IStock Photo 3465334 © Greg Randles

According to the Center for Injury Research and Policy in Columbus, Ohio, the number of Americans injured by golf carts has skyrocketed in recent years, from 5,772 in 1990 to 13,411 in 2006—an increase of 132 percent over a 17-year period. In 2008, the odds of being injured in a golf cart incident were 1 in 19,100. But only half of those injuries took place on a golf course.

From big city airports to rural farms to upscale suburban communities, golf carts are the transport of choice. Peachtree City, a planned development near Atlanta, boasts over 90 miles of pathway and more than 9,000 registered golf cart users. The carts are a convenient and energy efficient way for residents to get around, but they come with risk. On September 22, 2005, 36-year-old Debra Overholt, on her way to pick up her child from school, was thrown from a cart making a sharp turn and died of severe head injuries.

A separate study analyzing nation-wide emergency room data from 2002 through 2005 conducted by the Center of Injury Sciences at University of Alabama at Birmingham confirmed there are approximately 1,000 golf cart injuries in the United States each month. Faheem Najim, a.k.a. rapper T. Pain, earned his moniker in March 2009 when a mishap with a golf cart left him minus several gold teeth. And Jason Collins, center for the Minnesota Timberwolves, was sidelined for the start of the 2008 season when his golf cart flipped, ripping the tendon in his right elbow and requiring surgery.

Victims of golf cart injuries and fatalities have ranged in age from 2 to 96, with many of the victims falling at the far ends of the spectrum: children who are riding in golf carts without benefit of safety restraints or the elderly behind the wheel.

Perhaps the most bizarre golf cart tragedies were mirror fatalities several years apart. On January 31, 2004, a 45-year-old Kentucky woman drove a golf cart into her horse barn to muck out a stall. She left two square bales of hay in the cart, one resting in the back, and one on the seat—and the ignition turned on. When she emerged from the stall she was struck by the cart, pinned to the ground and crushed. The police investigation concluded that the bale had slipped off the seat, engaging the accelerator. Five years later, on April 15, 2009, 54-year-old Linda Cassidy of Ocala, Florida was also using a golf cart to help her with chores on a horse farm when she was struck and killed by a cart she had left running. In Cassidy’s case, police believe feed buckets left on the seat had fallen on to the accelerator pedal.