Golf Cart - Accidents and Injuries

Accidents and Injuries

Along with the rising popularity of golf carts, the number of golf cart-related injuries has increased significantly over the last decade. A study conducted by researchers in the Center for Injury Research and Policy of The Research Institute at the Nationwide Children's Hospital found that the number of golf cart-related injuries rose 132% during the 17-year study period. According to the study, published in the July 2008 issue of the American Journal of Preventive Medicine, there were an estimated 148,000 golf cart-related injuries between 1990 and 2006, ranging from an estimated 5,770 cases in 1990 to approximately 13,411 cases in 2006. More than 30% of golf cart-related injuries involved children under the age of 16.

The most common type of injury was soft tissue damage, usually just bruises, followed by fractures, constituting 22.3% of the cases, and lacerations, accounting for 15.5% of injuries. Other types of injuries include concussions, internal injuries, subdural hematoma, spinal cord injury, or acute respiratory compromise. While rare, a few cases had severe outcomes: 4 fatalities, 2 paraplegic, and 1 quadriplegic injuries have been documented.

Some of the main causes of injury related to golf cart accidents included cart overturn, falling/jumping from a moving golf cart, collision with another vehicle or stationary object, struck/run over by a cart, getting into or out of a cart. Out of all these, "falling or jumping from a golf cart was the most common cause of injury for both adults and children."

One contributing reason is that current golf cart safety features are insufficient to prevent passenger falls or ejection. Golf carts moving at speeds as low as 11 miles per hour (18 km/h) could readily eject a passenger during a turn. Furthermore, rear-facing golf cart seats are associated with high rates of passenger ejection, and most golf carts do not have brakes on all four wheels (typically brakes are only on the rear axle wheels, thus extremely limiting their braking power).

Golf cart injuries are also commonly found in desert areas (i.e. Johnson Valley). Driving golf carts on dirt trails, along drop off cliffs, down rocky trails that should only be traversed using 4 wheel drive vehicles, can all lead to injuries.