Highland becomes first city in Utah County to make golf carts street legal

HIGHLAND, Utah (KUTV) — You’ll encounter a new type of traffic on the roads in this Utah County City.

Highland is the first city in Utah County to allow golf carts on city streets. They join just a handful of other cities in state like St. George, Nephi and Hurricane that allow this.

Residents in Highland City asked for it and at Tuesday’s city council meeting an ordinance allowing golf carts on city streets passed 4-1.

Council Member Scott Smith voted against the measure in the meeting which brought up the recent golf cart crash in St. George. “My concern is thisthe problem isI just think we got to be really careful because they are going to be competing with cars going 25+ so what street is really safe?” Smith asked.

Council Member Ron Campbell who brought up the measure said if there were any safety concerns or if the police chief had concerns, he would not have voted for the ordinance. “Communities that allow it I have not seen anything that shows there is any threat to public safety,” he said.

The new ordinance goes into effect immediately with restrictions that golf carts can only be driven during daylight hours by adults and are only allowed on 25 mile per hour roads. They are not allowed on state roads according to a Utah State Law that allows municipalities to decide on whether to allow vehicles like this on their own streets.

Aaron Gleave was one of the residents asking for the new measure. His family moved to Highland four years ago and were inspired by neighbors to get a souped-up golf cart for short rides to the mailbox, neighbors’ houses, parks and church. “If Highland is going to have acre lots you got to have golf carts,” he said.

“It’s a quiet slow-moving vehicle, it’s open and it opens you open to connection,” Gleave told KUTV on Thursday. He takes his family’s safety seriously on the golf cart. “We’ve got headlights, we got blinkers, we got mirrors, brake lights and extra lights on top. We also have seatbelts.”

Gleave would like to see the city open it up to even more roads in Highland. “Right now, it is overly restrictive still and that means we can’t get anywhere to parks or to church or places within a few hundred feet of us,” he said. Explaining that the road to their nearest park is marked at 35 miles per hour while their street is 25 mph.

“It creates more of a community feel if you will and that’s what were after,” said Campbell. He said that Highland City is looking into adding some higher speed roads to the list of where golf carts can go.

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