How To Stay Safe While Driving a Golf Cart
Riding a golf cart can be a fun and convenient way to get around your neighborhood, your town, or across festival grounds. Still, that doesn’t mean you should be take driving one lightly. A golf cart is a vehicle like any other, and it demands a certain level of awareness and caution. Knowing how to stay safe while driving a golf cart will keep you and your cart in one piece.
Know Your Local Laws
Before anything else, you need to know whether it’s lawful for you to be driving your cart along sidewalks, fields, and roadways. Every town has different regulations about cart safety and where you can and cannot drive. Know what makes a golf cart street legal and supplement that with knowledge of local ordinances.
Treat It Like a Car
After you make sure that your cart is street legal, you’ll have to exercise the necessary amount of caution while on the road. You must simultaneously treat your golf cart as if it’s a two-ton automobile while knowing that it’s far less durable than one. Obey all traffic laws and go with the flow of traffic. Deviating from that can cause you to collide with other vehicles on the road.
Deadly Collisions
A fully-scale collision with a larger vehicle can prove immediately fatal for you, depending on the point of impact and the speed of that other vehicle. Your cart can’t stand up to the force of a car, and disobeying traffic laws for cars can put you in a deadly situation.
Stop When Changing Directions
Golf carts aren’t as stable as cars, which makes changing directions harder. Always come to a complete stop before you veer right or left. If you don’t, the momentum and weight distribution can cause the cart to flip over onto its side.
Keep Hands and Feet Inside
Just like on a roller coaster, keep your hands and feet inside the vehicle at all times. You’ll be going at relatively high speeds when driving, and letting your hands and feet hang out is dangerous. Your extremities may end up slamming into external objects, whether they be signs, fences, or rocks. Driving a cart can be a casual experience, but letting your guard down and not paying attention to your body parts can lead to an ER visit.
Always Practice Safe Driving
While a golf cart is convenient, there are still precautions you need to take and habits you need to adopt to stay safe while driving your golf cart. Don’t allow yourself to become complacent while driving. Otherwise, you run the risk of getting into an accident.
