Fourth Quarter Accidents and Citations
 

While reviewing the minutes from January CDD 10 meeting, Lt. Siemer from the Sumter County Sheriff's Department presented, in part:

During the last quarter in The Villages, there were 290 vehicle accidents, 54 golf cart accidents, 26 citations were issued to golf cart operators and 462 citations issues to vehicle operators. Lt. Siemer stated that a good number of accidents occur due to speed or distracted driving.

Considering that there are close to 150,000 residents, in addition to visitors, employees and the fact that four major roads go through The Villages, is that a lot?

Good question.

I've long been of the opinion that such incidents stand out because of their (relative) rarity.

The Villages has an estimated 70,000 to 80,000 golf carts (Hagerty website) so for the sake of argument let's say 75,000. 54 golf cart accidents (assuming accidents per quarter are roughly equal) = 220 or so per year. That's just over one-quarter of one percent, or 1 in 400, in any one year. According to the News9 website (What Are Your Chances of Getting Into a Car Accident?), your chances of being in an accident in a vehicle authorized to go on public roadways is roughly 1 in 366 per 1,000 miles driven.

I know--rough statistics. But they do point out, in my opinion, that the news coverage MAY be convincing us that there are more carts involved in mishaps than actually are.

We should ban cars and golf carts.

Then the statistics would report walker and wheelchair collisions.

get a horse! then imagine the horse poop threads

IMHO, it would be great if these actually made into the (good times) Daily Sun, maybe some of the people would pay attention and slow down a little. I nearly broad sided another golf cart that ran the stop sign at the tunnel under Morse, they were coming from Sarasota area. I actually had to lock the brakes and I think it scared him.

I supposed it be too obvious to point out, that those numbers are "documented / reported" accidents.
Would not include low speed/non-injury incidents where both parties work things out sans police.
It can in no way, also factor in the seemingly countless near misses.

If speed limits were higher here, we'd all se a lot more actual collisions.

Cannot count the number of times other drivers have tried to intentionally rip into the round about to beat/cut off vehicles that are already in it. We've witnessed more than one hit 'n run, busted gate arms, cars on curbs/grass & even one large chevy suburban trying their luck on the multi-modal path....

Point being, reportable accidents maybe low per capita, but inept drivers here are not!

It's only Sumter county.

so an average of 5 citations a day encompassing the entire tv

If they would patrol Morse north of 466 with radar on a daily basis, there would be a major income in police revenue and a major slow down in speeding on Morse. I fail to understand why they don't set up radar patrol and nab the speeders on a regular basis. That alone would slow the speeding on Morse.

Even an automatic camera speed detection unit would be a win-win for safety and county income.

Age ……

Yeah that's very low. An officer should be averaging 10 to 20 Citations a day!

Speed and red light cameras would fix the problem.
We have them in our home town- I hate them , but they work!