Ask The Editors: Why Do Golf Carts Get Road Legal Status?
If it doesn’t seem fair, that’s because it isn’t.
This is a very valid complaint, one we witness ourselves time and time again. The reason it’s especially tricky is that, contrary to common misconception, there isn’t a single hard and fast law (or set of laws) that applies to everyone, everywhere on these matters.
While there are federal safety standards concerning vehicle and traffic rules of conduct, often the specifics can vary from state to state, county to county and even town (or village) to town. Some towns allow off-road vehicles limited use of roads via ordinances and some allow them to be treated no differently than farm machinery.
If we were to guess, the county in your situation likely turns a blind eye to the golf carts, though to be technical, to be considered “street legal” federally, they too should be subject to the same registration, insurance, and inspection requirements as any other vehicle on the road.
This is one of those situations where you could raise concerns at county board meetings, though we suspect rather than getting them to allow SxSs (or ATVs) the same treatment, you would probably end up making them come down harder on the carts.
So why the discrepancy in the first place? As unfair and biased as it may seem, collectively ATVs and SxSs are often associated with hooligan behavior and irresponsibility. Let’s be honest – every time we make the news, it’s to cover a crash, an act of theft, injuries, fatalities, high speed chases with law enforcement and so on. Even if that represents a minuscule fraction of the riding population, the reality is that those of us operating our equipment responsibly and safely simply aren’t making headlines.
Conversely, golf carts are generally associated with retirement communities, low speeds and environmental friendliness; in short, all of the agendas that appeal to the bureaucracy. As hard as it is to imagine, more than 350 cities and counties in the US have adopted laws to allow golf carts on their roads, according to the International Light Transportation Vehicle Association, a trade group that represents golf cart manufacturers.
In the plus column, manufacturers are actually using the leniency shown for carts in general to create a new class of street legal/ light trail machine known as the Low Speed Vehicle (LSV).
Polaris has been running with the GEM line of machines for this exact purpose. This is one of those sad cases of “if you can’t beat em, join em.”
