Our RV Park in Yuma was built around a golf course. There were a ton of golf carts throughout the park. There were golf cars everywhere. This was not the first park where there had been a plethora of golf carts. At the big RV Parks in Myrtle Beach (some of these are 1,000+ site places), they do a booming business renting golf carts even though they don’t have on site golf courses. They were renting in Myrtle Beach for the same amount as the daily rent of a site which in peak summer season can be $60 or more a day – for a golf cart. You don’t see golf carts hardly at all in smaller parks or public campgrounds. They tend to be a phenomenon of the larger parks and particularly the snowbird parks. So with that background, let the rant begin. WE HATE THEM. Now you might say it is a bit hard for us to be unbiased as we have never owned one and aren’t going to rent one (except maybe for actual intended use on the golf course), but as observers of them we are not happy campers. What are the issues? Well, once people have purchased or rented them, they never go anywhere without them. Need to visit the next door neighbor, jump in the golf cart. The mail room – take the golf cart. To the activity center for exercise class, yep, drive the golf cart to and from exercise. Twenty yards down to the start of the beach, load up the cart. And it is as if all the standard rules of the road do not apply to them. The Yuma park was all one-way streets. That didn’t phase the golf carts in the least. And if you met one going the wrong way while you were in your car driving the right way it was as if the larger vehicle going the correct way was supposed to move out the way. The speed limit was 15mph; that also didn’t seem to apply to these souped-up models. Cars give pedestrians the right of way, many golf carts don’t including no right of way for bicycles either. And the rule that only vehicle-licensed drivers can operate them – it seems that kids as young as three are at the wheels (only a slight exaggeration). And, we have noted that legally blind people also drive golf carts – as if it is ok for them to drive as long as they have a sign posted on the cart that they are a blind driver!
And worst of all, they tend to scare our beloved Alley cat when she is out for one of her walks or rides. Now that we can’t have!
We've made the same observations at both the park we're currently staying in and in the larger parks you refer to in SC. I believe, however, that the SC parks top my list of irritation. The folks in our park currently do obey the traffic laws and speed limits, but a few of those folks could sure use a bit of walking rather than riding around in their carts everywhere.
ReplyDeleteAnd when it is golf tournament time, they scream around the corners almost up on two wheels.
DeleteActually I think your Alley is just mortified because she is bike riding without a helmet........
ReplyDeleteLaughing out loud at that one!
DeleteNice job with the rant Leeanne - I have to do that every now and than and have made some of the same golf cart observations as you. When going to FL in Jan, we were passed by a motor home pulling a pick up with a golf cart in the bed and the pick up was pulling a boat. I had to chuckle.
ReplyDeleteThat was a train
DeleteLove the set up on the bike. I wonder if Dozer would go for that type of thing?
ReplyDeleteIt's just one upside down bike basket zip tied/twist tied to another -- go for it!
DeleteI don't really mind golf carts, but I have the same gripe about people who drive a golf cart or their regular vehicle everywhere in the RV park. That leads to cars and carts parked on roads where they shouldn't be. Some people may not be able to walk far, but most of them can but don't.
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