In this Atlanta suburb, teens taste freedom at speeds of 10 miles per hour

In Peachtree City, Georgia, golf carts are everywhere, giving young people in particular an early opportunity to take life behind the wheel.

WHY WE ARE HERE

We explore how America defines itself one place at a time. In the car-dependent sprawl of Atlanta’s suburbs, Peachtree City, Georgia, has gone all in on an alternative (available in electric or gas).

November 25, 2023

A typical golf cart has no turn signals, no radio, and no protection from the elements other than a thin roof and rain visors. Push the pedal to the floor and it might — maybe – accelerate to 15 miles per hour.

Still hold the handlebars. Feel the wind and sun on a crisp afternoon, the cart hugging the bends as it picks up speed on a smooth paved path, one of your parents next to you, your friends lingering in the backseat. When you’re twelve, driving that cart feels like power. It feels like freedom.

“You had that little sense of adventure,” said Caroline Lawson, 17, as she thought back a few years to her earliest experiences driving a golf cart. “It’s just that little feeling of ‘Whee!'”

That’s growing up in Peachtree City, Georgia.

Parents talk about the quality of the schools. Or they describe the appeal of finding what feels like a small town, with access to lakes and forests to explore, less than an hour from downtown Atlanta (traffic permitting).

But if there’s one thing that defines Peachtree City, it’s golf carts. The city has about 13,000 households and about 11,000 registered carts. The logo? A peach and a golf cart.

Communities full of golf carts tend to have an older population, people who have the time and inclination to drive 18 holes and then stop by the clubhouse for a drink.

Peachtree City has retirees and golf courses. But the city was largely built around families, meaning carts played a prominent role in the childhood of its youngest residents.

Once children turn 12, they can drive a cart with an authorized parent, grandparent or guardian in the front seat. From the age of fifteen, as soon as they have their driver’s license, they can travel independently.

More than 100 miles of trails wind through the place, connecting subdivisions and shopping centers. Just about everything is accessible by cart: restaurants, three lakes, Walmart and Home Depot, the highly Instagrammable boba place full of teenagers. The high school has a parking lot specifically for student golf carts.

The only attraction off the path, Caroline complained, was the cinema.

Kym Bushmire left Peachtree City after high school and then came back to raise her four children. She found it much more interesting than she had realized.

When her children were younger and had time to kill, they climbed into the family wagon and determined their destination by tossing a coin at each turn.

Heads, they would go right away. Tails, left.

“We got lost a lot,” she said.

One of her sons would only take a nap if she took him on a cart. Her eldest postponed getting his driver’s license until he was 18. The cart was sufficient.

The ever-expanding spread of Atlanta and its suburbs relies heavily on cars, fused by a tangle of highways that grow to 15 lanes in some places and yet become so congested that traffic can barely move.

Many residents are familiar with the traffic jams on their commutes and find that Peachtree City offers a rare reprieve from car culture: a gated community where they can run errands or take a weekend trip without needing anything more than a golf cart, which is cheaper than a new car. but not by much. (Dealers in Peachtree City have new carts starting at around $9,000, and prices can rise sharply from there.)

“I think I drive my golf cart more than I drive my car,” says Amy Smith, who has a luxury model for her husband, three children and a 50-pound dog.

The carts offer more than convenience. Many believe the trails — which are dominated by carts but can also be used for biking, running and dog walking — forge human connections, draw people from their homes and fuel conversations between neighbors.

“If someone in a golf cart stops, the next 10 people will stop,” to make sure they don’t get lost or break down, said Kim Learnard, mayor of Peachtree City.

Peachtree City is a master-planned community, but its extensive trail network was not part of the original design at the time the city was chartered in 1959. It grew organically over the years and developed into the core of the city’s identity.

Melissa Powell arrived in 2020, in time for her daughter to start elementary school, the family’s main reason for moving from another Atlanta suburb. Her parents just moved to Peachtree City and her sister wants to join them.

On a recent Sunday afternoon, Mrs. Powell and her family stopped their cart to relax in the shade by the lake. They enjoyed what had drawn them to Peachtree City outside the schools: easy access to nature and family, a relaxed atmosphere.

“The only downside,” Ms. Powell said: “The teenagers. They come flying over these paths, especially around the corners.

A predictable side effect, perhaps, of giving inexperienced drivers a vehicle and a little leeway. Some drive too fast or cut corners too close, which can cause accidents or tip over their carts.

Sometimes the consequences were serious, including at least one case in which, attorneys said, a 15-year-old suffered a serious brain injury. The Peachtree City police said According to The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, in 2017, teens were responsible for 67 percent of golf cart collisions in the last quarter of 2016.

Local police cannot enforce speed limits because carts do not have speedometers, Ms. Learnard said. Still, residents say police are as much a presence on Peachtree City’s trails as they are on its roads, as city officials try to minimize the risks golf carts can pose. (A nationwide study from the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia published in 2021 found that golf cart injuries among minors have steadily increased in recent years, though most are minor.)

Mrs. Bushmire has felt confident that her older children have the independence to run errands for her and transport themselves to and from extracurricular activities. But she has used encounters with other young people who drive recklessly as teachable moments.

“Don’t be that driver!” she told her children. “Do you see how awful that was?”

Her daughter Rebekah, 17, and her friends are in high school. When they see a friend’s cart in a random parking lot, they leave little notes saying hello. On cold days they share a cart and huddle together to stay warm.

“It definitely helps us grow up faster,” says Rebekah’s friend, Caroline, about the carts and the associated feeling of freedom.

“I don’t know if that’s always the case!” Mrs. Bushmire replied.

Still, the high school students believe the carts help them maneuver into cars more easily.

“You already have the feeling of the steering wheel and the accelerator,” Caroline said.

Rebekah agreed.

“I was less nervous when I got behind the wheel,” she said.

“Says the driver who wouldn’t stay over 30 for long,” her mother interjected.

That afternoon, Rebekah, Caroline and another friend, Catherine Amendola, were stuck in a golf cart. They drove behind houses, through woods, past a lake and into a tunnel before emerging into a busy commercial district.

As she drove through the parking lot, Caroline noticed that she wasn’t spending as much time traveling by golf cart as she used to.

She loved riding the trails, hands down. But she now had her driver’s license and a car. She was ready to go places a golf cart couldn’t take her.

Gabriela Bhaskar reporting contributed.