Golf Cart Safety Should Be Common Sense
Golf is a fun summertime activity, and one that people use to relax. And, golf, as sports go, is pretty safe. What is often unsafe about golf isn’t the sport—it’s the golf cart.
Why Are They Dangerous?
Of course, the normal causal way golf carts are driven on a golf course is generally pretty safe. But many people—and often kids and teenagers—use golf carts for recreation.
Many will use the golf cart as a makeshift go-cart or all-terrain vehicle, things the cart is not designed for.
You do not need any license to drive a golf cart and there are no actual laws that dictate highway rules while on a golf cart. Unlike with bicycles, there are no golf cart lanes. Making golf carts even more potentially dangerous when off the actual golf course, is that golf carts do not have the safety features that our cars do.
For example, golf carts often have no doors. They may have no seatbelts. They may have no roll bars, which prevent the top from crushing in during a rollover. They do not have the internal workings to avoid rollover accidents.
The lack of seatbelts can be devastating; even if the golf cart does not tip over, someone can easily be ejected from the cart. Aside from the impact from being thrown to the ground, there is the risk of being crushed by the golf cart itself.
What Causes Golf Cart Accidents?
Unfortunately, operator carelessness is a leading cause of golf cart accidents. The carts themselves are often safe, but when pushed beyond their limits and what they are designed for, the carts can end up being very dangerous. Many younger kids will load up golf carts with 5, 6, or 7 friends, all piling into different parts of the golf cart.
The weight, and the uneven distribution of the weight, can lead the cart to tip over, with catastrophic results.
Operators will often take golf carts over hills, uneven terrain, or speed bumps, at unsafe speeds (over certain kinds of terrain, any speed is dangerous—golf carts just aren’t meant to go over certain kinds of roadway or off-road features).
Many golf carts (especially those privately owned) are not maintained regularly, the way our cars are. This can lead to part failures, which can cause accidents.
Even if the driver is otherwise very safe, accidents can and do happen. Your car is designed to go over uneven terrain—a crack in the road is not stopping your car, but it will stop, and possibly upend, a golf cart.
There are some places that carts just aren’t meant to be, for the safety of other people. Nobody would think to drive a car, or even a bicycle, in a crowded walkway, or an area where there are a lot of pedestrians. But people will do just that with a golf cart.
Contact the Miami personal injury attorneys at Velasquez & Associates P.A. today. We can help you if you have been in any kind of accident.
