What began as a commuter’s quirky choice has become a neighborhood movement. Golf carts now rival SUVs in the Grove, carrying kids, dogs, groceries — and plenty of stories.
Eighteen years ago, Josh D’Alemberte bought a golf cart. Not to golf, but to commute to work, run errands, visit his parents and take his kids to school.
He did not have far to travel. All were within what D’Alemberte describes as his personal “triangle” inside Coconut Grove.
“It’s a bad day when I have to cross U.S. 1,” said D’Alemberte, a North Grove resident and former history teacher at nearby Ransom Everglades School. “I just knew it would fit my lifestyle. When I bought it, I had three young kids. They loved to hop into it.”
Today, those three young kids are in their 20s. D’Alemberte runs a private tutoring business called Who Tutors. And he and his wife, Alysia, still own a golf cart.
On a recent Saturday afternoon, D’Alemberte demonstrated the roadworthiness of his four-seat E-Z-GO golf cart by taking a reporter out for a spin, sharing the road with SUVs, sports cars, motorcycles and all manner of other vehicles.
But while D’Alemberte was once the cart-riding oddity in the Grove, that’s not the case anymore. During the tour, at least 10 other golf carts could be seen parked in driveways – in his North Grove neighborhood alone.
While golf carts have long been in vogue at upscale, gated communities like Key Largo’s Ocean Reef and in affluent suburban areas like Key Biscayne, their mainstream appeal accelerated during the pandemic.
Paloma Gallardo, a Coconut Grove realtor who has been driving a golf cart around the Grove for several years, believes that low-speed vehicles “exploded” in the village in the last five years as many recent arrivals from the Northeast, escaping stringent COVID-19 regulations, discovered the joys (and reduced transmission risk) of open-air driving.
And a distinct subset of those people, Gallardo added, are the “moms” who were “just tired of driving” and thought riding a golf cart “looked fun.”
Northern transplants are not the only people in the Grove buying golf carts. Scott Howard, a Center Grove resident since 1998, said he and his wife bought a golf cart in 2022 because it just “made more sense” to get rid of their second car, which they hardly ever drove, but paid a lot of money to insure.
“It was a way to motor around the Grove in a safe environment and, three years later, we still love to just go on a golf cart and take it for a spin through the different neighborhoods,” Howard said.
South Grove resident Michiel “Monkey” Johan van de Kreeke has been using the same electric-powered golf cart for the past 11 years.
Describing himself as a golf cart “OG” (short for “original gangster,” a slang term for someone with early trendsetter status) van de Kreeke said he remembers a time when it was just him and D’Alemberte (the two are old friends) who scooted around the village in low-speed vehicles.
“You’re seeing a ton of them now. Everybody wants a golf cart. And not just low-speed vehicles you’d see on a golf course, but six-seaters,” said van de Kreeke, the director of maritime construction for Miami-based Integra Marinas.
Van de Kreeke said he traded in his Land Rover for a golf cart because he works at home, his kids go to school in the Grove and he is a short distance away from restaurants, parks, and marinas.
“I’d take my kids to Ransom [Everglades School] with my two dogs in the back, stop by Starbucks. It’s just super convenient,” van de Kreeke said.
They’re cheap, too, at least compared to a new car. Prices can range anywhere from $2,000 to well over $40,000. And gas-powered vehicles have great mileage, Howard added. “I’ve run mine for four months on $12 worth of gas.”
But in a region known for its horrendous traffic gridlock and its aggressive, distracted drivers, people operating golf carts on public streets are not universally loved or understood.
“Driving a golf cart on a street with cars, especially in Miami, is one of those activities that makes me wonder why, if a person is tired of living, they don’t just use drugs to off themselves like a normal person,” went one comment on a recent posting about golf carts on the neighborhood social networking site Nextdoor.
But golf cart enthusiasts surveyed by the Spotlight pushed back on the safety concerns, insisting that the Grove’s narrow side streets appear tailor-made for low-speed vehicles, while the area’s larger thoroughfares are so heavily used, especially in the village core, that high-speed encounters with much larger and heavier vehicles are unlikely.
Safe or not, every golf cart owner has endured their share of honking, tailgating and dirty looks.
“As I was driving down Bayshore to drop my kid off at Ransom I had this guy in a Tesla who was just riding my ass,” van de Kreeke recalled. “I just stopped, turned to him, and asked, ‘What are you doing?’ And he said, ‘Go faster!’ and I said, ‘Dude, are you serious, with this flow of traffic, you are not going to go more than 30 miles per hour!’”
Under Florida law, a low-speed vehicle is defined as “any four-wheeled vehicle whose top speed is greater than 20 miles per hour but not greater than 25 miles per hour.”
To operate lawfully on public streets they must include a variety of safety features such as seat belts, brake lights, and turn signals. They must also be registered and insured, like automobiles, though at rates that owners say are cheaper than for regular vehicles.
And low-speed vehicles are forbidden from traveling on roads with speeds exceeding 35 miles per hour. In other words, U.S. 1 is off-limits, though you can drive one across it.
While many low-speed vehicles are manufactured to meet “street-legal” safety standards, actual golf carts – a separate category, under Florida law, for recreation-only vehicles that cannot exceed 20 mph – are not allowed on public roadways without extensive safety and performance modifications.
And many owners do just that, installing seat belts, rearview mirrors, parking brakes, turn signals, brake lights and other equipment. They too must be insured and registered.
Van de Kreeke said he converted his golf cart into a fully street-legal vehicle, but some of his neighbors operate carts on the street without the necessary license plates. Those vehicles tend to get ticketed and towed, he added.
Still, despite some grumbling from car drivers, the proliferation of golf carts (the accepted catchall term for low-speed vehicles) has not been a problem for Coconut Grove, said Miami Police Commander Freddie Cruz. “Just a couple of tickets from people who were using them illegally with no tags, but other than that, no complaints about them,” Cruz said.
Yet Cruz cautioned that golf carts, even with modifications, are not as safe as automobiles. “They’re still dangerous at the end of the day. They don’t have airbags or the same safety features as a regular vehicle. But they’re trending now, I guess. People like to zip around them, but they haven’t been an issue.”
They can be stolen, too. A little more than a year ago, D’Alemberte’s previous golf cart, an electric six-seater, was swiped from outside his home. So was his neighbor’s.
D’Alemberte said he learned his lesson. His new cart, a gas-powered model, has two locks and a GPS location tracker.
Other golf cart users have told the Spotlight they don’t recommend someone getting a low-speed vehicle unless they have a secured spot to park it, like a garage or behind a gate. Coconut Grove has experienced a significant uptick in vehicle thefts in recent weeks.
D’Alemberte said most people, and drivers, react positively to his golf cart while he cruises through the Grove. On the recent Saturday afternoon tour, as he blasted 1980s electronic dance music down Bayshore Drive, Main Highway and Grand Avenue, some drivers waved and smiled.
On Oak Avenue, he stopped at the public pickleball courts, where he volunteers, and maneuvered his E-Z-GO into a tight spot next to a group of construction workers. He picked up a bag of trash, secured it in the back of his cart, and zipped away.
On the way home, D’Alemberte ran into his sister-in-law, Jackie Stampler, and neighbor Kathy Hidy, and the subject turned to how golf carts make it much simpler to get around the Grove where parking is scarce. Hidy, a realtor, said she uses her six-seat golf cart to transport clients.
Stampler said her golf cart’s easy-on-easy-off design allows her to offer rides, on occasion, to strangers.
“I’ve actually picked up people randomly,” added Stampler, whose family has used a golf cart for three years. “There was a lady from church who was going to walk back home with her kids and I was like, ‘Oh, come on. I’ll drop you off. It’s no big deal.’ They were so excited.”
Hidy thinks the proliferation of golf carts has added color and character to village streets. “They ultimately bring positive energy,” she said. “It makes the Grove vibrant.”
