An 8-year-old boy is recovering with scrapes and bruises after a golf cart struck him on his bike ride home from Cane Bay Elementary School in Summerville, South Carolina. Leo VanOsdol was on the Cane Bay Trail when the cart hit him and kept going. His mother, Meaghan, was out of town for work. She says several adults passed her injured son before one woman, Melissa Hunt, stopped and called 911. Leo’s new birthday bike was badly damaged.
The family then learned they can’t file charges because the trail is private and a golf cart isn’t considered an automobile there. Meaghan isn’t letting it end there. She’s pressing for more signage, speed bumps, and monitoring on the trail, and her point is simple: accidents happen, but leaving a child behind is not acceptable.
For those of us on the Suncoast, where golf carts are practically part of the scenery, the story raises a fair question. Berkeley County requires carts to be registered with the DMV for $5, insured, and driven only by licensed people 16 and older. How many of those rules actually get followed on private paths and neighborhood trails near you? Have you ever seen a close call, or worse, where a cart and a kid shared a path with no rules in sight?
