Amish Families at Risk on the Highways of Holmes County

There has been a development in Holmes County, Ohio, that perfectly back-lights the conflict and ambiguity created by the intimate mix of modern society and the traditions of the old ways as practiced by the Amish people of the region.  It is a development that illustrates why I will never exhaust the supply of interesting themes for my Amish-Country Mysteries.  It will take some careful thinking to explain the development, but in short, some of the bishops here have ruled that Amish families can own and use farm tractors.  You’d think that would be a simple matter.  Tractors are better for farming than teams of horses.  But it’s not a simple matter at all.  At least not the way it has played out recently.

We are seeing them everywhere, now – small lawn tractors and front loaders, medium-sized machines and four-wheelers, and larger field tractors built for power and speed.  Amish people are using them for duties on the farm, as well you might expect, but sadly and maybe ironically, there is more.  Sons, fathers, and grandfathers are also using them for trips into town.  The slow-moving machines are out on the roads.  If you find yourself trapped behind one on the hill of a two-lane road, you think you might as well be trapped behind a horse and buggy.  Or if you crest a hill too fast and come upon one suddenly, you’ll risk a crash, just as if there were a buggy there.  And just like the buggies, there are no license plates, no driver’s licenses, and no insurance in case of a crash.  The response on the part of law enforcement in Holmes County seems to have been to post a new 45 mph speed limit on the two-lane county roads.

If it had stopped there, I don’t think I, or any other English traveler in Holmes County, would have taken much notice.  But that’s not the end of it.  Now we are seeing wagons and flat-bed trailers attached to the backs of the tractors, and even then I don’t suppose there is anything too unusual.  But human nature being what it is, it didn’t stop there.  Now sons and daughters, babies and mothers, grandparents and whole families are riding on the flat-bed trailers, seated on lawn chairs.  They sit out in the open, without railings or seat belts, as if they hadn’t a care in the world.  They sit facing each other so they can talk, as if they were seated around a campfire.  They ride without safety restraints, without protection, and without insurance.  The rigs sometimes reach speeds of 20, 30, and maybe 40 mph, and the families ride behind the tractors as if there weren’t anything unusual about it at all. 

I am sure that the bishops will soon realize their error.  Once they allowed tractors, they should have known that all imaginable uses of them would be employed.  Once they made a compromise with the modern world, they should have known that their culture would be changed irreversibly.  Oh, they might soon retract the ruling as a misguided experiment with modernity, but the implications of the experiment will have been inescapable.  With tractors leading the way, can automobiles be far behind? 

So what surprises you most about this new development?  Is it the astonishing decisions of some of the bishops to allow tractors in the first place, or is it the license the people have taken to use the tractors, and the wagons they pull, for transportation?  Are you, as I was at first, appalled by the safety concerns?  Appalled by the risks?  Are you thinking that the sheriff ought to do something to curtail the practice?  Should the speed limit be dropped to 35 mph, or should license plates be required for those trailers?

For me, it was the safety issue.  I saw those children riding out in the open on lawn chairs, and I wanted to stop and berate the drivers.  I wanted to interfere.  And that’s when I realized what I was thinking.  It is interference from well-meaning neighbors like me that Amish people most seek to avoid.  It is the intrusion of law enforcement authorities that most threatens the traditions and faith-based practices of these religious separatists.  The whole point of living Amish is to refuse the encroachment of modern ways.  Tradition is just as important as scripture to them, and license plates on trailers is just the kind of issue over which Amish people would chose to stand and argue for their rights.  If the bishops took the tractors away, they’d accept it as right and proper, but if elements of modern American society were to intrude with rulings, laws, and arrests, that’s where the Amish would take a stand.

But there’s that safety issue that I can’t escape.  I can’t get the astonishing image of those families riding along on lawn chairs, out in the open, risking it all for nothing more important than a ride into town.  Then I realized again what I was doing.  I realized how ironic it was that I’d be worried.  You see, the buggies that we have accepted here as normal are no less dangerous.  And maybe Amish people already understand this.  Surely they know it better than anyone does.  To travel the county roads in a horse and buggy is just as dangerous as this new practice.  The danger has always been there.  Nothing is new.