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.

  • roscoe@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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    3 months ago

    I suppose you could try to pass laws against animals or fallen trees in the roadway. I don’t know how successful that might be. Fining a bear for being in the road also presents challenges.

    Using a road in any way is never going to be completely safe. All we can do is make rules that reduce or eliminate known hazards.

    We’re not taking about a deer being a deer. We’re talking about a group of stubborn dickheads who despite knowing damn well that they’re sharing the road with vehicles that have large speed differentials, refuse to make themselves visible for the benefit of everyone’s safety.

    The victim is the person injured or killed by someone committing an illegal act. Not the person acting illegally.

    • limelight79@lemm.ee
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      3 months ago

      Keep driving like nothing will ever go wrong, I’m sure that will work out perfectly for you!

      • roscoe@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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        3 months ago

        Lol, nice straw man.

        Hey, let me ask you a few questions.

        What if the next law these fucking jerks decide they don’t want to follow is driving on the right? You come to one of the bends you go around and instead of a deer standing there, or a fallen tree, there are two horses pulling a carriage toward you making the combined speed too high to stop in time. Your hood takes out their legs and a couple thousand pounds of house torso blasts through your windshield killing you and your family.

        Are you and your deceased family victims now? Or is the victim still somehow the asshole driving the carriage who miraculously always remains blameless just because they’re not driving a car?

        What does fuck cars mean to you?

        To me it means drastically reducing the share of infrastructure and space given to the operation and storage of cars by improving public transportation and cycling/pedestrian friendly infrastructure to reduce, or even eliminate, the need for personal motor vehicles larger than an E-Bike in most, or even all cases.

        Based on your comments “fuck cars” is just a mantra. A mantra you’ve repeated often enough to inspire a religious-like conviction that the driver of a motor vehicle is always at fault when they come in conflict with any other road user, no matter how ridiculous it makes you sound.

        • limelight79@lemm.ee
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          3 months ago

          You’re actually insane. Got it.

          Roads are a shared resource, and we all have a responsibility to use them wisely.

          Driving around too fast to stop - whether it be vehicle or horse - is irresponsible. I don’t understand why this is a controversial opinion, but it sure as hell is. I ride bicycles, I drive compact cars, and I drive a pickup while towing a 30’ long trailer, so I experience all aspects of road usage and rage directed at me.

          And somehow I know that I need to keep within my limits of braking. It’s not hard. Christ. I’m blocking you, I don’t need insane people in my life.

          • roscoe@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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            3 months ago

            So we’re both in agreement that driving too fast is irresponsible.

            But you think diving an unlighted buggy at night is fine. And furthermore, if that unlighted buggy gets in an accident with a car, it’s definitely the driver of the car obeying all the laws at fault, never the fault of the buggy driving scofflaw.

            Nope, doesn’t sound like dogmatic culty thinking to me at all.

            BTW: the appeal to authority fallacy is no better than a straw man. Much like traffic laws, they’re all important.