In stricter communities, horse-drawn vehicles are always used for local transportation, while trains are used for long distances. However, in most communities, the Amish will hire their “English” neighbors to drive them to where they want to go, and pay the driver by the mile. They call these “taxis.” The most common way for men to travel to their workplace, especially those who are craftsmen working at various worksites, is to hire a taxi driver. For other weekday trips, it is often a personal decision whether to travel by car or by horse and buggy, though it is very much frowned upon to arrive at an Amish church service in a car. Church members are expected to walk or take a buggy to church. In some communities it is also acceptable to use bicycles for transportation.

In the Amish way of thinking, it’s different to ride in cars than to own them. One Amish man was asked why this was so, and he replied with this question: “When you take a plane, do you buy a ticket or the plane?” While this response may be humorous, it doesn’t answer the question. I don’t know of any Amish person who can answer this question definitively. I know I can’t.

The closest I can come to explaining this is that when car travel was becoming the norm in the mainstream culture, Amish leaders decided to eschew this form or modernity. Often these kinds of decisions are adhered to for generations to come, even though it becomes harder to do so. Therefore, driving horse and buggies instead of cars has become one of those deep-seated Amish traditions.