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06-20-2008, 05:21 PM
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PULASKI -- Patricia Weeks and Heather O'Dell have never lifted a nine-iron, but over the past six weeks golf carts have become a near-obsession with them.
"Look at that! I am in love," O'Dell said, pointing to a bright yellow golf cart model featured in a catalog she'd been paging through while sitting in the office of her natural foods store. Just minutes earlier, O'Dell had finished polishing up a golf cart proposal Weeks is presenting to the town council this evening.
The proposal will ask the Pulaski council to consider adopting regulations that would allow golf carts on town roads. Weeks and O'Dell know asking for such a change is somewhat unusual, but their distaste for high gas prices and a desire to transport their elderly parents more easily have launched the two women into activist roles they said they're very serious about.
Weeks and O'Dell both characterized their mission as improving the environment, helping the town's 9,000 residents lower their fuel costs and putting the town on the map for environmental efforts.
"When people tell me it's stupid or quirky, I get offensive," Weeks said. "What are they trying to do to help somebody -- besides sitting on their rear end?"
"She's a Leo. She's going to push anything," said O'Dell.
But with a smartly crafted proposal that takes everything from safety precautions to weather conditions into account, it's hard to imagine the council won't take the idea seriously.
In fact, Weeks' proposal came at the urging of Town Manager John Hawley. She approached him six weeks ago after wondering whether the golf carts she'd seen people driving at a campground a few years ago would work in Pulaski.
"We're going to look at anything that's going to help the citizens," Hawley said. "If it doesn't cause a problem with regular traffic flow, it's something we'd like to look at for sure."
Weeks and O'Dell have partnered with Bud White, the owner of Affordable Tractors in Dublin, who sells used golf carts starting at $1,895 and new carts starting at $5,000. Electric carts use less power than an electric oven to charge, White said. He added that most owners of gas-powered carts he knows talk about how fuel-efficient they are.
"It doesn't take a mathematician to figure out what the return on the investment would be when you have $5 a gallon" gasoline, said Pulaski Mayor Charles Wade. But given safety and legal concerns, he said the council will "have to move cautiously" in making a decision.
Under Virginia law, golf carts are allowed on town roads with a 25 mph speed limit, provided the town also has its own police department. Those conditions make Pulaski qualified for carts, but shopping areas bounded by roads with higher speed limits would be unreachable.
"It's going to limit areas you can use it because you can't even cross a road if you have a higher speed limit," said Pulaski Police Chief Gary Roche. "That's what I'm going to present and then people can see whether they want to pursue it. It's doable, but there are limitations."
There are ways around the limitations, however. The town of Colonial Beach has plenty of experience getting golf carts safely on town roads, and was the first to successfully lobby the state legislature to adopt statewide golf cart regulations five years ago, said Pete Bone, the town's mayor.
This year, the town succeeded in getting legislation passed that will allow residents to cross
a 35-mph road to reach a shopping center.
Aside from golf carts' legality in Virginia, golf cart safety is becoming more of a concern to experts. A University of Alabama at Birmingham study released last week showed more than 48,000 injuries from 2002 through 2005 related to golf carts, especially among people ages 10 to 19 and over 80.
Gerald McGwin, a professor of epidemiology who co-authored the study, said while it "always seems like such a good idea" for towns to allow carts, "if you take the golf cart itself and put it on a home environment or on a city street, it's now part of the traffic and it wasn't designed for that."
"[Twenty-five mph] is a fairly significant amount of force. A golf cart coming into contact with a Suburban or a passenger car weighing 3,500 pounds -- who's going to lose in that situation? The golf cart is," McGwin said. "All it takes is one bad incident and everyone says 'Where was the city, where was the state, where was the federal government?' "
O'Dell and Weeks acknowledge the safety and road concerns, giving a range of ideas for regulations in their proposal.
"I'm trying to help the people that want it," Weeks said. "You don't have to do it. I feel like there's a need out there. You can leave your car at home when you drive to the grocery store."
Story courtesy of Roanoke.com (http://roanoke.com/)
PULASKI -- Patricia Weeks and Heather O'Dell have never lifted a nine-iron, but over the past six weeks golf carts have become a near-obsession with them.
"Look at that! I am in love," O'Dell said, pointing to a bright yellow golf cart model featured in a catalog she'd been paging through while sitting in the office of her natural foods store. Just minutes earlier, O'Dell had finished polishing up a golf cart proposal Weeks is presenting to the town council this evening.
The proposal will ask the Pulaski council to consider adopting regulations that would allow golf carts on town roads. Weeks and O'Dell know asking for such a change is somewhat unusual, but their distaste for high gas prices and a desire to transport their elderly parents more easily have launched the two women into activist roles they said they're very serious about.
Weeks and O'Dell both characterized their mission as improving the environment, helping the town's 9,000 residents lower their fuel costs and putting the town on the map for environmental efforts.
"When people tell me it's stupid or quirky, I get offensive," Weeks said. "What are they trying to do to help somebody -- besides sitting on their rear end?"
"She's a Leo. She's going to push anything," said O'Dell.
But with a smartly crafted proposal that takes everything from safety precautions to weather conditions into account, it's hard to imagine the council won't take the idea seriously.
In fact, Weeks' proposal came at the urging of Town Manager John Hawley. She approached him six weeks ago after wondering whether the golf carts she'd seen people driving at a campground a few years ago would work in Pulaski.
"We're going to look at anything that's going to help the citizens," Hawley said. "If it doesn't cause a problem with regular traffic flow, it's something we'd like to look at for sure."
Weeks and O'Dell have partnered with Bud White, the owner of Affordable Tractors in Dublin, who sells used golf carts starting at $1,895 and new carts starting at $5,000. Electric carts use less power than an electric oven to charge, White said. He added that most owners of gas-powered carts he knows talk about how fuel-efficient they are.
"It doesn't take a mathematician to figure out what the return on the investment would be when you have $5 a gallon" gasoline, said Pulaski Mayor Charles Wade. But given safety and legal concerns, he said the council will "have to move cautiously" in making a decision.
Under Virginia law, golf carts are allowed on town roads with a 25 mph speed limit, provided the town also has its own police department. Those conditions make Pulaski qualified for carts, but shopping areas bounded by roads with higher speed limits would be unreachable.
"It's going to limit areas you can use it because you can't even cross a road if you have a higher speed limit," said Pulaski Police Chief Gary Roche. "That's what I'm going to present and then people can see whether they want to pursue it. It's doable, but there are limitations."
There are ways around the limitations, however. The town of Colonial Beach has plenty of experience getting golf carts safely on town roads, and was the first to successfully lobby the state legislature to adopt statewide golf cart regulations five years ago, said Pete Bone, the town's mayor.
This year, the town succeeded in getting legislation passed that will allow residents to cross
a 35-mph road to reach a shopping center.
Aside from golf carts' legality in Virginia, golf cart safety is becoming more of a concern to experts. A University of Alabama at Birmingham study released last week showed more than 48,000 injuries from 2002 through 2005 related to golf carts, especially among people ages 10 to 19 and over 80.
Gerald McGwin, a professor of epidemiology who co-authored the study, said while it "always seems like such a good idea" for towns to allow carts, "if you take the golf cart itself and put it on a home environment or on a city street, it's now part of the traffic and it wasn't designed for that."
"[Twenty-five mph] is a fairly significant amount of force. A golf cart coming into contact with a Suburban or a passenger car weighing 3,500 pounds -- who's going to lose in that situation? The golf cart is," McGwin said. "All it takes is one bad incident and everyone says 'Where was the city, where was the state, where was the federal government?' "
O'Dell and Weeks acknowledge the safety and road concerns, giving a range of ideas for regulations in their proposal.
"I'm trying to help the people that want it," Weeks said. "You don't have to do it. I feel like there's a need out there. You can leave your car at home when you drive to the grocery store."
Story courtesy of Roanoke.com (http://roanoke.com/)