[AT] OT laws as written versus as enforced was towing tractors with a pickup

[James Peck]

The compulsory education laws reflect a wide gap between the laws as written and as enforced. The law says children under 16 have to go to school. I used to know a man who received a felony conviction for home schooling his children.  Things have relaxed since then.

Amish where I was from will only go to public school through the 8th grade. Most people are 13 or 14 when they finish 8th grade. Until they reach age 16, Amish 8th grade finishers are officially truants. The Ohio legal system looks the other way. I did once listen to a woman who had been born Amish tell of truant officer interaction in the 1920's so maybe the overlooking is a more recent thing.

The Amish faith discourages vocations that require licenses. I have never known Amish men to drive trucks for a living. They will drive tractors and operate construction equipment as employees.

Common Law, largely bypassed, allows anyone to use the public right of way, precedence is to do so on foot or by horse. 30 years ago I read a local newspaper article about someone who was ticketed for driving without insurance. They rode a horse to the county courthouse to pay the fine but could have walked. The people who argue in court that the common law lets them operate motor vehicles on the public right of way without an operator's license end up being found guilty. 

I think I have previously told the story of my neighbor, maybe 16 but not yet having a drivers license, running away from home on his step-fathers Ferguson with front loader and overdrive. Maybe the highway patrol would not have pulled him over and taken both to juvenile detention if he had not had his girlfriend sitting on the fender. The tractor had the loader hydraulic pump driven from the front of the engine. I do not think the SMV sign had come into use on ag equipment then, even though it was being used on buggies.

Amish buggies use electric lights and SMV signs on the back. It is a matter of life and death.

[Steve W.] In NY at least you don't need a license for any farm equipment as long as it has the SMV sign on it. Just like the Amish don't have drivers licenses to operate their buggies because they are exempt.

[James Peck] Does the implements of husbandry exemption allow people without  drivers licenses to operate farm tractors on the highways?