The first and most obvious reason is that the most golf carts/cars are not enclosed. Whereas an average passenger vehicle is enclosed and contains safety devices and restrains to minimize the impact and risk to the passengers in the vehicle, rarely do such protections exist for golf carts/cars.
Despite the lack of safety restraints and protections, the design of the golf cart/car has not been redesigned to make it safer or appropriate when in traffic. Yet, despite the design of a golf cart/car, the general physics of a motor vehicle accident remain the same and golf carts are not made to sustain the impacts and cross forces of a traffic accident. Many times people involved in golf cart/car accidents are thrown from the cart, and as a result many times people involved in accidents in golf carts suffer broken bones and catastrophic death at a higher rate than regular motor vehicle accidents.
In fact, golf cart/car accidents can sometimes be so complex because of the physics involved that many times accident reconstructionists are required to go out to the scene of an actual accident to recreate it. This requires that an individual injured in a golf cart/car accident act quickly to employ a lawyer who can hire an accident reconstructionist while there is still physical evidence located at the actual accident scene. Skid marks, gouges in the pavement, the painting that police officers may have made at the scene are types of evidence that over a short period of time can disappear.
However, if a golf cart/car accident victim is quick enough in to hire a golf cart/car accident lawyer and protect their interests, forensic evidence at the scene can be quickly examined, maintained, and utilized to your advantage. The accident attorneys at Golf Cart Law are well versed in preserving evidence of golf cart accidents both on the vehicles and at the scene. We have worked on numerous occasions with very experienced accident reconstructionists and believe we have some of the best accident reconstruction resources available to us to help us build a solid case on your behalf, protect your interests, and prove that you are truly the victim of a golf cart/car accident that was not your fault.
In addition to the physics and the high chance of ejection from a golf cart, the general perception of a golf cart as a safe vehicle for transportation is a difficult bias that must be realized and addressed. Golf carts/cars are low speed vehicles that have governors in place to maintain a minimum speed and they have low centers of gravity with a wide wheel base to maintain stability. They are well designed and generally safe vehicles for their intended purpose, allowing golfers to maintain a good pace of play on the golf course.
These assumptions of safety have followed the golf cart/car into traffic where its use has been highly promoted and lobbied by the golf cart/car manufacturing industry. While there have been more and more golf carts sold into the marketplace for general transportation, the vehicle has not be redesigned for this new use and foreseen traffic uses and dangers. As a result, the vehicle is deceptively dangerous, and these perceptions and dangers must be dealt with head on and aggressively so that people understand many times the biggest cause of an injury or death is the cart/car itself.
Because of this, many times the injuries or death are the result of the failure of the golf cart/car to keep a person in the vehicle and are the result of a product defect or a poor design. In these instances, a golf cart/car accident must be pursued in two different manners, as a traffic accident against the party at fault for the accident and against the manufactures who continue to promote their products as safe and sell them into the mainstream without any appropriate changes to the design to make them safe for traffic. Recognizing these subtle differences and clues can make a huge difference to the value of a golf cart/car accident case and the lawyers at Golf Cart Law are in the position to quickly recognize these situations and utilize these factors to our clients' advantage.
Finally, the golf cart industry has taken to making aftermarket adjustments and additions to golf carts/cars, many of which make the vehicle less stable. To be sure many aftermarket changes are safe, such as seat belts and zip up sides, but many others will make the vehicle less safe. Raising tires, adding weight and other aftermarket changes or adjustments can change the center of gravity of the vehicle and make rollovers and ejections even more likely. When this happens, a person involved in a golf cart/car accident needs to be able to identify possible additional parties who may have made these adjustments as parties who are also responsible for the accident because they made the golf cart less stable leading the accident. Again, these theories are known to the attorneys at Golf Cart Law and they are ready to pursue these avenues when they lead to the cause of an accident and injury or death to one of our clients.
Lawyers with this advantage of knowledge can be more assertive and effective in utilizing these theories against the golf cart manufacturing industry and their insurance companies to increase the value of their clients' case.The golf cart/car accident injury attorneys at Golf Cart Law craft all of their tactics and strategies in pursuing golf cart accident injury claims around these theories and mechanisms of injury, and supporting laws, in an attempt to, in fact, utilize this legal framework as aggressively as possible to foreclose any defense that may be raised by the golf cart/car manufacture, after market manufacture or at-fault party and ensure that our clients reach the successful resolution of their claim.
