ASHLAND — Twenty-six Amish who refused to pay their fines for violating a law that requires flashing lights on their buggies appeared in court on Friday.
Once there, Ashland Municipal Court Judge John Good ruled out the possibility of jail time for them and instead said he would impose liens on their real estate.
You should be going slow enough that someone can step out suddenly into the road suddenly right in front of you. I’ve had adults do that to me. Guess who didn’t drive into them? I was probably going like 20mph because that’s the speed at which I could do that if needed.
Drive that slow on a rural county road at night and you’re going to have a bad time. There really aren’t that many people just stepping out into the road in front of a car at that time, your speed shouldn’t be dictated on that one factor alone.
You seem to be missing the point that if any people would be walking or biking down a rural road, they can be completely off the road, likely wearing something reflective or high visibility. Buggies are low visibility by design and take up a large portion of the road even when they are as far over as they possibly can be.
I don’t think forcing them to use electric lights is the proper approach, though.
I wouldn’t expect someone to drive that 20mph on a rural street. In that case, it was near a shopping center and I could clearly see people walking on the sidewalk along the road. Hence why I was going slow. It was an example of driving a speed appropriate to the situation, despite what speed limit signs might suggest are okay on the road. In rural areas around here, its things like deer that are an issue. If you’re lights aren’t good enough to see something as big as a cow in time to stop, you are going too fast for the road. Doesn’t matter if its a 70mph road and you have to go 40mph to be reasonably safe.
Don’t take any guff from these swine man. I’m glad to see another safe driver in the thread.
People be like “Well sometimes accidents just happen; can’t be avoided”. Like fuck, where did that idea come from??
It can be avoided, but as I said elsewhere we make calculated risks all the time. Individually and as a society. 1 in 5 Americans will get skin cancer at some point but we allow tanning salons. Red meat is linked to stomach cancer. Alcohol. Tobacco. Backyard pools. There is none-to-limited legal or medical protection granted to people from a huge range of dangers to ourselves and others and they are broadly accepted as in the realm of “personal freedoms” or in some way necessary to society, like the dangerous jobs of logging or roofing or firefighting.
I’m not saying safety shouldn’t be a goal, I’m saying that risk-free is functionally impossible and people disagree on “acceptable risk.”
On a rural country road a person can’t step out in front of your car because the road generally has about twenty or thirty feet of clearance on both sides. If the road is literally so narrow that there’s trees right beside the car, same as a tight city street full of parked cars, then I’ll definitely go 20 mph there.
I’m armed so any rednecks want to give me shit for going too slow next to their kids they can deal with my own inner redneck.
I’m not going to go faster than is safe, period.