Description

My 47-year-old disabled son has become the unintended victim of local government bureaucratic regulation that has created a system limiting the mobility of a segment of the population that is the least mobile to begin with. This system exists in what appears to be a patchwork of rules that apply to the barrier island communities strung along Gulf Boulevard from Clearwater Beach to St. Pete Beach. Specifically, these conflicting rules fail in defining what often are called recreational vehicles, notably three or four-wheel golf carts, scooters and mopeds.

Like many of the disabled, my son is licensed to drive an automobile. But, he would prefer to drive a golf cart, scooter or moped--for reasons of health, safety and economics. This would be a simple matter if choice if local government could agree to uniform rules of the rules of the road. Instead, these recreational vehicles might be considered "street legal" in one town, but not allowed on the roads in another. Or, allowed only on certain types of roads but not on others in the same town.

While it's bad enough that the rules sometimes conflict, the failure of the local bureaucracy to explain why is almost as frustrating. Vehicle speed often is cited as a reason, but ask someone in Indian Rocks Beach to define it and you're likely to get a different answer from a resident of Indian Shores. Speed also is a questionable argument for regulating recreational vehicles, because almost none of them are mechanically capable of exceed the existing 30 to 35 mph along Gulf Boulevard. Besides, motorcycles, automobiles and trucks all can be driven faster, while bicycles cannot.

If logic exists to support this lack of a uniform policy that restricts mobility for the disabled, I would appreciate having it explained to me. If there is no logic, ditto on the explanation.