put restrictions on the most land consious people in America? They feed you. Without farmers your a gonner in times of crisis.
Stupid
Who is coming up with this crap. They are angry cause their $70,000.00 Mercedes got horses S×!t on it. This is Pennsylvania, go back to New York.
Born in lancaster
Soo…just so you know, someone living in ny cant create an ordinance for people in lancaster. Why shouldn’t you clean up or at least put a catch bag on your horse? And your buggy should have rubber over the steel wheels. Those wheels cause damage to roads you don’t even help pay for. How would you like it if i did a burn out on your front lawn? Then let my dog run around and take a crap in your yard? You wouldn’t like it. Please be considerate of your neighbors.
Stop
Stop messaging with the Amish
They should!
Pet owners have to pick up their pets waste, so horse owners should have to pick theirs!! We rode out thru Amish country on our bikes and you should have seen us driving zig zag all over for 20 minutes trying to dodge running thru horse crap! Not fun and dangerous for bike motorcycle driver’s.
Animal welfare
As a veterinarian, I am FAR MORE CONCERNED about how the AMISH TREAT THEIR ANIMALS. THIS is the area where animal cruelty laws truly need to be enforced.
Amish treat these living, sentient beings no better than farm equipment: they do not pay for proper veterinary care, then they send the horses to slaughter when too decrepit to work. For a professional who has dedicated her life to healing and health of animals, the Amish treatment of animals is abhorrent.
And it is known in law enforcement that people who have no regard for the sentience of an animal will duplicate this abusive behavior on people.
Road buggies
The Amish tend to steer clear of the locals. Off grid living basically.
Trading or bartering is their way of life. Money is not their business.
Growing crops, raising animals, building homes in their community.
I’ve seen the ruts that the metal wheels do. Horses pulling 4-5 people plus the buggies.
Oxford pa, around the HERS chip factory. And Lancaster heading to or from you are almost guaranteed to see feces on the side of the road . Almost tell how long ago they were there. Strange but true.
What a load of crap!
I get the steel Wheels I mean if there’s a lot of Amish in there traveling the same road constantly steel wheels will destroy blacktop concrete not so much. Now for the horse crap and large animal I’ve always said that like why is it okay for anyone to allow any animal crap all over the place and leave it. You don’t let your dog crap on someone’s lawn and leave it do you no you get a fine. I always thought it was funny like I grew up in New Jersey and there’s not too many horses there where I grew up and now I’m in Philly and there’s not too many horses but when there is a horse they just let it crap on the road and keep going no one says a word. But if your dog craps on the ground you get yelled at and you get a fine. So yeah pick up your $#it!!!
Leave em alone, man. Bigger fish to fry.
About time!
If you required to clean up after your dog, it only makes sense you clean up after your horse. This should have been lawn a long time ago.
There’s no phone, no lights, no motorcar
Not a single luxury
Like Robinson Crusoe
It’s as primitive as can be
We been spending most our lives
Livin’ in an Amish paradise
We’re just plain and simple guys
Livin’ in an Amish paradise
There’s no time for sin and vice
Livin’ in an Amish paradise
We don’t fight, we all play nice
Livin’ in an Amish paradise
Pay up or bye-bye!
Finally, a plan to pay for the damage they’ve inflicted.
Religion is not a free pass to escape responsibility. Between the horseshoe and the steel wheel, Amish inflict the most damage and avoid the gasoline taxes designed to offset repair costs. Take it from someone who once totaled a vehicle, hydroplaning off a country road rut in Lancaster County. This law, and those like it, have been too long overdue. Don’t like it? Then take the bus!
Mennonites in Bedford Co.
Bedford County has had an Old Order Mennonite (Groffdale Conference) in the north end of the county since 1970. As of 2022, when the Amish moved in, these Mennonites, which also use horses and buggies, had 223 families according to the directory of Amish and Mennonite settlements in North America. The Mennonite community is at least as close as 15 miles (New Enterprise, where some of the Mennonites have addresses, is 11.6 miles from Bedford according to Wikipedia) to the town of Bedford, so I’m currious as to why the horse manure is just now becoming an issue. The Mennonites are in the neighboring township, so that might have something to do with it, but I’m left wondering why they didn’t look to their neighbors in the next township to see how they’re dealing with road apples before gunning for their local Amish neighbors.