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.
Wouldn’t reflectors work and be low-to-no technology to allow Amish to keep to their tradition? I’m thinking similar material to diamond grade street signs.
The Amish actually do use technology, but they can’t use it unless there’s no other alternative, for example word processing.
Also, they tend to use Linux.
That’s a broad statement. Different sects and communities have different levels of what they consider acceptable.
also very true.
Also, they tend to use Linux.
I’m assuming only Gentoo, right? Compiling libraries you will never need is the height of decadence.
They use Linux From Scratch and build from source. Bring it on, OSS world! Total control.
They already use those. This goes a lot deeper than “buggies are hard to see” and gets into governmentally preferred classes. Requiring the Amish switch from reflectors to lights is an act of both victim blaming and attempted cultural erasure
Horse-drawn carriages are slow-moving vehicles just like construction or agricultural equipment, or stationary obstacles. They present a danger if visibility is limited by weather or the road’s curvature.
Where I live, every vehicle is required to be illuminated when outside city limits, including carriages, and the horses themselves.
I hate this framing. The danger doesn’t come from the slow moving buggies, it comes from cars moving too fast to stop within the driver’s line of sight. Instead of a buggy, the “obstacle” could also be a pedestrian, a deer or a fallen tree. Should blinking lights be required for those, too?
You can hate it all you want if that makes you feel superior, but it’s still true.
could also be a pedestrian, a deer or a fallen tree
High-vis equipment is required here when a person has to spend an extended period on roads outside inhabited areas (actually high-vis gear is mandatory in all motor vehicles), and are required to walk on the left side to always have oncoming traffic in sight as opposed to behind. Larger roads have mitigation structures (mounds, fences, warnings signs, speed limits, or grade separation) where wildlife is known to cause problems. Our taxes pay for road inspection and maintenance services to clear natural or manmade obstacles.
If there are people on the roads they aren’t uninhabited.
“She was asking for it going to that neighborhood dressed like that.”
What’s the equivalent of rape culture but for cars mowing people down left and right?
What’s the equivalent of rape culture but for cars mowing people down left and right?
Reminds me of this: https://www.vox.com/2015/1/15/7551873/jaywalking-history
actually high-vis gear is mandatory in all motor vehicles
Wait, what? All this time I’ve been breaking the law by riding in cars without my high-vis vest?
Is “deliberately misunderstanding a sentence” a new olympic sport or something? Because goddamn, I’m putting bets on you winning at least silver (not gold though, that one goes to the crayon muncher that brought up rape for some weird reason).
I’m sure this will be shocking to you yankees, but not everybody is an American. Over this side of the Atlantic we have actual traffic laws to regulate how multi-ton death machines are operated, and they require certain safety equipment to be present in all vehicles. Things like:
- Spare tire and related tools
- Warning triangle (put it on the road behind the vehicle if it gets immobilized)
- High-visibility vest (mandatory to wear on motorcycles and by pedestrians on paved roads outside administrative city borders)
- First-aid kit
- Corrective eyewear if the mandatory medical exam indicates that it is needed
Since you’re not an American, can you explain why you feel the need to comment on this when you don’t really know what you’re talking about?
The fine is from an Ohio state law that is (imho) unconstitutional in the United States. These people have been using their horse drawn buggies on these roads for centuries. The roads they go on are rural. Not interstate highways or autobahn or whatever.
It’s not economically feasible for every country road in the USA to have wildlife mounds/fences because of how vast our country is. Drivers here are required to stop for obstructions, fallen branches and wildlife and if you can’t you’re going too fast. I just don’t buy excuses about this, the Amish aren’t going down the road at 4 am in a blizzard. They’re way more visible than a deer and they have reflectors. I live around here (not Ohio, but basically Ohio), this law is inexcusable and targeting a religious group. It’s also legal to walk down these roads or ride a horse or drive your tractor at 20 kilometers per hour dragging a combine or something. It’s farmland.
The entire county this takes place in has only 50k people. Rural area.
I found that other commenters post about rape distasteful by the way. There are better ways to point out victim blaming.
…or it’s an effort to save lives…
No. I live in PA, and we have a similar law. I remember before it was passed, and seeing buggies with just the reflectors.
Close up, directly in front of lights, you can see reflectors fine, but your lights aren’t always pointing at them. Maybe it’s a curve or a hill, maybe they are approaching an intersection, but flashing lights can be seen from all angles.
Also, most Amish have no problem using modern technology when required. It’s not like a pathological fear, it’s a religious devotion to self-reliance. They use cell phones and power tools when they need to, and they hire “English” (non-Amish) to drive them in cars. Some are more insular than others, and they rarely get involved in politics, so they mostly just do whatever is required.
Maybe it’s a curve or a hill, maybe they are approaching an intersection, but flashing lights can be seen from all angles.
Note that this law requires Amish use lights even in daytime, which won’t be visible around a bend or hill at such times. What’s next…telling bikes/peds they also have to go around wearing daytime strobe lights?
Bikes should have daytime strobes and headlamps. Cars should always have their headlights on. Visibility reduces accidents.
You can be on a curved road or a hill and have vehicles you can see that are not within your headlight beams. Further, if a vehicle is obstructed by a curve or hill, you may see lights illuminate the dark ahead of you before the vehicle comes into view.
There’s no reason not to have lights on vehicles on the road.
Bikes should have daytime strobes and headlamps. Cars should always have their headlights on. Visibility reduces accidents.
This is so utterly car brained. Bicycles and Amish buggies aren’t even remotely the ones making the danger here. Are we going to require stupid flashing beacons on pedestrians now to?? No, the solution here is a road diet, traffic calming, speed governors on SUVs, and modal separation.
There’s no reason not to have lights on vehicles on the road.
Because it costs money to run lights, and good lights cost money. (https://www.bumm.de/en/products/akku-scheinwerfer/parent/1922/produkt/1922qmla.html)
I honestly can’t tell if this is sarcasm since motorcycles and cars in the US have required daytime running lights for a couple decades.
Nowhere in the US are cars required to use daytime running lights…certainly not in Ohio.
Daytime running lights are required on large sections of the highway in Alaska. It’s posted on signs on the road and you can get ticketed for it.
“( c ) Every vehicle traveling on a highway or vehicular way or area must illuminate lights when traveling on any roadway that is posted with signs requiring the use of headlights.
(d) For the purposes of ( c ) of this section, lights include low intensity headlights and daytime running lamp devices…”
Daytime running lights are required on large sections of the highway in Alaska
Wow, totally not being misleading here. /s The place we’re talking about is in the lower 48 smart guy.
I was responding to a previous comment that said “Nowhere in the US.” Alaska is still the United States.
People are so up in arms at the seeming contradiction of Amish using a light and a battery on their buggies.
Guess what: most Amish businesses have cell phones. If you drive through Amish country in Ohio, you will see dozens of people in Amish garb riding e-bikes.
I hate cars and judges, and frankly Ohio is a hellhole; but if some lights are going to make people safer it really isn’t going to be that big of a burden. If the judge says they have to do it, then their community elders will approve it, nbd.
None of you ever had Mennonite friends and it shows.
I think victim blaming is the problem here.
By victims I assume you mean unsuspecting drivers coming across a dark, unlighted vehicle in the road at night who could be injured or killed by an accident or swerving to avoid one, right?
No, by victims we mean the people using a road in the way roads were used for centuries, completely legally. The ones being hit from behind by people in too much of a hurry to use proper caution in area where Amish frequently travel and they are not the only users of the roadway.
If I drive through a neighborhood with a “Children at Play” sign and run over a kid, I can 100% guarantee you that I am not the victim. That is some very cringe logic. The road exists first for pedestrians, secondly for non-motorized vehicles, and lastly… for automobiles.
They’re not using it legally, hence the legal proceedings.
Just because something is illegal doesn’t mean it’s immoral. Sometimes the laws themselves are immoral. I believe this may be such a situation.
I don’t necessarily disagree. But someome using the road legally needs be able to assume others are too. If you can’t, what do you do? Walking, riding a bike, or driving do you stop at every green light to make sure no one is going to decide the red lights don’t apply to them? Do you idle down the road at 10mph whenever it’s dark or there is reduced visibility to make sure someone didn’t decide the laws don’t apply to them and drove an unlighted vehicle?
The most important thing about using a road safely, whether you’re walking, riding, or driving, is to be predictable. A large unlighted vehicle appearing out of the darkness is not predictable.
If you think the law should be changed and some other accommodation made, that’s a reasonable opinion. But until that happens, the person injured or killed by illegal activity is the victim, not the person acting illegally.
That’s a great response and I’m now on board with you. You’re considering this from a perspective I hadn’t, but I see it now. Thanks for taking the time to write this out.
Let it be known that on this day, the sixth of August in the year of our Lord 2024, an event of great import and considerable rarity occurred: a man’s opinion was changed by Internet discourse.
A large unlighted vehicle appearing out of the darkness is not predictable.
But a bear, deer, moose, or other large animal is, and they don’t have warning lights. Drivers need to drive within the distance of their headlights and sight; it’s that simple.
I occasionally come around bends in the roads to my neighborhood and discover a deer standing in the road. Because I’m not going too fast, I’m able to stop and avoid hitting them. Or, I could come around a bend and discover a large tree has fallen on the road. Again, it’s my responsibility to be driving in a manner that I can stop in time. It’s not the tree’s fault if I hit it, unless it just happens to fall inches in front of me.
Blaming the victims instead of the drivers is the biggest problem with cars in the US today. Drivers need to be responsible for their several tons of heavy machinery, and we do not hold them responsible often enough. So, drivers are practically encouraged to drive like nothing is going to go wrong.
Traffic laws tend to be about safety rather than morality.
It would be interesting if separate bicycle infra ever makes its way to that part of Ohio. I wonder how the buggies would be treated in that case? Would they be permitted to ride on the bike paths, or would they only be allowed on certain parts of the paths?
If they can’t see a fucking cart with their headlights on, then what chance do they have of avoiding a cyclist or a pedestrian out for a walk?
Some people shouldn’t be allowed to drive.
They have a very good chance of seeing me while I’m cycling because I’m lighted. If I’m forced to walk on the road at night without a light I’ll stay out of the roadway when cars are coming. Doing otherwise would be stupid, just as stupid as driving an unlighted vehicle with a significant speed differential at night.
They should see you with only your reflectors. Headlight “safety” ratings have steadily improved since 2016. [https://www.iihs.org/news/detail/ranks-of-top-safety-pick-winners-swell-as-automakers-improve-headlights] I use the air-quotes as IIHS tests favor more light for the driver at the expense of glare for others.
In any case, if they can’t see you at night, then they need to slow down as the maximum speeds supported by current low beam technology is around 40-45 mph. Bicycles shouldn’t be on roads with such high prevailing speeds, 50 mph+. Rather they should be on a separate path. In that case the risk is far lower to the cyclist then what some flashing lights could’ve achieved.
Cyclists and pedestrians use lights + high-vis gear
What’s depressing is that now headlights are glaring LED supernovas, and yet drivers still can’t stop hitting things at night.
Well i assume the drivers used headlights at night so they can see where they’re going and if there are obstacles in the way.
I see you don’t understand how dark objects work at night when they are not lit. Lmfao. And then BOOM instantly lit 5 fr in front of you.
The idea behind the typical Amish perspective on technology is to preserve community. Exceptions are sometimes made as necessary or reasonable, washing machines being one of the most popular exceptions. It seems to be working well for them.
I honestly really like that approach. I have a feeling they have a much more warm and supportive feeling of family when all goes to plan and there are no predators.
Yeah, they can even use computers and Linux distros exist for the Amish.
I am looking at all the comments and sub comments and realizing almost all the people commenting don’t realize this is posted in fuckcars.
The entire point of this community is to point out how cars have screwed everyone else from using roads and paths that at times predated cars. Most major city’s could add good bike paths and lighten the traffic by using bikes or any other non vehicle option.
This is what happens when a large chunk of lemmy users browse via all.
The worst is when people come from all and post discriminatory comments in a group that is specifically meant as a support group for vulnerable people.
Oh I realised what sub this is but that makes shit arguments not better. This subject makes the sub look stupid, it shouldn’t have been posted.
It’s the responsibility of the driver not to hit something, not the something not to get hit.
See halfsack’s comment. To elaborate on that point, actually good & competent drivers have many responsibilities. Among them is to see…and be seen.
As others have said, a lot of these buggies are all black. And they’re puttering around the road, on a dark nights, well under established speed limits. 2 vehicles traveling at very different speeds, the slow one is hard to see. That’s just begging for an accident.
At least where I live, it is technically illegal to drive without headlights on when it’s raining. If windshield wipers are required, so are headlights. This is to bolster visibility in poor weather conditions. Also just headlights in general, you can get pulled over & ticketed for driving at night without headlights. Why should the Amish be a dangerous exception to the rules of the road??
This alone: Roads funded by taxpayers, which IIRC the Amish are largely tax-exempt. Thus: if they wish to travel on our roads, they need to abide by our rules & not make the roads more dangerous.
To be slightly more accommodating to Luddites, we could put hi-vis reflective tape on the buggies. But again as others have said, the Amish have all kinds of workarounds/exceptions/justifications to get what they want. They have mobile phones. Some have snowmobiles. They have generators, so they’re not “tied into the worldly grid” but they generate & use electricity. So maybe they can get used to the idea of battery-powered lights on their buggies, for visibility.
This comment is surprisingly car brained. Just change a few words and see what it reads.
As others have said, a lot of these buggies are all black. And they’re puttering around the road, on a dark nights, well under established speed limits. 2 vehicles traveling at very different speeds, the slow one is hard to see. That’s just begging for an accident.
As others have said, a lot of these cyclists all wear black. And they’re puttering around the road, on a dark nights, well under established speed limits. 2 vehicles traveling at very different speeds, the slow one is hard to see. That’s just begging for an accident.
At least where I live, it is technically illegal to drive without headlights on when it’s raining. If windshield wipers are required, so are headlights. This is to bolster visibility in poor weather conditions. Also just headlights in general, you can get pulled over & ticketed for driving at night without headlights. Why should the Amish be a dangerous exception to the rules of the road??
At least where I live, it is technically illegal to drive without headlights on when it’s raining. If windshield wipers are required, so are headlights. This is to bolster visibility in poor weather conditions. Also just headlights in general, you can get pulled over & ticketed for driving at night without headlights. Why should the cyclists be a dangerous exception to the rules of the road??
That’s the general idea, but life’s not that black and white. It’s better if both parties contribute to avoiding collisions. It’s the same reason why I’m required to have brake lights and hazard lights on my car.
Absolutely, I still don’t ride my bike on the freeway, and I still check both ways before crossing roads, even when there is a crosswalk.
Sometimes reality is at odds with our idealistic views.
It’s the responsibility of everyone on the road to follow the same laws. A horse and buggy are about the same size as a car and everyone I’ve ever seen is painted completely black. Many Amish communities have been running battery powered led signal and head lights for decades with no issues.
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It’s fucking stupid. Anyone who can’t see an object in front of their car needs to have their license revoked.
I’m from an area where this can be a problem. In my experience it’s pretty easy to see the buggys during the day, but at night on an unlit state road even with good head lights they can be hard to see until you are practically right on top of them.
Yeah, fuck cars, but it’s just kinda a crap situation in general.
Especially because the buggies are black, which blend in at night/dusk.
Reflective tape is a thing. That can be used without electricity.
They don’t like colours (flashing wealth and putting yourself above your fellow man) I think reflective tape might be just a bit to flashy…
At least where I used to live around the Amish long ago they would put those big orange reflective triangles on each end. The rest was plain as can be as usual. It sounds like it depends on the group but many are fine using something not-entirely-plain if it has a safety benefit. I’ve seen the Amish using safety gasses etc.
Agreed, that would be a good first step in the right direction. It shouldn’t remove the requirement for lights.
Reflective tape should also be on the horses’ gear.
But like deer and dogs are basically camouflaged. So is a fallen tree. A driver needs to be able to avoid road hazards that haven’t been designed for visibility.
If it’s so dark that it’s hard to distinguish non-reflective objects on the road, the driver needs to slow down until their object perception time is well within their stopping time. And that needs to cover the hardest objects to perceive, IMO.
at night on an unlit state road even with good head lights they can be hard to see until you are practically right on top of them.
Children, animals, etc are going to be even harder to see I’d think. Seems like people are just going too fast for the visibility they have…
This is probably true. However weather and other factors can add a loss of visibility. Every other vehicle on the road has a lighting system for a reason. It’s safer. Children are not usually roaming around at night.
And you should adjust your speed based on those factors. If you can’t see a giant object, even with reflectors, you are going far too fast.
We should only drive 5mph because a kid could run out into any street, theoretically.
The actual answer is that we take calculated risks all the time and trade safety for convenience every day.
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.
You should definitely drive like 5 mph if you’re passing right next to spots where a kid might be.
The only thing that warrants extra speed is when there’s enough visible, open space such that a kid would be visible for a few seconds before getting to the road at a full sprint.
Like the roads in front of my apartment are listed as 30 mph but I go 20 because it’s so tight with cars on both sides. 30 is simply not a safe speed there.
I’m an Uber driver. I grew up in the country and started driving at age 13. I fucking love to drive, and love to race and do stupid shit. I respect driving and I hope it remains. But stopping distance needs to always be less than visible distance. And if you’re three feet from a hiding spot to the side of your car, your car needs to be going very very slow.
I just always assume there’s a suicidal two year old behind literally everything, just waiting to dive out in front of my wheels. That’s my standard for driving speed. A toddler absolutely determined to get hit, and I’m going to thwart him.
That is 100 percent not true. I run a fleet of commercial vehicles and have driven trucks and buses for two decades. For the most part you are correct. Speed is a factor. But it does not eliminate ALL hazards. Lights mitigate it much more.
If you are driving in conditions where 0.1mph is too fast to see an entire buggy without hitting it, you are going too fast
Look at it from another perspective:
If you’re driving a buggy on a public Right-of-Way, you should ensure it’s visible enough to be seen by someone obeying the speed limit driving on the road.
Reflectors are a partial answer, but they require direct line of sight. If there’s a buggy just over a hill, headlights won’t hit the reflectors until the driver crests the top of the hill, while lights on the buggy will illuminate dust, fog, and nearby foliage that can be seen earlier.
I have lights on my bicycle. There’s no reason a 6-8’-wide black buggy shouldn’t also have them.
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Hey look, Ohio once again going the wrong direction, just like every city I’ve lived in does with bicycles.
Cars keep crashing into bicycles/Amish? Penalize the bicycles/Amish! How dare they intrude into what has ALWAYS been the domain of cars.
Man, fuck Ohio and fuck cars. If I could ride my bicycle to work every day I would.
Man, fuck Ohio
Clevelander here.
…yeah.
Condolences.
Good fishing, though! Just don’t set the river on fire. again.
Pssshhhh!!! Don’t tell me what to do!
You have nice mild summers, but it can’t be worth that winter.
I’m more mid-ohio, myself, and the winters have gotten much milder than they were in my childhood, unfortunately.
My dad likes to tell stories about him and his brothers driving on a local pond in their teenage years because it froze thick enough to do so.
It hasn’t frozen over since I was in middle school.
Oh yeah I know it. I’m in central WV. We used to get tons of snow when I was a kid. Winters are mild now.
Depends…are you thinking of the east side or the weat side? The west side might not get any snow, while the east side gets a thick full 9 inches…
I’ve only been up there working a few times so I didn’t know the difference was so drastic.
- Non electric reflectors
- Change the roads and have separate roads for motorized and non motorized vehicles. Either put separate roads along them, widen the current ones
- Move the blame towards the damn people that crash into these buggies, as they obviously are not paying attention to the road
- Put more road lights. With LED and solar panels the installation cost for a simple light is pretty minimal nowadays.
- Make it a rule that they can not drive at night instead of forcing electric lights upon their buggies. If they still drive at night, they are responsible for their own well-being
People and especially government forget that these kind of rules and laws are meant to protect the people. But instead the people they are supposed to protect are fined, forced to go up to the judge, forced to defend themselves against something that other people are telling them they should be doing. They are now victims because somebody else is supposedly trying to protect them from being victims.
The last one is bullshit. They’re not putting themselves at risk, but others too.
It’s like saying the solution to DUI is to make it legal but they are responsible for their well-being.
Yes and i do think that should be the case. There are people that can drive better than other drivers even when they have a beer or a small amount of drugs in their system.
But then you should also be responsible for everybody’s wellbeing
Change the roads and have separate roads for motorized and non motorized vehicles. Either put separate roads along them, widen the current ones Put more road lights. With LED and solar panels the installation cost for a simple light is pretty minimal nowadays.
This is still expensive, impractical, and unrealistic for many rural towns. The last place I lived struggled for two months just to pull together the funds to spray for mosquitos because they already had plans to work on the town’s ditches.
I gotta say I already thought this was a thing.
All the buggies in my area all have these lights already.
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.
…
On Thursday, Good told them that while they may prefer jail, an Ohio Supreme Court case prohibits him jailing defendants that refuse to pay fines for non-jailable offenses.The State is going to steal their property and render them homeless for following their religion, as if that’s somehow better than a short jail term.
It’s free (prime farmland) real estate!
It’s the American way
Good luck with that, the Amish have more money then they know what to do with. This is just a cash grab.
Their religion is causing danger to other drivers. If their religion is that important they can not use the roads.
Nah, that’s car-supremacist bullshit. There are any number of unlit things that could be in the road that automobile drivers have a responsibility to watch out for: pedestrians, cyclists, deer, etc. The notion that a driver could smash into something because they were driving too fast for the throw of their headlights and somehow not be 100% responsible for it is ridiculous blame-shifting.
There are other things too, but as long as there are safety rules for vehicles a religious exemption is moronic. Safety is safety.
Fuck religious-supremist exemptions from valid* public safety requirements.
*Visibility for safety, pandemic distancing and mask requirements in public, etc. are valid. Mask bans are not valid for anyone, so there shouldn’t even be a reason for religious exemptions to come up.
I hate cars, but I hate getting stuck behind the Amish even more. Doesn’t mean they need to get hit by cars, but their religion is fucked up to a degree most people don’t realize, especially when it comes to women.
Those buggies are straight up hazardous to people, including the people driving them
Festooned is a great word.
why flashing lights and not reflectors?
I believe they were already required to use reflectors. Back in the 80’s when I was sometimes in Ohio with my parents we used to pass Amish buggies sometimes, and they always had an orange triangle retroreflector thing on the back.
I’ve seen the Amish in Ohio in more recent years and I’m pretty sure I always saw one of those triangle retroreflectors on the back of the buggy.
I think this was NotTheOnion for a moment
Not as popular as his cousin Johnny B.
Why not use oil lamps or candles in wind-proof lanterns? Red glass for rear, clear glass for the front. My grandparents rode bikes back in the days before reliable battery lamps were a thing and that’s what they used.
The lights must be “flashing” according to the headline
Ok, but why? None of our motor vehicles use flashing lights, why them?
They sure do when they’re going slower than regular traffic. They’re called “hazard lights”. You may find you have them in your car too.
I believe they used carbide lamps and not oil lamps.
Where did these buggies drive before there were paved roads designed and maintained for multi-ton haulers and passenger vehicles? 🤔
Gravel and dirt roads that were there before
Surely they were made without the multi-ton equipment that require paved roadways to use.
If I keep seeing people get hit on any of the poorly designed roads around me, I find a new path or make my own.
Sorry it works this way.
Maybe new paths could be forged. Something says you won’t be shoveling anything to help out. Enjoy being mad at the world.
Yeah sure, if there wasn’t productive farmland or other private property where these roads would be placed.
Unfortunately space like that exists, but it’s taken up by the paved roads…
I don’t know if you know this, but people get mad if you dig a road through their property.
those roads were still on state Right of Way, they’re competing for the same real estate
