The growing number of Amish families settling in Southside Virginia has led to a growing number of traffic accidents involving cars and buggies, some of them fatal. Since 2016, there have been at least five deaths in Virginia involving vehicles hitting horse-drawn carriages, most recently in Cumberland County last summer when an 8-year-old girl in a buggy was killed.
That led to a debate Thursday where the Senate Transportation Committee grappled with how to regulate horse-drawn buggies without impinging on the religious convictions of the Amish.
State Sen. Mark Peake, R-Lynchburg, said he introduced SB 1075 at the request of the Campbell County Sheriff’s Office. Among other things, the bill would mandate certain reflectors be displayed on buggies and require that they be visible for at least 500 feet.
Peake said the goal is to make buggies more visible so they’re less prone to accidents. “The Amish folks don’t seem to care,” he said. “They seem to think it’s God’s will if a vehicle approaches [and results in a fatal accident]. They think it’s God’s will, but the people who hit them really get upset if they kill someone.”
He said that as the Amish have moved into Campbell County, the Campbell-based Foster Fuels company has been particularly concerned that one of its tankers will round a bend and hit a slow-moving buggy.
“They’re deathly afraid they’re going to kill someone in these buggies,” Peake said. “This is an effort to protect these people who don’t want to be protected, so we want to make them as visible as possible.”
No one objected to Peake’s bill but four senators — Travis Hackworth, R-Tazewell County; Ghazala Hashmi, D-Richmond; Bill DeSteph, R-Virginia Beach; and David Suetterlein, R-Roanoke County — expressed concern because there hadn’t been conversations with the Amish community.
DeSteph noted that some of the reflectors envisioned might include technology that the Amish would find against their beliefs.
“My concern is about the lack of engagement with the Amish community,” Hashmi said.
The committee voted to delay action on the bill until later in the session to give time for Peake or others to talk with the Amish. “They’re not much into electronics,” Peake said.