Resident: “The Amish Destruction” Has Torn Up County Roads. The Sheriff Says Nothing Can Be Done

The Amish community in Lawrence County, Indiana is just a small one – maybe 10 or 12 households.

But it’s still big enough to have earned the ire of at least one resident. That person voiced a number of concerns – on road damage and more – at a recent County Commissioners’ meeting.

As reported at WBIW:

[Resident Evan] Hunter addressed the commissioners to highlight severe pavement degradation in Shawswick Township, pointing to Stumphole Bridge Road as the newest location impacted by horse hooves and steel buggy wheels.

“Stumphole Bridge Road is the latest victim of the Amish destruction,” Hunter said during the meeting.

He noted that several other nearby thoroughfares—including Gunsmith Road, Tunnelton Road, and Pinhook Road—have suffered similar wear and tear.

“What can we do to minimize that?” Hunter asked, urging the county to take proactive steps. “We need to explore options to minimize the damage.”

As noted, this is just a small, relatively new Amish community. It was founded in 2021, and has an estimated 60 people, according to Young Center figures. This is not an area that is flooded with buggies.

But the particular language used by Hunter suggests to me that not everyone in the community has taken to their Amish neighbors. “The Amish destruction” is a pretty loaded term, and taken on its own it almost makes the damage sound deliberate.

And “latest victim” of the destruction suggests that this is not the first time, and that in this person’s mind, the Amish deserve full blame. The frustration is understandable enough.

However, absent from this report are any Amish voices, and that’s not too surprising given the size of the community and the general reticence of many Amish to participate in governmental gatherings. Another clue in the report suggests this is a very plain community, likely a Swartzentruber Amish group (more below).

It’s also worth noting that neighboring counties like Orange and Washington also have significant Amish populations, including at least two very plain groups.

Official: Amish Pay A County Buggy Tax – But It’s Not Enough

Commissioner President Jeff McKnight told the board that local Amish residents do pay an annual county buggy tax, but that the revenue does not cover the full repair cost. He gave no figures, and WBIW reported none.

But other Indiana counties have, giving insights into costs and what Amish in other Indiana communities are contributing – and also reflecting a level of cooperation and dialogue that I suspect may be a bit lacking in Lawrence County.

• In Daviess County, highway supervisor Chris Winkler told the Washington Times-Herald in December 2024 that horse damage runs around $500,000 a year including labor and equipment, against roughly $375,000 collected on more than 3,000 buggy permits.
• Commissioners raised the fee to $175 that year, with $50 annual steps toward $300. However, Winkler said he doesn’t expect to ever recover the full cost. That county has been working together with its Amish community for years, including a redesigned horseshoe and experimental road surfaces – neither of which it seems has done much to slow the wear.
• In LaGrange County, commissioners doubled the fee in 2023 to $200, with increases scheduled toward $300, on top of an existing horse-troughing repair program.
• And in Parke County, it was the Amish who actually asked for the increase at the start of 2026. They proposed going from $50 to $100 and eventually $150, agreeing they should be in line with other counties. County Commissioner Jim Meece said that “It has been my experience in all matters that the Amish community intends to be good neighbors and are good neighbors.”

All three of these communities are significantly larger and more progressive than the Lawrence County group. It should also be noted that the buggy fee is standard practice in Indiana, the only state requiring buggy license plates.

Another Issue: Visibility

Hunter had further issues to address regarding the Amish. And I’m not surprised these came up too. Along with road damage, concerns over lack of lighting are the most common ones you hear.

Hunter told the board that many buggies operate without electric lights or reflective slow-moving vehicle emblems, and that were he to do the same, he’d be cited.

Commissioner Wally Branham responded that many Amish residents in Lawrence County belong to conservative Old Order affiliations whose religious practice bars certain reflective materials and battery-powered lighting. Kudos to him for making the distinction.

While no specific group was named in this report, it’s likely this is a Swartzentruber community, where a lack of SMV triangles and electric lighting is characteristic of the group. That leads to the next key point, delivered by the sheriff.

The Sheriff’s Claim on Legal Precedent

Sheriff Greg Day, described by WBIW as having researched the legal sides, suggested that those avenues might not be too fruitful:

“Unfortunately, in every incident where a county has tried to enforce lights and signage, the Amish have sued and won every case,” Sheriff Day informed the board. “Legal precedent shows government agencies can’t make them do that.”

Directionally, he has a point. But there are a couple of issues with how he put it.

The first is that the record is more mixed than that. In Kentucky, Swartzentruber Amish in Graves County were cited from 2007 for not displaying SMV emblems, and they lost.

The Court of Appeals upheld the convictions in 2011, and the Kentucky Supreme Court did the same in 2012. This was a pretty controversial case that we posted on multiple times – in part for how it escalated.

Nine men were jailed for refusing to pay the fines, one of them for 16 days. Relief came from the legislature rather than the courts, in the form of a change to state law.

In Ohio, four Old Order Amish plaintiffs are challenging the 2022 flashing-light law, following more than 200 citations. Hardin County Common Pleas granted a temporary restraining order in November 2024, and as of this writing I’ve seen no reporting of a final ruling.

There is a second issue with the framing. Kentucky was the Amish defending themselves against criminal enforcement, not a lawsuit they brought. The Amish generally avoid initiating lawsuits. The Ohio case is one exception, and even there it was essentially initiated by outsiders.

The sheriff is closer to right about the general outcomes. Conservative Amish groups have often ended up not having to use the triangle or electric lights, but not by winning every case.

They won in Minnesota, though again as defendants rather than plaintiffs. In 1990, the state Supreme Court threw out citations against fourteen Amish men, and upheld their use of silver reflective tape instead of the triangle. They lost in Kentucky, and Ohio is unresolved.

And in New York, Swartzentruber Amish went to jail in the early 1980s over the triangle. New York Amish author Karen Johnson-Weiner noted in the comments of a prior post that an agreement came only after months of negotiation and compromise on all sides.

As to what’s next in Lawrence County, Indiana, the report at WBIW does not indicate. In a recent case in Bedford County, Pennsylvania, we saw strong local non-Amish support come out against a proposed ordinance aiming to restrict Amish buggy use on local roads. I don’t know that this group is going to see the same showing.

Get the Amish in your inbox

Join 15,000 email subscribers. No spam. 100% free

 

 

 

Subscribe