After compiling

research on injuries arising from golf cart accidents, Peachtree City

Fire Chief Stony Lohr plans to recommend to the City Council that it should

not adopt requirements for seatbelts on golf carts.

Lohr said that

seatbelts can become a hazard like it did for one fatality recorded in

Ohio when a 16-year-old drowned in a lake when his golf cart rolled in

and he couldn't free himself from the seatbelt. Other experts believe

seatbelts in carts can also cause more serious injuries than they prevent,

Lohr said.

Lohr plans

to recommend that the city encourage not require residents to use helmets

for youths riding carts. Lohr also wants council to touch up its current

golf cart ordinance to address golf carts that are modified to go faster

than 15 miles per hour.

Carts that

travel up to 20 mph are not required to have any safety restraints at

all, according to federal government requirements, Lohr said. But carts

which can travel between 20 and 25 mph, known as "low-speed vehicles,"

are required by federal regulations to have some extra safety features.

Any cart modified

to travel over 25 mph must meet all the restraint requirements for a full-size

automobile, Lohr added.

It's those

faster carts that Lohr wants to make sure the city regulates.

Many serious

golf cart injuries reported across the nation are due to people being

seated incorrectly on carts, such as riding on bumpers or partially hanging

off the cart, Lohr said. He discovered one incident in California where

six kids crammed onto a two-seater golf cart and after speeding downhill

and wrecking, one of the youths was killed.

"It's

about people doing what they're not supposed to be doing," Lohr said.

"They're doing things that put them in jeopardy."

The federal

government allows states to regulate golf carts, but only 16 states have

chosen to do so, Lohr said. None of those states require the use of seatbelts,

he added.

"The main

purpose of seatbelts is to prevent the head impacting the windshield and

protecting the occupant in a rollover," the chief said, adding that

in rollover situations seatbelts could become harmful when the rider can't

quickly jump off to avoid having the cart roll over on top of them.

Lohr also wants

council to initiate a public education program about golf cart safety.