In our never-ending quest to promote novel transportation modes, Bacon’s Rebellion has touted the virtues of electric buggies, commonly used as golf carts but often modified in highly creative ways to suit the owner’s tastes.
In the Fairview Beach community of King George County, citizens are agitating to legalize the use of golf carts on public roads. There are at least 80 such carts in the community of some 200 homes, reports the Journal Press, and there likely would be more if the Board of Supervisors would legalize them.
Safety appears to be the foremost consideration: It’s dangerous driving golf carts on roads where far heavier, more powerful cars can drive three or four times faster (unless Fairview residents start driving carts like the Electric Ezgo High-Speed Golf Cart pictured above, in which case the automobiles might get run off the road).
But I see no reason why the carts can’t be ridden on Fairview’s residential streets with 25-miles-per-hour speed limits, which are frequented already by pedestrians and bicyclists. Furthermore, there are the energy/environmental considerations: Electric buggies, which run on electricity, don’t push up demand for imported oil, and they’re cleaner than gasoline-powered cars.
Supervisors will study the issue next week.
(Photo credit: Ringgold Power Sport.)
