Council puts brakes on effort to restrict golf carts – Coastal Observer

Council puts brakes on effort to restrict golf carts – Coastal Observer

A proposal to fine golf carts that hold up traffic was pushed to the side of the road by Georgetown County Council this week. “I was surprised,” Council Member Bob Anderson said after the measure failed on a 2-4 vote. He initiated the ordinance that would have required golf carts to keep to the right side of their lane and pull over when traffic backs up behind them. Violations carried a $250 fine. Anderson told the council that he had conferred with Sheriff Carter Weaver on ways to deal with golf carts that can’t maintain the posted speed limit. “We spent a lot of time deciding what we could do and what we couldn’t do. So he feels like he can take care of this,” Anderson said. State law allows the carts to operate on secondary roads with speed limits of 35 mph or less within four miles of their registered address. Anderson initially wanted the county to restrict the carts to roads with speed limits of 25 mph. The ordinance that came up for second reading this week also included a provision that would fine the owner of the cart if it was operated by a minor who violated its provisions. It required golf carts to “pull off the road as often as necessary and reasonably safe to do so, so as not to impede the flow of traffic.” Council Member Louis Morant questioned whether the ordinance could be enforced. “Pull off the road as often as necessary. What does that mean?” Morant asked. “If you see traffic backing up behind you, then it’s necessary,” Jay Watson, the county attorney, said. “And if it’s reasonably safe to do so, pull over.” Morant, an attorney, was skeptical that could be enforced. “I just don’t see it,” he said. Mark Borkowski, present of the homeowners association in the Marsh Grass neighborhood off the South Causeway to Pawleys Island, said to the council that requiring golf carts to keep right would not allow other vehicles to pass legally. “Our lanes are narrow here,” he said, and vehicles would still have to cross a double-yellow line. “That’s illegal.” Borkowski also said state law has no minimum speed limit on roads where golf carts can operate. He showed the council signs up by the town of Pawleys Island this year that asks golf carts to pull over if they are holding up traffic. Morant said he thought that was a better solution than “punishing our residents.” “I think we have some courteous residents,” he said. “It seems as though we would take another means of doing that; just putting up a little sign.” Watson recalled that the county had put up signs on the multipurpose path along Willbrook Boulevard to try to prevent golf carts from using it. People immediately took them down. “In fact, we caught one person on video doing it, so I don’t know that signs on the roadway would fare any better,” Watson said. (The Willbrook path was later turned over to a private group so golf carts would be allowed without any liability to the county.) “Is there, like, a massive issue in our county with golf carts not pulling over?” Council Member Stella Mercado asked. Anderson said golf carts that can’t maintain the speed limit are a safety hazard. “There are going to be some people that are hurt or killed based on what we’re doing right now,” he said.