Going green on short trips may become par for the course
Like many of you, I spent much of the long holiday weekend on the road -- driving 546 miles in all on a trip to and around Indiana. My family of five loaded into our hybrid Prius, got 55.9 miles to the gallon, and filled up at a station in Indiana where gas sold for only $3.98 a gallon. So I spent $38.96 on gas for the entire trip.
But I was Mr. Gas-Guzzler compared to many of the vehicles tooling around my rural Hoosier homestead. My brother Bill, tired of getting about 12 mpg in his old Land Rover, took his motorcycle to the local motorcycle shop to get bigger saddlebags that could carry raingear, clothes and his laptop computer. The dealer told us he sold five bikes on Saturday, including some that get more than 100 miles per gallon.
When my family took an excursion to nearby Earl Park to see the new renewable energy "wind farms" (an energy story for another column), we discovered locals zipping around the town park in small all-terrain vehicles instead of their usual pickup trucks. It had the feel of a foreign land where trucks, tut-tuts, mini mokes, bicycles, cars, motorcycles and an array of scooters compete for the right of way.
In my hometown of Goodland, we shared the road with a man driving a golf cart.
That's a common scene in the village of Huntley's Sun City retirement community -- one of the growing number of communities across the nation where golf carts are legally recognized motor vehicles.
"If I need to go to Walgreens or the bank, I'll hop in the cart," says Sun City resident Rick Tustin, 61, whose electric golf cart only goes about 15 mph but has brake lights, headlights, turn signals, a rearview mirror and all the equipment required to meet the vehicle code.
Tustin drives his golf cart more than a mile and a half to his job at the golf course, as does fellow commuter Jim Graves, 69. During the summer months, Graves figures he uses the cart (instead of his car) four or five days a week.
"I keep one eye on my rearview mirror," Graves says. With hundreds of golf carts on the roads at Sun City, automobile drivers are used to sharing the road. Some of the carts have been modified to go faster.
"I've been passed by golf carts in my car," Tustin says.
Confining the carts to Sun City makes it illegal for anyone to cross a highway -- even to get to the Culver's just across Highway 47.
"It's tempting," admits Huntley Police Department Community Service Officer Bruce Green, who adds that residents know the rules and don't venture beyond the designated grounds, drive while drinking or violate the golf cart regulations. "As long as they stay within Sun City, it's not problem at all. I think it's a great idea."
Sales of electric golf carts -- known in the industry as golf cars -- have been growing 16 percent a year at E-Z-GO, says Kathleen C. Searle, vice president of communications for that manufacturer of golf cars and utility vehicles.
"We're finding that people are really starting to see these vehicles as a point of self-expression," Searle says, explaining how drivers "bling it out" with options such as two-toned seats, alloy wheels, sound systems and even air-conditioning.
"Speaking very conservatively, there are several hundred thousand of them on the road," says John Rupp, president of the National Golf Car Manufacturers Association. "In some areas of the country, it is the vehicle of choice."
Rupp says 46 states now allow golf cars on the road in retirement villages, gated communities, planned suburbs and some subdivisions.
In addition to avoiding rising gas costs, people also turn to golf cars because they are quiet, better for the environment and even promote "community building," Searle says.
"When you are in a car, you can drive by and wave," Searle says. "It's very difficult to drive by in a golf car and not stop."