On July 17, the community of Sun City Center was buzzing with speculation about a fatal traffic crash involving a 92-year-old golf cart driver. Social media posts claimed the woman had been hit by a truck driver either running a red light or speeding through the intersection at State Road 674 and Stoneham Drive.
I was as horrified as anyone to learn of this tragedy, but the journalist in me needed to check out the facts. After several months of investigation, the Florida Highway Patrol only recently released the official crash report, and after reading it, I feel compelled to share with you what actually happened. My reasons for doing so will become clear further along in this column.
Sadly, it was the Sun City Center resident driving the golf cart who was at fault. According to the FHP report, she was “heading north on Stoneham Drive, approaching the intersection at State Road 674” and drove through a steady red light.
Failing to stop, she traveled into the path of a 1998 Dodge Ram pickup traveling eastbound in the outer lane of State Road 674, striking the truck’s right side. The report stated the “traffic signal for eastbound traffic was steady green.”
The golf cart then rotated clockwise, and its left side struck the right rear side of the truck coming to rest on the highway facing northwest. The woman was fully ejected from the cart and pronounced dead at Tampa General Hospital less than an hour after the collision occurred.
“This accident shows how public conjecture is often wrong,” said Hillsborough County Sheriff’s Office Deputy Jeff Merry. “Everyone thought the truck driver was at fault, but he wasn’t, and the golf cart driver lost her life unnecessarily. It’s a tragedy.”
Consider this.
A golf cart weighing 800-to-1,100 pounds is no match for an engine-driven vehicle weighing 2,500 pounds or more. The average pickup truck, for example, weighs between 4,000 and 7,000 pounds, so you can easily see the potential for disaster in a crash involving the two.
“Golf cart drivers must be vigilant at all times,” Merry said. “Just this past weekend, there was a crash at El Rancho and Rickenbacker that sent a golf cart passenger to South Shore Hospital.
“The golf cart driver was at fault,” Merry added. “He was 12 years old, and his grandmother was the victim.”
According to Merry, most accidents involving golf carts in Sun City Center occur at intersections with stop signs or traffic lights and are the result of drivers failing to yield. The intersections where the worst of these accidents take place, he said, are Stoneham Drive and El Rancho Drive/State Road 674, Cypress Village Boulevard/State Road 674, and Trinity Lakes/State Road 674. Four lanes of heavy traffic, 45-mph speed limits and golf carts just aren’t a good mix.
Sun City Center is a golf cart community with a special exemption for these vehicles to be on designated roads. It’s a privilege, not a right, Merry said, and it’s something that could be taken away if public safety becomes an issue.
So whether we drive a golf cart, car or truck, we must ALL observe the rules of the road. With increasing traffic in this community, there can be no exceptions; people’s lives are at stake.
Lois Kindle is a freelance writer and columnist for The Observer News. You can reach her at lekindle@aol.com.
LOOSE ENDS Golf carts, engine-driven vehicles can be a deadly mix
