Bluffton considers new rules for golf carts

Some residents of Bluffton love their golf carts to the point where cars are neglected, unless they’re headed to the airport to fly back to Ohio or Hartford.

Others are tired of dodging potholes, road construction cones and lost tourists who stop in the middle lane of Fording Island Road to adjust their GPS devices. For this group, the cart riders are just another nuisance on local roadways that get more crowded every day.

Tuesday night, Bluffton’s town council said, enough.

Golf cart drivers in Bluffton will need to follow new rules outlined in a state law regulating use of the low-speed vehicles. But the town is still deciding exactly what those rules will be.

At its Aug. 12 meeting, councilmembers decided to will hold a workshop and public hearing to determine the rules it will put in place on top of new state golf cart usage requirements. A meeting has not yet been scheduled, but council members said they would prefer if it was held before the next quarterly workshop in October.

The law requires golf cart drivers who take their vehicles on public highways to obtain a permit decal and get a registration certificate through the South Carolina Department of Motor Vehicles. Drivers need to be at least 16 years old and have proof of liability insurance, a driver’s license and the cart’s registration certificate on them.

Beyond that, the law gives localities the option of either adopting their own additional rules and regulations or following a set of rules outlined in the law. Without a local ordinance, Bluffton residents would have to abide by the following rules:

• No operating a golf cart at night.
• The cart can only be operated on a secondary highway with a speed limit of 35 miles per hour or less
• The cart cannot be driven more than 4 miles from the address on the registration certificate, or within 4 miles of a point of ingress and egress if the address is in a gated community.
• Carts may cross a highway at an intersection where the speed limit is more than 35 miles per hour.
• Passengers under the age of 12 must wear a fastened safety belt.

Creating the rules for Bluffton

By creating its own ordinance, Bluffton can stipulate hours, methods and locations of golf cart operations, allow people to drive golf carts at night as long as they have working head and tail lights and designate separate golf cart paths on the shoulder of highways, streets and roads as long as they get necessary approvals.

Currently, Beaufort County has not adopted its own ordinance, said Heather Colin, assistant town manager for planning and projects. That, she said, could complicate things right outside the town limits.

Colin shared a photo of Bluffton roads and their speed limits to show roads where carts would be allowed. Carts would be mostly fine around Old Town, the graph shows, where most streets have a speed limit of 35 miles per hour or less.

Mayor Larry Toomer is a fan of golf carts. He said he personally owns three of them. But Toomer agreed that using golf carts should be regulated more heavily for safety reasons.

“I see some stuff going on out there, and to not address it sooner than later would be bad on us,” Toomer said. “We need some rules, and we need our rules to be enforced before something happens.”