CBS News segment November 1, 2015 on Golf Cart Accidents in the Villages.
 

We will have to see if the other Villages news site is right about this. The Quote is from there. Please put in a link if this is correct from CBS News.

I don't see that as good for The Villages

The article dated today, Nov. 1 on that other site we're not supposed to mention, says it airs on Nov. 22.

Not sure why this is national news.

Considering we have 50000+ carts interacting with other carts and cars on a daily basis unfortunate accidents are bound to occur. Since we are quite probably the only community anywhere with this type of interaction of so many carts and cars on a daily basis, any type of data to to quantify if our accident ratio is within a normal range cannot be calculated. Any death or serious injury is certainly a tragedy, but because of this unique interaction between vehicles some accidents are unavoidable.

To some very young people working on programming for the news, old people are cartoony cute and what they do isn't really real life to them.


And others get us. They are close to their grandparents.

I did not see the news piece but I hope it mentioned how many golf carts are in The Villages - and that fatalities will occur when the driver makes a sudden turn in front of an oncoming car or van.

I will be on the lookout for that segment. It could be interesting. But, as you may know JGVillagers, it probably won't mention statistics on accidents. Our esteemed traffic engineer from Kimberly-Horn has already ruled that increased safety and visibility measures such as side stripping our multi modal paths would have no impact on our accident statistics because they are already so low. Of course, neither of our two golf cart accidental deaths this year occurred on multi modal paths. Both of those were on roads shared by golf carts and cars. Cars are bigger, they usually 'win' in a collision situation with a golf cart.

So true. Please all be careful. Don't let grandchildren drive them unsupervised over the Thanksgiving holiday.

I have a feeling that a lot of the golf cart accidents (non fatal) go unreported and might not even be discussed here on totv. A few weeks ago I witnessed two accidents, a week apart, after they had both occurred on Pinellas. The first was a lady who had flipped her cart completely over and was receiving medical treatment while laying flat on the street. The other was a worker who was finishing up his day's work on a customer's lanai and was removing safety cones on the golf cart path behind his house and was hit head on by an oncoming cart! I think the strong glare of the sun into the cart's windsheild might have been a possible/partial cause of the cart driver not seeing this person. I heard that the cart broke both of the workers legs and he was bleeding from his head! I never saw where these two incidents were reported. Hopefully these two victims are recovering well. You can't be careful enough on these carts and need to be aware of your surroundings at all times!

Perhaps residents are too fixated on this issue especially given the proportion of accidents vis a vis golf cart miles traveled?

Frankly I am a bit tired of those curious folks poking at us as if we were a lab experiment. I am not flattered by the attention especially topics that are degrading or exaggerated .

They do seem to be picking on the Villages more now for some reason. There are all kinds of great stories they could be covering.

In the competition for viewers, you should expect that the more "interesting" stories will get air time and The Villages is certainly an interesting place. We all need to be ducks and let it roll off our backs. The less than flattering news stories do not define us as a community or individuals.

Steve Hartman On the Road.
 

CBS Evening News - On The Road - CBS News

Perhaps Steve Hartman will pay us a visit? :welcome:

We have only been living here 2-1/2 years but we can�t figure out how what others say, write, or think has impacted our lifestyle. We are enjoying new friends and activities so much we can�t imagine anything (short of a huge event) getting in the way of our daily lives. We love our full-time move into TV, the people we meet and all that it provides to us. Who would have thunk at our age........ :thumbup:

Don

Except for more and more people moving here despite whatever bad publicity might crop up.