It wasn't a speeding ticket, it was a citation for driving an uninsured unregistered motor vehicle. A criminal offence, not moving violation.

I was curious about the unregistered vehicle citation in the parking lot of the license dmv building story because you must have it physcially present so they can visually see the vin number and the vehicle must be in operational condition as I was told by them when we moved here. We seen cars in their lot getting registered that day that had no tags.

Did the OP ever say how fast they were going? Missed it evidently. I know our Yamaha gas maxes out at 21mph with foot to the floor. If you don't have a speedometer...take your GPS and see how fast you're tooling along. Or next time you see a police speed check sign...see how fast you're going :) You need to know what your vehicle can do so you don't have issues.

Really ignorance or disregard for the law is not an excuse. The OP is surely upset over the ticket but should have verified the speed his vehicle was capable of. Speeding is speeding. :popcorn:


Oops...just saw...they weren't ticketed for speeding but driving an unregistered vehicle? Huh? Okay must have done something to get hit with that, either speeding or passing outside the cart lane. Something caught the cops attention.

simply exceeding 20 mph is enough to be cited.

It's a BS deal Don, the cop told me I should have towed it down on a flatbed for VIN verification. Hahahah. You cant even get a temporary tag without VIN / odometer verification. I bought the car, had it insured and drove it immediately down to the DOR for registration. After she wrote me the ticket, I went in and paid over $1700 in taxes and fees and got my plate.

I pled not guilty in court and demanded a bench trial. The judge ordered me to speak with the prosecutor and he convinced me that even If I won the case I would still be on the hook for court costs. He spoke to the judge and I agreed to enter a plea of guilty if the judge would wave the fine. Still cost me $256.

It's an all out money grab

I agree,MONEY,MONEY, MONEY...............................

Crime doesn't pay.

I agree as well....:bigbow:

Holly crap...........

In any other state I've lived I've never came across that. I've never, ever heard of someone having to tow a vehicle to get it registered. Unbelieveable. We came from Taxxachusetts where excise taxes on every thing you owned were out the kazoo but damn.

What is everyone's hurry...if you want to go over the legal 20 miles get in your car and go...especially now with all the snowbirds gone it is so relaxing to drive through this beautiful part of the world with no worries or cares. Plan your day accordingly to make sure that you get to point B in plenty of time. If you break the law then you have to pay. If they raise the speed limit to 22 then everyone will want it raised to 23 and so on...the law is 20 and that is it...we are getting way to big a community to exceed any speed limit. Take time to smell the flowers on your way !!!

Thats some big time crime. Is the SWAT team on stand-by.

If it goes over 20mph, a governor should slow you down, say at 20.5 on a downhill. You should have a speedometer installed or have a governor installed or speed adjusted by the place where you bought it. It should not have been sold going faster than 20. Most people caught speeding have rigged it to go faster and they take their chances. If it is not a street legal vehicle 20mph is the law. What's right is right, and what's wrong is wrong.

I lol'ed.
I'm still wondering what crime he committed. How dare he purchase a car and drive it to the dmv to get it registered!!!

It's a BS deal but I did in fact drive an "unregistered motor vehicle" 1.6 miles to the DOR. I guess I should have had it delivered to the parking lot. :-(

Leaves a bad taste in my mouth for Sumter County's Sheriff Department

The point is, why did he have over 10,000 miles added the odometer between purchase date last year and the day of the ticket. I am just saying, find the facts and stop over reacting.

Boy, this is a dangerous thread. :duck: But will give my opinion anyway. First I will get speedometers on my carts. Got them on a couple of them and they go about 18 uphill and 24 downhill. And will vary a bit depending on how many in cart, where, etc. However I do agree with Russ. Carts today are safer and if you add seat belts and 4 wheel brakes it is probably OK to up the speed limit to 25 mph. 30 might be dangerous, but am OK with 25.

As for the cops ticketing carts, they have many other problems they should focus on first. I see a dozen cars a day breaking the law in the roundabouts and that is far more dangerous then going 23 mph in a golf cart. So because they chose a less significant issue which generates more revenue then IMHO they are not doing a very good job. They should focus on roundabouts and get those fixed, then go after carts if they want. Every day I see someone go 270 degrees around in the outside lane. Fix that problem first.

Could Be Unitented But Serious Consequences And Higher Insurance Rates
 

The citations issued to (non) street legal carts exceeding 20mph is not for speeding but for driving an unregistered vehicle.

Cart that go 20mph can be passed by many cyclist as some of these racers can exceed 20 mph.

The action by the police as much as we dislike it is justified and to suggest that issuing a citation for going 2-3 miles over the speed limit is disingenious. The reason for the ticket is that of safety. Street legal pay to drive on streets posted no higher than 35mph and normally do not travel the cart paths. However one can see wherein traveling in excess of 20mph with some golf carts capable of up to 30mph is dangerous to everyone on the cart paths.

What is most surprising to me is that insurance companies are not asking more underwriting questions concernng golf carts. i say this because if you own a golf cart that exceeds 20mph then you should be paying higher insurance rates. As you may recall this was the impteus of Marlene O'Toole's bill to allow those who purchased LSV's to gain the $7,500 energy credit to de-certify the LSV down to that of a golf cart in order to reduce said higher insurance premiums. This bill has likely drawn attention to this issue and if insurance carriers begin to reduce carts becuase carts have reduced their speed then the alternative is likely.

My golf cart does not exceed 20mph and i do choose to insure my cart for full coverage

So you're saying that he is lying? Where did you find these "facts" since he already stated he drove 1.6 miles and took the car the same day he bought it?
I merely laughed at a joke about the swat team, but I guess that is overreacting. :rolleyes:

It's nice to see a voice of reason. Laws need to be enforced in order of priority. For those who take the "Book'em Danno" view for any violation of any law, I wonder how many are guilty of walking across the street from one of the shops/restaurants to get to the squares without first walking to the crosswalk to make it legal. At least we know of at least one occasion where such "gross violation" of the law resulted in an accident. I am not aware of a golf cart going one mile over the limit being the direct cause of an accident.

I personally think that what motivates most of the outrage for golf carts going over the 20 mph limit is that they take being passed by another golf cart as a personal affront - as if the passing vehicle were flipping them the bird as they went by. If we were to take the mindset of being passed by a golf cart as being no more a slight as being passed by a car on the highway, we will be a lot happier of a community.

Would it make you feel better if I said yes. Sorry, can't do that for you.

Unfortunately, most folks come down here and think their version of law and order is the only way to look at it. I must say, the law is the law, like it or work to get it changed.

Just for general information - you can request that a local police officer come to your location and sign a form that he has verified the VIN and the odometer reading. I did it that way when I bought a motorhome.

Here is a link to the form (from Osceola County but it is a state form): On edit - make sure you supply the form and have it filled out before the police officer gets there.

http://www.osceolataxcollector.com/forms/82042.pdf

Thank you for that good information, BogeyBoy.

Perhaps you didn't know, but a local police officer, DOT police officer, deputy sheriff, or state trooper,
is authorized to come to wherever the vehicle is and do a VIN check. If the vehicle is out of state, FL will recognize a VIN verification from that state.

How do I know this? I used to do it for a living.

This Sat. April 20th. 7:00 p.m. Bailey Trail-- Golf Cart Drag Racing 4 race divisions. Gas,electric, under 20 mph and over 20 mph. Sponsored by "Rebels Cart Club" Be There. Keep it on the QT,do not want the cops to know......

Ya I'm new to Florida and I didn't know the laws down here but I got a $256 lesson....

Welcome to Sumter County :-)

In my state you are given 30 days to register your vehicle. I'm pretty sure I'm just going to keep my vehicles registered in my home state instead of bothering with the nightmares of Sumter county. Call a cop to your house to check your Vin? Aren't they already too busy writing up the elderly for going 22mph on a golf cart? No wonder they call it Floriduh!

We moved here in June, changed our insurance, got our drivers license and went to the Sumter annex and registered our car and truck. All done in one afternoon. It's really not that big a deal. You must have your vehicle with you as they do ck the VIN. Honestly it's no big deal. If you want to claim Florida as your residence you MUST register your vehicle here. We also bought a golf cart that has a governor that will not allow it to go over 19.5 MPH and have liability insurance. We obey the golf cart rules and love carting in TV. Yes, we do get passed by a few others but they are the ones getting the tickets. We love TV and our cart.

I guess I should be glad my old cart only goes about 16mph.

The problem occured because the OP purchased his car here in Sumter co. He then drove 1.6 miles to the DMV to register the vehicle, which was unregistered before he bought it. Therefore he was issued a ticket for driving an unregistered vehicle. A catch 22 if I ever heard it!
Your car was already registered in your home state.

That is the way I read the original post too. I've never ever heard of being cited for that unless you are driving a car every where except to dmv. Did the OP first go to Disney ?

He says he drove directly to the DMV which was 1.6 miles. Kind of sounds like a setup to me!

I agree,,, if u want to drive ur souped up cart over the speed limit,, u have to do it on the paths they cant ticket u there

Ur going to drop some major $$$ for this little act of defiance!! I am sure glad i dont have answer to my wife for something like that!

If the Sumter Co LEO's did this more often, then maybe the streets would be safer for the the citizens who choose to follow the rules.

We had the governor on our preowned cart set back to 20 max. Cost us $30. No worries about speeding or having insurance co deny claim in the event of an accident now.

Just for discussion now, don't jump on me, did anyone think that stopping and ticketing golf carts that were not doing things right may have been motivated by the fact that we have way too many golf cart accidents and protection of us who live here just MIGHT be the reason "they" were doing it?

I wish "they" would crack down on the contractors and the "kids" who are leaving work in the restaurants and the building sites and who drive like bats out of hell in cars and trucks.

Now I know that at least four of you are gonna beat on me.

I just reread this thread and I posted in the wrong one, Moderator...will you move this to the ticketed for speeding in golf cart thread? I will report myself . sorry.

Sweetie, please bring me some coffee............

I wonder why he didn't get a temp (cardboard) plate and drive it there legally?

Shortcuts don't always turn out the way you'd like, he got caught this time.

You are absolutely on the mark. Don't beat on Gracie. There are a lot of us
who feel the same and I think "they" finally got the message.

Well said, Graciegirl.
Nancy of raynan

Including this one we now have 120 posts and we still do not know how fast the OP was traveling when he received a ticket .

Can we assume that of one driving a golf cart travels in excess of 20mph (20.1.........) he/she can be ticketed