Quote:
Originally Posted by retiredguy123
I don't own a golf cart because I would need to share the road with cars, SUVs, trucks, and large commercial vehicles. To me, this presents a dangerous situation. Also, they are too slow.
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Agreed about the dangerous situation. But even on the MMPs there are a lot of dangerous situations caused by cart drivers who are ignorant of how carts handle, or of the law, or both.
In my opinion people who may have driven cars all their lives but are suddenly driving a cart in an environment with a whole lot of other carts are suddenly playing a game that they think they're familiar with, but aren't. Golf carts are NOT cars and do not handle like one. For one thing golf carts have a high CG and a narrow (and short) wheelbase. It doesn't take much to roll one: a couple of seconds worth of inattention or hitting a turn at too high a speed can upend you even if another cart, or person, is not involved. Another thing is that those one-cylinder four cycle engines don't accelerate well. Many times we've seen one cart try to pass another, where the cart being passed is going only slightly slower than the passer, and because of the slow acceleration and/or top speed you end up with two carts abreast for far too long. I've had to take the grass more than once to avoid two carts bearing down on me.
Second is the ignorance of the laws and rules regarding cart use. Snowbird season is coming and it is a guarantee that TV will be flooded with people who THINK they know how to operate a cart within the law, but don't. We'll see it here in TOTV. We always do; folks expounding on their version of how carts must be operated that very often are not just advertisements for their ignorance but if engaged in, endanger not only them but others as well.
Remedies? Why not, when the snowbirds pick up their gate cards or IDs, mandate a short video on how to operate a cart in the Villages environs? There are other things that could be done too, but won't be.