Last week’s article was about horse and buggy crashes in Yates County in the Finger Lakes Region south of Rochester. Today’s article will be about possible solutions to reduce vehicle-buggy crashes statewide.

To better deal with what often causes a vehicle-horse buggy collision, Yates County Sheriff, Ron Spike, has teamed up with Mennonite families to add a white or amber flashing strobe light to the top rear of the buggy. It’s an effort to get a vehicle driver’s attention more quickly, allowing them time to brake before a collision occurs.

“We certainly think if you start to come up behind a buggy that has this strobe light flashing, (a driver) will see it a lot quicker. The flashing light really gets their attention,” Spike said.

Judson Reid, a specialist with Cornell Cooperative Extension in Corning who has worked with the Old Order Mennonites culture for 20 years and is a published author on the subject, agrees the flashing light will help motor vehicle drivers more easily see a horse and buggy in front of them.

Spike said another big issue that can often cause crashes is that the buggies are painted black due to a religious belief. “That black color is a visual conspicuity issue with most people’s eye’s ability to adjust to that color,” Spike said.

To attempt to make a buggy more visible sooner to motorists approaching a buggy from behind, Spike said he is working with some of the Mennonite leaders on use of strobe lights on buggies very similar to the white flashing strobe lights allowed on school buses for hazard operations. Spike has videotaped buggies with it flickering and sent pictures of it to the state Department of Motor Vehicles and to the Governor’s Traffic Safety Committee. The strobe gets your attention in the daylight, but it is too bright at night. Spike is requesting that the Commissioner of DMV rules that these strobe lights will be permissible on buggies, but that takes time.

Spike is also designing billboard public service messages that, hopefully, will help drivers understand the dangers incurred when sharing the roadways with Amish and Mennonite families. A horse and buggy is a legal user or our roads and highways. They have just as much legal rights to use the roads and highways as do motorized vehicles. They’re just different users of the same public space and that applies to pedestrians and bicyclists as well. There is not a difference just because a motorized vehicle goes faster and weighs more.

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Accurate statistics could help in understanding collisions

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Spike said he has long asked the DMV, the New York State Police and other agencies to clarify exactly when a slow-moving vehicle crash includes a horse and buggy, as opposed to farm tractors, agricultural equipment and other slow-moving vehicles. “Currently, slow moving vehicles, you don’t know whether we are talking about a horse and buggy on a traffic report, a farm tractor or a piece of agricultural equipment,” Spike said. “We just need to have better statistics on breaking these things down to get a better handle on it.” Spike said that change would allow everyone to know exactly what type of slow-moving crash occurred.

Hopefully, the work of Sheriff Spike can make our roads safer for everyone.