Final draft of cart law would eliminate age requirement

A proposed change to the golf cart ordinance that governs unincorporated Lee County is currently in its final stage before being voted on by the Lee County Board of County Commissioners, and it might allow some 15-year-old Florida residents to drive golf carts.

The revised ordinance removes the requirement that golf cart drivers be at least 16. The most recent draft, however, requires operators to have a valid driver’s license.

In the state of Florida, a 15-year-old can obtain a “learner’s permit,” which is actually a restricted driver’s license. Jansen said he interpreted the ordinance’s language as permission for those drivers to take to the road in golf carts.

“If you have a driver’s license that is not expired, and not suspended, it would be valid to drive a golf cart,” he said. “If a 15-year-old gets a restricted driver’s license, as long as a licensed driver is sitting next to him that is over 21, that would be OK. It would be no different than restrictions with corrective lenses.”

In Lee County’s final version of the gold cart ordinance revision there is another noticeable absence.

As put forth in the newest draft of the revision, wording was changed from “16 and a valid driver’s license” to simply stating “a valid U.S. driver’s license,” making it possibly have been the first time that a Lee County ordinance violated a U.S. foreign policy and treaty.

The United Nations Convention on Road Traffic of 1949 (”Road Traffic Convention”) was created to establish certain uniform rules for international road traffic. The U.S. and over 150 other countries are included in the policy, which allows “legally-admitted visitors from other contracting countries to drive on their roads, if the visitors have a valid driver’s license issued by another contracting country or subdivision thereof.”

Lee County Department of Transportation offical Steve Jansen said that, in recognition of that fact, they changed the wording to say “valid driver’s license.”

The new wording reads “No persons shall operate golf carts on designated County roads without a valid driver’s license issued in his or her home state or country.”

A revision in the old proposal also said that all laws applying to secured child safety seats in passenger vehicles would apply to golf carts. That proposal was taken out of the final revision.

Finally, the new proposal also states that the provision “simply affirms that DOT is is responsible, by study, where golf carts may operate on county roads.”

According to Jansen, no studies have been done.

“There are no particular studies that this was based on,” he said. “This was based on a request by the sheriff’s office as an additional tool to control errant behavior on golf carts.”

The final copy will go before Lee County Commissioners, but Jansen could not say when that would be.