golf carts

Started by LindaB10 • 4 replies • 2139 views

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LindaB10 (Florida)
Posts: 2

Posted:

I am a director in a gated HOA community with a public golf course with our gates. It appears that Florida law is silent on the age requirement to drive golf carts on privately owned streets (sec.316.212)in a community such as ours. Public roads and streets require drivers to be age 14. However, an issue is that we have a public course within our gates-again not specifically addressed in the law. If you are an HOA with the same situation, do you require an age limit to drive golf cart? We currently have a "rule" that says " any age as long as with an adult". I am concerned about this language as we have 3yr.old driving!
LindaB10

DonnaS (Tennessee)
Posts: 5,671

Posted:

Linda,

My HOA was under the same circumstances. You have 2 issues going here.

#1, The Public golf course will have it's own age restrictions and the HOA private streets can have a different age limit.

Our HOA used age 14 but the golf cart had to be equipped as a road vehicle with lights. No sidewalk access at all.

#2, The public course will have a different age limit so if the carts are those which are housed withing the HOA gates and roads, the enforce the 14 year age.

There are parents who will let their 8 year olds drive when they are with them and that will be a nasty rule to enforce with the parents so we chose to ignore that issue as long as the kid is driving responsibly.

We had a 8 year old that used to pick up his Dad after a few too many 19th holes. Which would you rather have? Dad or kid driver.

DonnaS (Tennessee)
Posts: 5,671

Posted:

Linda,

I might ask you to clarify, is it a "semi private course or a true public. The difference will most likely be in the asscess to the course by the road.

JohnB26 (South Carolina)
Posts: 1,569

Posted:

In my HOA (gated/private roads):

Any motor driven (including a battery skateboad) vehicle may be operated ONLY by a state licensed operator. (drivers license)

DianeW (Maryland)
Posts: 147

Posted:

We too have been dealing with this issue for a few years. There are just a few families in here but they all have all the toys and use the roads as if they were their personal driveways. We were concerned about liability issues should an accident happen. So far, to not aggravate the parents of these children, all we have done is to form a "Safety Committee" to look at legal issues and report back. The suggestion was to just remind the parents that if the children did not operate the vehicles safely, the HOA would need to implement stronger rules. So far that has basically worked. Every so often a reminder is sent out when a child "forgets" the rules. Some of the male parents on the committee don't want to have "rules" for the kids and think that since they, as children, had the opportunity to drive all over, that to prevent these children would be unfair. Personally I don't agree but I don't want my property vandalized so remain silent. Just the answer you didn't want to hear?

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