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While other issues rightly received more attention, the Indiana General Assembly took action in its recently ended session that was not so widely reported and that offers a common-sense solution to a safety issue facing an increasing number of Hoosiers:
Golf carts.
More and more people are using them for basic short-distance transportation. But last year, the Indiana State Police made it clear they would enforce laws regulating them. Those laws, practically speaking, essentially banned golf carts from streets. The laws required golf carts to have license plates if they are used on public streets and roads. And to be eligible for a license plate, a cart had to have basic safety equipment, including seat belts, windshield wipers, lights and turn signals.
A statewide policy is problematic. If they’re used on relatively quiet streets and roads, golf carts can be practical, inexpensive, non-polluting and convenient transportation. On busier streets and highways, though, they are a safety hazard.
So lawmakers arrived at the reasonable solution of giving individual cities and towns the power to legalize golf carts on local streets beginning July 1.
At their discretion, city and town councils can decide whether the carts should be legal and, if so, whether they must display a slow-moving vehicle sign or have a flashing yellow or red light. Operators must have driver’s licenses.
The matter had become an issue in towns like Hamilton, north of Fort Wayne. Officials there had previously legalized golf carts, unaware that current state law prohibited them. The mayor of Mitchell, south of Bedford in Lawrence County, encouraged citizens to drive golf carts – until a resident was ticketed by the county sheriff’s department.
Bluffton is among area communities considering allowing golf carts.
Local street conditions differ widely, and the legislature was right to give local officials power to legalize golf carts rather than trying to craft a one-size-fits-all law.
With the golf cart issue settled, lawmakers should next year turn to another form of transportation that is even more widely used – often illegally – and the subject of confusing state laws:
Scooters and mopeds.
