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Two recent crashes of Amish buggies with autos raise safety issue

Andy Starnes/Post-Gazette

Two recent crashes of Amish buggies with autos raise safety issue

When worlds collide

Two collisions that crushed horse-drawn buggies and critically injured two Amishmen in Mercer County this month have renewed attention to the mismatch between fast, heavy metal motor vehicles and slow, lightweight wooden buggies.

Most Amish and Old Order Mennonite communities have worked diligently to make their buggies visible at night. The trouble is that new research shows that nighttime isn't the most dangerous time for buggies. Instead it's sun-blindness. And often the problem is not the buggy, but a distracted motorist.

Buggy Builders Bulletin, an Amish-produced trade journal, has tried to explain the world of modern motorists to readers with a 19th-century lifestyle.

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"We have run articles about what people are doing in their vehicles," said Larry Bowman, an Amish buggy builder from Thompsonville, Ill., who formerly published the journal and remains on its advisory board.

"They have fax machines, cell phones, radios, television, and they're not paying attention to their driving. Someone driving a horse has to pay attention -- and they don't watch television. You have two worlds colliding here," he said.

Such collisions produced brutal results in Perry, Mercer County. On May 5, Erven A. Byler, 22, of Hartstown, Lawrence County, was driving his buggy along Route 358 at about 12:50 a.m., when a hit-and-run driver struck from behind. Amish buggies are designed to eject their occupants, and Mr. Byler was thrown about 50 feet. His horse was killed.

The next day State Police arrested Timothy Alter, 22, of Transfer, Mercer County, who was charged with leaving the scene of a crash involving serious bodily injury and driving on a suspended license. Mr. Byler remains in critical condition in St. Elizabeth Health Center in Youngstown, Ohio.

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He was joined in the intensive care unit five days later by Benjamin Kempf, 29, of Clarks Mills, Mercer County. Mr. Kempf was driving a buggy, also on Route 358, with his children, David, 6, Erma, 5, Melvin, 4, and Miriam, 1, shortly before 7 p.m. on May 10, when a drunken driver sped toward them in a pickup truck. Jennifer Crenshaw, 38, of Geneva, Ohio, crossed the center line, struck a utility pole and her truck rolled into the buggy.

All the occupants were ejected and hospitalized with moderate to critical injuries. All of the children have since been discharged from Children's Hospital. Their father was moved from intensive care to a regular hospital room last week.

According to Mr. Kempf's neighbors, said Bob Zahniser, a clerk at nearby McCartney Feed and Hardware in Fredonia, "It's going to be a long recovery, and they think he'll be OK."

Ms. Crenshaw was charged with driving under the influence of alcohol, five counts of aggravated assault while driving under the influence and many other traffic offenses.

The Kempf crash did not fit common patterns, said Cory Anderson, a member of the Beachy Amish, the most liberal of Amish communities. He is completing a master's thesis at Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond on the 76 documented crashes between motor vehicles and buggies in Pennsylvania in 2006.

"The motorist had already made an error independent of the buggy's presence, and the buggy was just in the wrong place at the wrong time," he said.

The Byler crash was more typical, he said, because the buggy was struck from behind, although the late hour was unusual. Contrary to a popular belief, early morning and late afternoon, when the low sun blinds drivers, are the most dangerous times for buggies, he said.

Of 31 rear-end crashes in 2006, he said, 14 occurred when the sun was near the horizon.

"The other two major factors in rear-end crashes are driver distraction and the buggy being hidden from view because of it being just on the other side of a hill. It is rarely because of illumination," he said.

Between 2003 and 2007, the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation counted 330 collisions between horse-drawn buggies and motor vehicles. Of 343 buggy crashes between 2002 and 2006, there were 16 fatalities, said David Pritt, safety press officer for PennDOT.

Buggies don't have seat belts. The passengers usually sit above the level of impact, so they are ejected from a fragile vehicle that can't protect them.

"It's a better bet to get launched out of the buggy during a crash and land on the road than to be in it when it shatters," Mr. Anderson, the Amish researcher, said. "Injuries are either very minor or major to fatal, with little in between."

PennDOT and its Ohio equivalent have been working with Amish communities and local law enforcement to encourage buggy safety. They've worked in high-concentration Amish communities toward guidelines for consistent buggy markings, said Everette Burkholder, of Dayton, Va., current publisher of Buggy Builder's Bulletin.

Junior Wengerd, an Amishman with a contractor sales business in Fredericksburg, Ohio, attended safety sessions at a local auction barn. They were held at night, so people could compare the effectiveness of different lights and markings. Reflector tape on wheel hubs was very important to show the moving buggy, he said.

"I try to have everything up to specs. We have these yellow flashing lights in the center of the buggy. That can be seen for miles," he said. "I have all the lighting that is required, plus turning signals."

Five years ago on Christmas Eve, Mr. Wengerd survived a collision with an oversize pickup truck in broad daylight. He was near his home on a road that appeared clear when he rounded a small knob. The young driver who struck him from behind was speeding and talking on a cell phone, he said.

Mr. Wengerd was thrown clear and knocked unconscious. When he came to, he thought he was fine and tried to reassure the driver who had struck him. Forgiveness is a primary spiritual rule of the Amish.

"I tried to be as friendly as I could," he said.

Two hours later Mr. Wengerd passed out from a concussion.

"They didn't think I was going to make it," he said. "I was off work for quite a while and it was two and a half years before I was fully able to do my work."

His insurance company and the sheriff tracked down the driver who had struck him.

"He paid everything," Mr. Wengerd said. "He was really good about it. I kind of felt sorry for the poor kid. He said he had just got his truck out of the repair shop a week ago. He must not have been quite as cautious as he might have been. You can't beat up on someone like that. Everything turned out good."

Such rear-end collisions are the most common, accounting for 31 of 76 documented Pennsylvania crashes in 2006. But the 97 percent of these crashes that occur at "mid-block," rather than at intersections, is far higher than for collisions involving other types of vehicles, Mr. Anderson said.

That, he said, "would indicate that speed differentials are a major cause."

Of the other types of crashes, eight happened when a motorist attempted to pass a buggy and side-swiped it, and 12 occurred when a buggy pulled out from a driveway or side road.

The latter "were all the buggy drivers' fault because of poorly timed entrances," but were often aggravated by visibility issues from bad weather or winding roads, he said.

Nine occurred when a buggy was making a left turn and an oncoming car attempted a last-minute pass, "either aware or unaware of the buggy driver's intention," he said.

Though his research shows that darkness isn't the worst hazard, it's as important for buggies to have night markings as for a car to have its headlights on at night, he said.

The Amish have used a hodge-podge of devices, some of which could mark any slow-moving or broken-down vehicle, he said. Instead, markings should outline the buggy and make it easy to assess how far away it is and how fast it is moving.

Its back, sides and wheels should be outlined in reflective tape, and the horses should wear reflective "bracelets" on their feet, he said.

However, "a buggy that has too many reflective markings and is overly lit may actually draw motorists' attention too much. Studies show that motorists may inadvertently steer in the direction of something that draws their attention."

Young Amishmen often come to Mr. Burkholder's shop with ideas for many special lights that they think might help in particular road situations.

But "after a while, you reach the point where you have nothing but a ball of light going down the road," he said, noting the need for consistency.

Some resistance still comes from a few communities that reject reflectors as "gaudy," and will use only oil lamps. Several years ago in Cambria County, a settlement of Swartzentruber Amish won a court battle against a state law requiring a red reflecting triangle on the back of their buggies, though they do use gray reflecting tape.

"We are trying to educate ourselves and our customers to the need of adequate markings, but we are hampered by those church groups that still feel it's unnecessary to have all these gaudy, bright lights and batteries," Mr. Burkholder said.

"There is even one group of people who can have battery tail lights but not battery headlights because of church regulations."

Other communities are cutting back on buggy travel, hiring non-Amish to drive them in cars even on local trips.

John Otto, a Crawford County Amishman who builds roof trusses north of Meadville, has reflective markers and 12-volt flashing lights on his buggy. But he uses it now only for very short trips.

"We don't get around as much here" as in some other Amish communities, he said. "When we go to town, we hire somebody to take us."

First Published: May 25, 2008, 8:00 a.m.

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