Golf carts on public roads a major hazard for kids

The increasing popularity of golf carts, which are arguably motor vehicles, being operated on public ways in the Grand Strand (and elsewhere) needs to be addressed. The most serious concern is their lack of safety equipment and features, which is in stark contrast to motor vehicles, which surround occupants with a multitude of advanced and in some cases smart safety equipment.

Golf cart occupants have very little occupant protection, such as a strong metal structure and crumple zones that absorb crash energy. This openness and lack of safety belts and child passenger restraint systems means occupants of golf carts can be easily ejected in some types of crashes. This situation is more dangerous because golf carts share public ways with motor vehicles, most of which are going faster and all of which are bigger and heavier; they may be roughly up to 20 times their size and up to 80 times their weight or more.

That’s why all golf cart operation on public ways should be illegal. At the very least, there needs to be a legal minimum age to be an occupant of a golf cart being operated on a public way: 13 years old. Or, it should be illegal for children to be occupants of golf carts being operated on public ways if they are legally required to be in a child passenger restraint system.

South Carolina law requires children under eight years of age who are occupants of motor vehicles to be properly secured in an age appropriate passenger restraint system usually in a rear passenger seat. As we all know, these children are frequently occupants of golf carts. They are significantly more likely to be seriously injured or killed in a golf cart crash.

Illegal or not, I believe it is the duty of parents and guardians to not allow it. To do anything less is to be knowingly endangering the welfare of children.

It should be noted that it is rare for children riding bicycles to not be wearing helmets.

Whenever I observe children on golf carts being operated on public ways, it reminds me of one Sunday morning when I was a child on our way to church. There was a fire truck roadside and two firefighters were spraying the asphalt with water from a hose. We learned later that a little boy (unrestrained in the back seat which we all were then) had fallen out an unlatched door. His head hit the asphalt, which fractured his skull and killed him. The two firefighters were washing away his blood from the asphalt.

If golf cart operation on public ways remains legal, particularly for children, it will inevitably result in serious injuries and deaths that could have been prevented.

This story was originally published September 24, 2017 at 5:04 PM with the headline "Golf carts on public roads a major hazard for kids."