Golf-Cart Bill Has Uphill Drive

SACRAMENTO —  The California Legislature, struggling to reform the insurance industry, solve a transportation crisis and decide the fate of semi-automatic “assault weapons,” now is being asked to help resolve a neighborhood dispute over the use of golf carts on city streets.

The issue landed in the lap of the state Assembly after the California Highway Patrol started cracking down on golfers cruising from their homes to the golf course at San Diego Country Estates in Ramona.

Angry golfers there complained to the Highway Patrol, the county, and the state Department of Transportation, all to no avail. Now Assemblyman Bill Bradley (R-San Marcos) has taken up their cause, introducing legislation that would allow the slow-moving carts on streets where cars and trucks can be driven at speeds of up to 45 m.p.h.

Existing 25 M.P.H. Limit

Existing law prohibits golf carts on any street with a speed limit higher than 25 m.p.h.

Bradley and the golfers maintain that the carts can be driven safely on high-speed streets in “golfing communities” as long as automobile drivers are warned of their presence by clearly posted signs. But the Highway Patrol counters that the carts would be a hazard to automobile drivers if they were allowed on faster streets.

The heavily lobbied measure faces a rough road in the Assembly, where it is opposed by the chairman of the Transportation Committee, which is scheduled to consider the issue today.

“It’s a bad bill,” said the committee chairman, Assemblyman Richard Katz (D-Sepulveda). “There is no way you can make it a good bill. Golf carts are meant to be used on golf courses, not city streets.”

Katz’s opposition prompted the bill’s proponents to cancel a scheduled vote on the measure last month, when San Diego County Supervisor George Bailey, the county’s lobbyist, and two residents of the community were all prepared to work for the bill’s passage. Also pushing for the bill is veteran Sacramento lobbyist George Steffes, whose firm lists more than 45 clients, including the Northern California Golf Assn.

The controversy erupted last summer when the CHP, reacting to a complaint, began warning and citing golfers as they drove in their carts on three San Diego Country Estates streets, all public roads, to the San Vincente Golf Course.

Just what triggered the crackdown remains somewhat of a mystery. One source said a parent complained about the golf carts because he was miffed that his children were not allowed to drive their off-road vehicles on the streets or on horse trails. Another account said that a golfer’s rude behavior toward a motorist on the street prompted the complaint.

At any rate, once the complaint was filed, the Highway Patrol issued several warnings and a few traffic tickets. The Highway Patrol says two or three citations were issued. Golfers say the number was more like six or eight.

A Duty to Enforce

“We act on any complaint,” said Officer Bob Melton of the patrol’s El Cajon office, who conceded that the issue had been “overlooked” through the years. “If someone is violating the law, and we are made aware of it, we have a duty to enforce it.”

The enforcement effectively cut access to the golf course for as many as 150 residents on the north side of San Vincente Road, according to Godfrey Tudor-Matthews, former president of the community’s homeowners association.

“In San Diego Country Estates, there are no sidewalks,” Tudor-Matthews said. “Whether you’re a mother pushing a carriage, or someone riding a horse or a skateboard or a bicycle, you have to use the street. All traffic has to use the street. It does not seem reasonable to deny that privilege to golf carts.”

Bill Park, chairman of a golf club task force on the issue, said the controversy, although it may seem minor, has become emotional for people who retired to the area and bought homes under the assumption that they would be able to ride their carts to the course.

Park, a retired textile industry manager, said he had “all the traumas” he wanted in that business and never expected the golf cart issue to become so heated.

“I thought this would just be a question of sitting down and working it out,” Park said. “Now I’m involved up to my eyeballs. You can’t let it go now.”

Park and the task force took the case to the county’s Traffic Advisory Committee, which includes representatives from the county, the Highway Patrol, Caltrans and others. The committee lacked the authority to allow the carts on roads with posted speed limits higher than 25 m.p.h. and rejected a suggestion to lower the speed limit on the streets in question.

But County Supervisor Bailey, whose district includes Ramona, eventually agreed to take the issue to the Legislature.

Provisions of Bill

Bradley’s bill would allow the county to permit golf carts on a street with speeds up to 45 m.p.h. if the road is next to a golf course or provides access to a course and is within “a real estate development offering golf facilities.”

The bill would require that such roads be designated with special signs bearing a symbol illustrating a golf cart lane and crossing zone, similar to the procedure used for bike lanes.

Bradley said he saw the stepped-up enforcement as “kind of petty, when so much is going on out on the streets.” Golfers in other San Diego developments drive their carts on public streets without being harassed, he said.

The golfers have agreed to amend the bill so that only licensed drivers could ride their carts on the streets. But Assemblyman Katz and the CHP still oppose the measure.

Katz said the legislation is flawed because the carts do not have brake lights, turn signals or other equipment that would help them move safely through fast-moving traffic.

“If they wanted to be able to drive a golf cart to a golf course, they should have bought a house on the golf course like some people do,” Katz said. “To ask us to change the law so they can drive on the streets is a bad idea.”