| Initially gaining popularity with elite golfers in the | | | | US legislation. Ever since the National Highway |
| 50s and 60s, golf carts are now making their way | | | | Traffic Safety administration allowed "low speed |
| into all sorts of unlikely places. Employees in | | | | vehicles" such as golf carts, to travel up to 25 |
| airports, warehouses, movie sets and resorts | | | | mph on roads with speed limits up tp 35 mph in |
| have all gotten mobile with golf carts over the | | | | 1998, golf carts have been slowly moving off the |
| past decade. Residents of careless communities | | | | golf course and into people's garages. |
| and tropical islands have been using them on the | | | | Of course, you have to pimp your ride before |
| sly as a cheap way of getting from a to b for | | | | you're legal. Road worthy carts have to be |
| years. But perhaps one of the most surprising | | | | outfitted with seat belts, windshields, turn signals |
| places to find golf carts these days is on the | | | | and brake lights before they can legally tear up |
| streets of America. | | | | the asphalt. |
| Deeply contrary to the culture of speed, golf | | | | In 1999, Rancho Mirage CA was one of the first |
| carts and the people who drive them are | | | | American cities to make Golf Carts part of the |
| demanding a piece of the road for themselves - | | | | municipal scene when the city adopted a program |
| and they're getting it. In many ways the timing is | | | | allowing drivers to travel the streets in their carts. |
| absolutely right. | | | | The city has designated golf cart lanes and paths |
| Designed to travel at a leisurely pace and run on | | | | that traverse the downtown area and skirt the |
| electricity, golf carts leave a significantly smaller | | | | entrances to some of the most exclusive |
| ecological footprint than the average vehicle. The | | | | designer golf courses and country clubs in |
| first electric vehicle available to consumers, golf | | | | America. Carrying golf clubs, groceries and purse |
| carts are compact and cheap to run, quiet, easy | | | | dogs, residents cruise roads named after the |
| to drive and non-polluting. They're also painfully | | | | icons that invented this glamorous slow-moving |
| slow. Most golf carts top out at speeds of 15 | | | | golf life: Bob Hope, Gerald Ford, Ginger Rogers, |
| mph with the pedal to the metal. But if you've got | | | | Dinah Shore, Frank Sinatra. With scarves |
| time to get to where you're going, what's the | | | | streaming in the slow desert breeze, this is SoCal |
| problem? | | | | at it's finest. |
| Many communities have simply connected the | | | | The city is no stranger to the ways of the golf |
| dots between their warm weather, a | | | | cart. The Thunderbird Country Club in Rancho |
| preponderance of golf courses and retirees, and | | | | Mirage is said to be the first place to ever see a |
| the sheer efficiency of these vehicles by building | | | | powered vehicle on the fairway. In the 1950s, the |
| roads and pathways dedicated just to them. Much | | | | likes of Desi Arnez and Bing Crosby were |
| like bike lanes in other cities, golf cart lanes are | | | | wheeling around the Thunderbird greens in the |
| showing up in communities all over Florida, Arizona | | | | first 3 wheeled electric golf carts Americans had |
| and California. | | | | ever seen. To have the modern cousins of these |
| According to a new york times article, golf cart | | | | early vehicles taking over the streets of Rancho |
| sales to individuals have doubled over the last 10 | | | | Mirage 60 years later is not really surprising. Some |
| years, a phenomenon largely due to a change in | | | | would wonder what took them so long. |