Street lighting
 

My post is about street lighting on some of the major intersections in TV. Making some of the turns can be difficult at night, especially when taking a left turn into two lanes, and avoiding a grass divider, which was barely visible. The "ambiance"street lights do nothing to ensure a safe turn and trying to see the street signs since the Villages will not stack the signs on Morse or B.V. making them visible from either direction. I know it has been discussed before, but nothing has changed. Just about as bad as our gate card passes.
Maybe some day...……..

This was definitely an issue when we visited, each time. Our first time, we didn't see the divider between the golf cart path and the road, heading out of Spanish Springs to the bridge on a drizzly night. We ended up on the road. In our rented golf cart. When we got onto the bridge we couldn't figure out how we missed the path, but neither of us saw it. Obviously we couldn't continue on the road, and it wasn't safe to turn around or back up on the bridge. So I did what every self-respecting road demon does: I hopped the curb in the golf cart.

The next day we went grocery shopping and someone stole our rented golf cart. Except - turns out it wasn't actually stolen. Turns out most of those rentals all use the same key, and someone thought ours was theirs. We got ours back but it was pretty scary thinking we'd have to spend the next day of our vacation dealing with a stolen golf cart rental.

Yes common. To prevent mistakes look for your tow switch and turn it off. Then someone wont mistakenly take your cart.

I don't even know what a tow switch is. I definitely would not have known to look for one then!

I agree poor lighting. I also don’t like the shrubs planted close to entries or exits. Came out of savannah center the other night and the shrubs hide cars and there lights coming west on El Camino Reno. This imo big problem in older established area where shrubs chosen grow too high and over grown over the years creating blind spots everywhere.

There are many burned out street lights on El Camino or it may be an electrical problem with the lights. Don't know what department to call about the issue.:MOJE_whot:

You have to call Sumter County. They own the street lights not The Villages, or the Developer, or the CDD, or, the "District". Good luck getting them to respond. You can try complaining to District Property Management, you'll be told it's the County's responsibility not theirs but then they do forward it to the County for action and seem to have a much better record of getting action than us as the average citizen.

It does seem we get short changed on services here in TV. We pay a huge portion of the property taxes and fees and get minimal services in return, unless we raise a stink about it. There is one area were the county excels at, the county offices, they make it very easy for us. You know where I'm talking about, the place where you have to go to pay property taxes, license plates, driver's license, and all the other places where it makes it easier to collect our monies. TV has become little more than the county's piggybank and now the same is happening with the people in Fenney/DeSoto/McClure/etc. being the new piggybank for Wildwood.

Having difficulty seeing at night is part of aging.
 

Having difficulty seeing at night is part of aging. It may be your vision is changing. Read this;

Night Driving with Aging | LensCrafters

Suggest you contact this department, so it can be fixed.

District Property Management
The District Property Management Department is responsible for upholding the aesthetic, physical and environmental assets of the District by maintaining the District’s physical assets and infrastructure.
Sam Wartinbee, Director
sam.wartinbee@districtgov.org

Main Office
1071 Canal Street
The Villages, FL 32162

Phone: 352-753-4022
Fax: 352-753-4296


Business Hours:
8am to 5pm, EST
Monday – Friday
Excluding Holidays

I agree I avoid driving at night, with the jacked up trucks and the halogen bright lights it blinding for my old eyes. ESPECIALLY when some AH has brights on:faint:

Many golf carts have lights aimed too high. Where they share the street with cars can be a near blinding experience.

I've noticed that some street lights have red/orange tape around them.

A neighbor who's been here for many years, says that the Villages Community Watch (doing their nighttime drive-arounds) often put them on lights that don't work...so they can be readily identified during the day for repair. :shrug:

It turns off the power to the cart so you can tow the cart or push it. Might come in handy in an emergency so I would do a search for your cart manual and look it up. Without the switch your breaks should come partly on when the cart starts to move.