Last fall, the Today Show previewed a story that golf carts are catching on. I thought they were going to say golf carts are catching on everywhere as an electric mode of transportation. But they focused on Florida. And I had been to 30A, so the story wasn’t that surprising. Then I saw golf carts parked on the street a block away from my apartment. In Brooklyn. Maybe I had the right hunch.
The carts were consistently parked out there no matter the weather. Even in deep snow!
I took pictures in September when I was excited to blog about the story, so the weather is all the same in my pictures. I also wanted to be low key about photographing a family’s vehicle in case they thought the details could be used to track them or their kids down. I’ve had Hasidic Jews tell me they are not comfortable I have a camera on the sidewalk for past shoots.
It turns out these might be federally registered as low-speed vehicles and not simply golf carts. They did have seat belts, headlights, and windshields. Either way, looking for stats on how many are registered in New York City and what good that is doing for the community is not readily available.
My car’s meter for average speed hovers around 17 mph, so more low-speed vehicles in the city wouldn’t really affect much compared to what’s already happening with so many bikes.
For almost a year, the black 6-passenger cart never seemed to move, but sometimes the white 4-passenger was missing. There was a different white cart that I would see near various stores, but I never saw the driver or how many passengers.
Now that I’m finally writing post, the carts have disappeared. Maybe they left for summer houses. They’re well-suited for the Poconos and Adirondacks.
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