According to statistics compiled by the U.S. Consumer Products Safety Commission, each year, about 13,000 golf cart-related accidents require emergency room visits, and that number is rising as the economical, fun-to-drive carts become more popular on city streets .
Of those accidents, about 40 percent involve children younger than 16.
At Thursday’s Town Council meeting, a frustrated Tammy Holloway admonished the rest of council for not dealing with the growing safety problems golf carts pose for Cape Charles.
“They are all through the park now. The are tearing it up, and posing a real safety problem. We have small children and bicyclists on the sidewalk, and the carts come speeding in. And they are flying, going fast. It’s just a matter of time before we have serious injuries,” Holloway said.
Most of the problem has to do with tourists who, by no fault of their own, are not aware of the laws regulating cart use in town. Holloway recommends making placards that could be placed in each rental home highlighting how and how not use golf carts on the street.
One of the biggest problems is allowing small children to drive golf carts. You must have a valid driver’s license to legally operate a golf cart.
Golf carts are also not allowed in Central Park.
By ordinance, the Town of Cape Charles sets the following requirements for operation:
Safety Equipment:
In addition to any safety equipment required by the Code of Virginia for golf carts, the following must be installed:
1. Speed governor if gasoline powered.
2. Safety lap belts
Insurance Requirements:
Every golf cart and driver shall be covered by an insurance policy. The policy must meet the minimum liability amounts as indicated by the Code of Virginia and provide coverage during the operation of the golf cart upon public streets.
Local Vehicle License:
No golf cart shall be used on the public roads unless it has obtained a Cape Charles Vehicle License. No vehicle license shall be issued until the owner of the golf cart presents evidence that the golf cart is insured and inspected.
Town Safety Inspection
Golf carts shall pass a safety inspection at least once yearly. The inspection must be conducted by an official inspection station or by a business which is engaged in the sale of golf carts. The inspection shall only cover the following:
1. Headlights, tail lights and turn signals, if the golf cart is driven between sunset and sunrise.
2. Rubber or equivalent tires.
3. Windshield wipers if equipped with permanent windshield.
4. Horn, adequate steering gear, brakes, emergency or parking brake, one mirror, adequately fixed driver’s seat.
5. All other factory installed safety or mechanical systems, including checking for gasoline or propane leaks.
6. Speed governor if gasoline powered.
7. Safety lap belts.
Operation on Public Highways:
It is unlawful to operate a golf cart on a public highway within the Town of Cape Charles unless the following requirements are met.
1. Golf carts may be operated on the highways of the Town of Cape Charles that allow a maximum speed of 25 m.p.h.
2. Golf carts must display a slow-moving vehicle emblem in conformity with § 46.2-1081 of the Code of Virginia (1950) as amended.
3. Golf carts shall be operated only between sunrise and sunset unless equipped with such light as are required in Article 3 of Chapter 10 of Title 46.2 of the Code of Virginia (1950) as amended.
4. No person may operate a golf cart unless that person is licensed to drive upon highways of the Commonwealth of Virginia and then, only in accordance with such driver’s license.
5. Golf carts must be operated in accordance with all applicable state and local laws and ordinances, including all laws, regulations and ordinances pertaining to the possession and use of alcoholic beverages.
6. Only the number of people the golf cart is designed to seat may ride on a golf cart. Additionally, passengers shall not be carried on the part of a golf cart designed to carry golf bags.
7. Golf carts must be operated to the extreme right of the roadway and must yield to all vehicular and pedestrian traffic.
8. Golf carts may be operated in bicycle lanes provided they do not impede bicycle traffic.
9. Golf carts shall not be operated during inclement weather; nor when visibility is impaired by weather, smoke, fog or other conditions.
10. The chief of police, or his designee, may prohibit the operation of golf carts on any highway if the chief determines that the prohibition is necessary in the interest of safety.
Liability Disclaimer
Golf carts are not designed or manufactured to be used on the public streets, and the Town of Cape Charles in no way advocates or endorses their operation on public streets or roads. The Town of Cape Charles “assumes” no liability for permitting golf carts to be operated on public streets and roads under special legislation granted by the Virginia General Assembly. The Town of Cape Charles, by regulating such operation is merely trying to address obvious safety issues, and adoption of or advisable if done in accordance with the chapter. All persons who operate or ride upon golf carts upon public streets or roads do so at their own risk and peril, and must be observant of bicyclists and pedestrians. Any person who operates a golf cart is responsible for procuring liability insurance sufficient to cover the risk involved in using a golf cart on the public streets and roads.
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I watched, on more than one occasion, golf cart operators not stop and just about get hit at the new intersection at the new road by the old school. Between the drunks and the stupidity, someone is going to end up dead.
I think they refer to that as ‘ Natural Selection’.
Nature’s way of culling out bad genes so that they do not
pollute the next generation.
It seems more golf carts are needed.
Whether it be someone driving a car, walking, riding a bike or golf cart, accidents will happen.
How is it possible for new golf cart rental facilities to rent their carts without first being inspected and subsequently displaying a town sticker on the windshield? Why is it that Eastern Shore Custom Carts displays a bright red sticker on the steering wheel clearly advising anyone who rents the cart that drivers must have a drivers license but none of the other rental carts have that sticker? There should not be a single cart on Cape Charles streets that does not display an inspection sticker even if it is owned by a visitor in town for a week or even a weekend. Part of that inspection should include a copy of the Town rules given to the golf cart operator/owner. This is a huge safety issue and a continuing cause for concern by so many of us living in this town. Get signs up, get rules distributed, enforce inspections, get the police involved!!!
Not like the police will do anything. They put warning tickets on two of southeast expeditions vehicles on the lot behind the library on August 8th. Here it is the 19th and the vehicles are still there with the same tickets in the windows.
Today my daughter got a ticket for her child not being in a seatbelt. I’m not arguing g with keeping children safe….. but this’ will be on her driver’s license as a regular seat belt violation. My second note is that they could have given her a warning. If this rule is not enforced regularly then she was singled out. This was 4th of July weekend. This rule was broken over and o er. We stayed late on Sunday to avoid traffic. I believe she was stopped because very few people were left in town.
If they were worried about a kid’s safety, they would never put them on school buses without seat belts, with poorly paid strangers driving.
So why worry about a car seat or seat belt for kids? Easy. Revenue.
FYI!
The town has been waiting for them in mail for 3 weeks. The chief and crew know this and also know these are newly set up carts
How many crashes, with serious injuries, have occurred since golf carts have been allowed on Cape Charles roads?
I witnessed a bad golf cart accident last summer at Bay Creek. A golf cart driven by teenagers, flipped over and landed on two girls because there were too many kids on it and they took a turn way too fast. When I arrived at the pool, there was a young girl sitting with her foot propped up, blood everywhere. I asked to see her foot—she had a deep cut all the way down to her ankle bone, her foot nearly cut in half. She had also scraped up her leg and arm pretty badly. Also, her friend had an injured shoulder. They were hesitant to call the paramedics for fear of getting into trouble. Paramedics were finally called but took forever to arrive. The entire incident was really upsetting to me, especially since I see soooo many small children driving golf carts through town and the town does nothing.
“Paramedics were finally called but took forever to arrive”. Staffing of county personnel is minimal. During the day (6a-6p), Cape Charles Rescue is staffed with two county medics on one unit. The next staffed unit is in Nassawadox, the third in Exmore. Three staffed units to cover form the fouth island of the CBBT to north of Exmore! At times, there is heavy volume and those units are very busy! Night time staffing in usually one paid medic at Cape Charles and Exmore supplemented by a vol driver. At night, usually one staffed county unit in Machipongo with a paramedic response vehicle. At times. units from Accomack are alerted to move down to Northampton to help cover the call volume. The county EMS is at the whim of the budget for the county. The vol’s are hurting for help as less and less people vol. They do the best they have with the few members they have. Every vol station through out the Shore is in the same boat. It’s a state and nation wide problem! The vol’s save the tax payers of this county millions of dollars a year and without them, your taxes would sky rocket! All of the vol’s are always looking for members. If you want to complain about response and times, perhaps it’s time you join your local department! Requirements : lots of training, willingness to leave your family at the dinner table and during special events/holidays at a minutes notice, willing to leave the comfort of your warm bed and house to answer an alarm for help in the heat and cold, sometimes may put yourself in harms way, ability to help your community while listening to them complain and not even saying thank you, having to hear how that everyone knows more then the people who respond, willing to attend meetings/work details/fund raisers/special functions/committee meetings and of course answer the call volume which is a 24 hour a day event! Up to the challenge? JOIN YOUR LOCAL VOL DEPT’S!
Ive seen alot of underage kids driving golf carts around town. With and without an adult. These people who are supposed to be the operators of the golf carts just dont care. Wait till there’s an accident and someone gets who and they’ll be boo hooing, whining and crying. Not that they don’t already whine about everything. Placards in the rentals is a small start. But I don’t think it will do the job. More has to be done. They already ignore the reverse angle parking signs. Can We Fence The Park In The Way It Used To Be?
Seems to me that you-all are trying to correct a problem that doesn’t exist, so that you can then take credit for for fixing it…
Lame!
If there is a problem which doesn’t exist, and everybody is aware it doesn’t exist, the how is somebody going to come along and take credit for fixing it?
I ask for the third time:
How many crashes, with serious injuries, have occurred since golf carts have been allowed on Cape Charles roads?
Note: Maybe you should ask CCPD, then Shore Memorial, or CC Medical or Bayview Medical. They may have records…or not.
I don’t think they go that awful fast, A friend, to have any real serious crashes, but then again, whoever really does know.
Maybe one solution to the problem is to make them like bumper cars with a big tube around them to act like a shock absorber if they do run into each other.
And if they were having a lot of accidents, don’t you think Cape Charles would want to keep that covered up, so as to not drive the tourist trade away, the way Accomack County doesn’t want people to know it smells like chicken **** there?
THREE INJURIES ONE WAS FLOWN OUT BY THE NIGHTINGALE TO NORFOLK GENERAL HOSPITAL
When pulled over… my daughter got a ticket because the child was not in a car seat. A car seat approved by VDOT
How about requiring those who rent or provide such golf carts to provide written instructions on their use, and fining them if necessary when their carts are being driven by under-age children, in the Park, on the sidewalks, etc?
If you can even get the police to do their job then maybe.
Sometimes instead of trying to fix the problem, you got to get rid of the problem.
We agree wholeheartedly!
As a golf cart owner and spending a week in Sea Isle New Jersey I have a bigger problem with morons on Bicycles – no lights – driving in the road well after dark – wrong way on one way streets and assuming they have right of way
Heres an idea .. Stop renting golf carts all together in town of cape charles. Problem solved but wait someonw else high n mighty will find something else to complain about.
I ask again:
How many crashes, with serious injuries, have occurred since golf carts have been allowed on Cape Charles roads?
You’re no friend of mine.
Ah, yes, the democratic process in action in America right before our eyes here in the pages of the Cape Charles Mirror, where all voices on every side of an issue there can possibly be have an opportunity to be heard.
Don’t you just love it?
Paul Plante is this all you do is get involved in something that doesn’t concern you? Mind your own business for once. You don’t even live here.
Hey, Billy Briscoe, dude, what’s up?
And be more explicit here if you can – what is it that does not concern me?
You seem to be responding to me saying “Ah, yes, the democratic process in action in America right before our eyes here in the pages of the Cape Charles Mirror, where all voices on every side of an issue there can possibly be have an opportunity to be heard, don’t you just love it?”
Why isn’t the democratic process my business?
And you are right I don’t live there, and boy, as I read about the smell of sewage wafting around in Cape Charles, and the inept, incompetent and seemingly corrupt government down there, I am damn glad I don’t live in Cape Charles.
Why are you still there?
Rt. 13 is a state highway. Rt. 13 also gets federal funds for maintenance. Ergo, Paul has EVERY right to involve himself in something for which he PAYS.
Welcome to America, I hope you learn more about our wonderful country.
Is it really America anymore, Mike?
Sorry he doesn’t pay for anything in Virginia. More like new york. Maybe. Keep your old nose in Newport news and new jersey.
Yup uh huh derp cuz FEDERAL HIGHWAY funds are not used NATIONALLY.
Derp.
Wow, you are truly dense. And Anti-American.
And, “aren’t you special” as they say down your way.
“P Knob”……….how appropriate.
Got a problem?
The US is theoretically governed by Rule of Law and Cape Charles should be no different. If people do not follow the ordinances they should be held accountable. It only takes of few weeks of focused effort by Cape Charles finest to get the culture changed.
I think Cape Charles is missing out on a real money-maker right before its eyes here with this proliferation of golf carts in town.
What they should do is to block off the streets and have a weekly golf cart regatta through town, where everyone can decorate their golf carts, with prizes given out for the fanciest golf cart, followed by golf cart races through the streets of Cape Charles like mini-formula one races.
Both of those events would draw in thrill-seeking tourists big-time, which means money in the tills of Cape Charles businesses, especially if you can lure in the super-modifieds, a Tesla frame and battery pack and electric motors with a golf cart body on it.
Those puppies could probably get up well over a hundred miles an hour down the main street in Cape Charles and tourists would pay good money to see them run in town, especially if you get some big-name drivers in as well.
Hire golf cart cops, issue tickets, increase revenue, pay the cop’s salaries. I am sure they will get quite a few drunk drivers too.
I was riding down Washington Ave Saturday night and a golf cart driven by a teen came speeding down the sidewalk, took a sharp turn and jumped the curb onto the road. It looked like the golf cart was close to flipping over. She had no control and was riding down the middle of the road laughing and honking the horn. And yes there was an adult male, perhaps dad, in the cart with her laughing along. Tonight there was someone driving the wrong way on Monroe Ave, and I can’t tell you how many 10-12 year olds I have seen driving golf carts. I guess I really dont understand why these things aren’t policed. It seems like easy money for the town to ticket those not in compliance with the law. I think obvious signage and ticketing offenders would go a long way toward handling the issue.
Natural Selection will take care of it, no worries. Hopefully they will not pass those bad genes along.
And at the same time it would upset a lot of upscale people in the town who would complain about the politicians, and they would get fancy lawyers involved, and it would be like up here where I am where people blast cars at 60 mph down a 30 mph road and the troopers are hiding in a crack somewhere, because the well-to-do make serious waves when their freedom to ignore the law is impinged on.
Money drives politics, afterall.
Look at the example cops set for the community. They speed, don’t use turn signals, text/use computer while driving, run stop signs…ect. all while Not involved in any pursuit of anything other than a paycheck. No one would stop for them if they did not carry guns. They are road pirates for the most part.
I agree with you there. Don’t for about the kickbacks they take and being involved in the corruption of the town and local government.
Somebody should tell the people when they rent the club cars about the laws..Like all cars should back in the parking places..witnessed two ladies pull right in the spots and go shoping! When something said, there reply was oh well, they got to find us to ticket us!!!!
I’m surprised, Frieda, that you actually think that something called “the law” here in America is actually law.
It doesn’t even rise to the level of a suggestion, anymore.
When people see the politicians who supposedly represent them flaunting the laws that supposedly apply to all of us, but actually don’t, why would the people represented by those politicians bother to obey the laws that don’t apply to the politicians?
Why are golf carts being driven on the state roads?
‘when they rent the club cars’…?????
WTF is a club car?