Quote:
Originally Posted by SouthOfTheBorder
By any chance, did that media source indicate how many millions of miles are driven in golf carts each year in TV? Just trying to put the 13 deaths into some kind of context regarding golf cart safety. 
I am glad I was not one of them. We have two point belts in one cart and three point belts in our other cart. We believe it is a personal choice.
Don |
There are a lot of questions that should be asked when statistics like this are tossed out.
Certainly how many miles are driven in golf carts over that period of time? How many golf carts are on the road? How many deaths in other types of vehicles have there been in the same time period? How many occurred in past year, two years, three years? Would those numbers show that the rate is improving?
The number per year over each of the past seven years is important. Thirteen is less than two per year. If three or four happened in the first year of the seven that would significantly reduce the number per year over the past five or six years. The fact that the past seven years is used, is, to me anyway, somewhat suspicious. Usually five or ten years would be used.
What were the circumstances of these deaths. Were any caused by the driver having a medical emergency like a stroke or heart attack while at the wheel?
How many were caused by speed? How many had anything to do with faulty infrastructure? How many were simply driver error that would have happened regardless of laws, signs, or infrastructure?
How many on a per capita basis have occurred in other golf cart communities?
You can make statistics say anything that you want. The first question I have is, Is thirteen a lot?
Some people might say that one death is unacceptable. I find that to be very unrealistic. When people are driving vehicles, accidents are going to happen. Human beings are imperfect. They make mistakes and have accidents. Some of those accidents are going to cause deaths. No one likes it, but the only way to completely eliminate golf cart related deaths is to eliminate golf carts.
Short of that, we have to come to the realization a a certain number of golf cart deaths is acceptable. The question is, how many? And the number has to be relative to the number of carts on the roadways and the number of miles driven.