Maryland Golf Carts Need a Local Road Designation, Not a Registration

Golf carts start from the registration exemption. Transportation Article § 13-402(a)(1) requires every motor vehicle driven on a highway to be registered, and § 13-402(c)(11) then excuses a golf cart that is operated on a highway in accordance with § 21-104.2. Everything a Maryland cart driver may do is therefore packed into that one short section.

Section 21-104.2(b) is the gate. It provides that the governing body of a county or municipality may designate the county or municipal highways under their respective jurisdictions on which a person may operate a golf cart. Nothing happens automatically. Until a county council or a town council has designated particular roads, there is no lawful road for a cart in that jurisdiction, and the exemption in § 13-402(c)(11) has nothing to attach to.

The designation power is also bounded by ownership of the road. Section 21-104.2(a) speaks of operating a golf cart on a county or municipal highway, and § 21-104.2(b) limits designation to highways under the county's or municipality's own jurisdiction. A state route running through the middle of a town is not a county or municipal highway, so a town cannot designate it for cart use, and that is often the exact road that separates one designated neighbourhood from another.

Where a road has been designated, § 21-104.2(a)(1) imposes four conditions at once. The posted maximum speed limit may not exceed 30 miles per hour, with a single exception written into item 2 for Golden Beach Patuxent Knolls in St. Mary's County, where the ceiling is 35 miles per hour. Operation is limited to between dawn and dusk. The cart must be equipped with lighting devices as required by the Motor Vehicle Administration. Beyond those, § 21-104.2(a)(2) requires the driver to keep the cart as far to the right of the roadway as feasible, and § 21-104.2(a)(3) requires the driver to possess a valid driver's license. There is no separate cart permit, no plate and no registration fee, but there is also no minor's exception: the licence requirement means a fourteen year old may not drive the family cart to the marina.

This general local-designation model is recent. It was enacted as Chapter 492 of the 2024 Regular Session (House Bill 43), "Motor Vehicle Registration - Exceptions for Golf Carts - Authorization", which took effect on October 1, 2024 and authorised counties and municipalities to designate highways in their respective jurisdictions for golf cart use. Guidance written before that date, and the older assumption that Maryland cart rights existed only in a handful of named waterfront communities, no longer describes the statute.

One locality keeps a separate arrangement for a narrower purpose. Section 13-402(c)(12) exempts from registration a golf cart operated on an Allegany County highway as allowed by the county under § 25-102(a)(16), and that paragraph lets Allegany County designate crossings on county highways where a person operating a golf cart may cross the highway for continued access to any portion of a golf course. That is a crossing right for split golf courses, not a general right to travel the road.

Low speed vehicles are governed separately and more like cars. Transportation Article § 11-130.1 defines a low speed vehicle as a four-wheeled motor vehicle with a maximum speed capability that exceeds 20 miles per hour but is less than 25 miles per hour. Nothing in § 13-402(c) exempts an LSV from registration, so it must be titled and registered with the MVA and carries plates. Section 21-1125 then sets four operating limits that apply notwithstanding any other provision of the title: no driving on a highway posted above 30 miles per hour, none on an expressway or other controlled access highway signed under § 21-313, none on a highway where a county or municipal ordinance prohibits it, and no crossing a highway posted above 45 miles per hour except at an intersection controlled by a traffic control signal or by a stop sign at each approach. Section 25-102(a)(17) gives local authorities the express power to restrict low speed vehicle use on highways under their jurisdiction, which is the hook behind that third limit.

Neither the golf cart section nor the low speed vehicle section carries its own penalty, so Transportation Article § 27-101 applies: § 27-101(a) makes the violation a misdemeanour and § 27-101(b) caps the fine at $500. 2 and therefore outside the registration exemption in § 13-402(c)(11), which exposes the driver to the separate unregistered-vehicle offence in § 13-402(i)(2), under which a person may not drive a vehicle on any highway in the State in violation of the section. Section 13-402(a)(2) adds that an unregistered motor vehicle may not be parked on a public alley, street or highway or on private property used by the public in general, including shopping centre, condominium, apartment and town house parking lots, although § 13-402(a)(3) exempts vehicles that are exempt from registration under the section. 2(a)(3) requires faces the five-point driving-while-not-licensed assessment in § 16-402(a)(18).