Golf cart issue scratches surface

The Lakewood Ranch Golf and Country Club is exploring ways to enforce a rule that prohibits its golf carts from using the gate at Players Drive and Lorraine Road.

Lakewood Ranch Town Hall has received two requests to pay for damage to vehicles, after the transponder-only gate at Players Drive and Lorraine Road closed on cars as they were passing through. Video footage of the incidents revealed that, in each instance, a golf cart waited for a car to come, then rushed ahead of the vehicle and triggered early gate closure.

Residents use the country-club leased carts mainly for transportation between Country Club East and The Country Club.

Cart riders are asked to use the gate at Lorraine Road and The Masters Avenue because the carts have transponder access there.

The two incidents, in which the gate scratched the sides of the vehicles as it closed, were for damages of $1,074.73 and $2,393.73. Both occurred within the past three months.

“I just scream that we have to pay $2,400,” Lakewood Ranch Town Hall Financial Director Zielinski said. “We’re going to try to recoup our losses.

“It’s more frequent than we’d like to admit,” he said. “It’s so disruptive.”

Lakewood Ranch Golf and Country Club resident and member Connie Thompkins has leased a golf cart for four years. Cart users are instructed to cross Lorraine Road and use The Masters Avenue gate because it is signalized and has a crosswalk. She said using the Players Drive gate would be more convenient for her, but she understands the safety issue.

“It only adds a few minutes more travel time to go down to the Masters gate, yet the risk of causing an accident, either at the gate or on Lorraine Road, is very real,” she said. “I would love a traffic signal at Players. Driving a car across there is crazy. It’s a hairy intersection during the rush hour in the morning or the evening. People know to use (The Masters). They don’t want to wait. That’s just wrong.”

In situations where vehicles damage the gates, repairs cost between $350 to $400 per incident. In most cases, damages are recouped because they are caused by driver error, not gate malfunctions. The golf cart situation offers a new challenge because the cart drivers are more difficult to identify.

“With the level of expense to repair some of these, I had to take a different approach,” Zielinski said.

Zielinski talked with Bryan McManis, director of golf for the Lakewood Ranch Golf and Country Club, to see about potential remedies or help identifying the gate policy offenders.

McManis is working on the problem. He said the country club’s carts have Global Positioning Systems on them and the club can control the carts accordingly. For example, if the club does not want carts parked on the greens, it can be programmed to give a warning message when certain geographic areas are breached. If the cart goes too far, it will shut the cart down automatically.

A similar scenario may be feasible at the Lorraine/Players Drive gate.

“We’re working on it with the (GPS) company right now to see if that’s a possibility,” McManis said. “We’ve got some technology on our side. It’s off limits. It’s a safety issue. I realize it’s more inconvenient, but it’s truly a safety issue.”

McManis said members are instructed to use the transponder-only gate at The Masters Avenue and Lorraine Road only, and the instructions are included in leases for the take-home leased member carts.

Zielinski said Town Hall also is exploring options for resetting the timing mechanism for gates to see if that can have an impact.