A crash involving a horse-drawn buggy and a vehicle killed one person and left a four-year-old and a 17-year-old injured Thursday morning in Highland County, Ohio. The two children were flown to the hospital following the collision, which happened around 8:30 a.m. at the intersection of U.S. Route 50 and State Route 753 near Rainsboro.
The Ohio State Highway Patrol said the vehicles collided at that intersection, according to WKRC, though troopers had not yet released the identity of the person killed or detailed what led up to the crash. The Scioto Valley Guardian reported that the Paint Creek Joint EMS & Fire District provides emergency response across more than 362 square miles spanning Highland, Fayette, and Ross counties, and that the intersection was closed for an indefinite period, with the duration unspecified.
A Highway Merge Point With a History of Risk
The stretch where the crash occurred is notable for its layout. U.S. Route 50 and State Route 753 run concurrently for about a mile through the unincorporated community of Rainsboro before splitting toward Greenfield and Hillsboro, according to Ohio State Route 753's geographic documentation on Wikipedia. That kind of highway concurrency can create hazardous conflict points in rural areas, where slow-moving buggies must navigate alongside vehicles that are turning or merging.
It remains unclear whether the vehicle involved was attempting to pass the buggy or was turning near the US 50/SR 753 split, and whether lighting conditions or speed played a role — details Ohio State Highway Patrol had not addressed as of Thursday. The updated medical conditions of the four-year-old and 17-year-old who were flown to the hospital were also not immediately available.
Ohio's Buggy Law and a Troubling Statewide Pattern
Ohio lawmakers moved to address buggy safety in 2022, when they enacted House Bill 30, which revised laws governing slow-moving and animal-drawn vehicles, requiring all animal-drawn buggies on public roads to display a yellow flashing light visible from at least 1,000 feet, according to the Legislative Service Commission of Ohio. The law's objective was to reduce crashes and increase visibility.
The scale of that problem is significant. A 2019 Ohio Department of Transportation travel study, reported by Richland Source, found 723 buggy crashes statewide between 2009 and 2019, with roughly 65 percent occurring while a motor vehicle attempted to pass a buggy — a decade that also saw 17 fatalities and 132 incapacitating injuries. Ohio State Highway Patrol statistics reported separately by the Tribune Chronicle showed 16 deaths in buggy-involved crashes since 2016, with the patrol pointing to driver awareness and speed differentials on rural highways as primary contributing factors.
A Rapidly Growing Amish Presence in Highland County
Ohio has more than 85,000 Amish members across 74 settlements, according to demographic data compiled by the Young Center for Anabaptist and Pietist Studies at Elizabethtown College and published on Wikipedia. Highland County's Amish community is part of that landscape.
Buggies and motor vehicles share routes like U.S. Route 50. The county has seen fatal buggy collisions before: in February 2021, The Times-Gazette reported that 56-year-old Hillsboro resident Scott Richardson was killed when an 18-year-old driver rear-ended his horse-drawn buggy, a crash that also required responders to euthanize the horse pulling the buggy.
Part of a Wider Pattern of Ohio Crashes
Thursday's crash adds to a string of serious Ohio roadway incidents this year involving both buggies and other vehicles. In April, a 22-year-old driver in Geauga County allegedly struck an Amish buggy carrying four teenagers at 75 mph and fled the scene; Hoodline reported on the resulting felony indictment last month. And in Highland County itself, Hoodline reported that 37-year-old Daniel Vance was killed in a four-vehicle collision on State Route 138 in August 2026, underscoring broader safety concerns on the county's rural state routes.
