South Dakota Golf Carts: Legal on Any Highway Posted 25 mph or Less Since 2023

The golf cart rules sit in SDCL 32-14-13 through 32-14-16, all of them from SL 2010, ch 164, and the 2023 amendment is the one that changed the answer for most residents. SDCL 32-14-15 used to bar any golf cart from a state or county highway except to cross it. SL 2023, ch 104 added SDCL 32-14-15.1, which now says any person may operate a golf cart on a state or county highway if the posted speed limit is twenty-five miles per hour or less, and made 32-14-15 subject to it. No permit, no ordinance and no local opt-in is needed on those roads. The section closes with a caution that nothing in it relieves golf cart operators of any statutory requirements associated with motor vehicle operation in the state.

Where the posted limit is higher, SDCL 32-14-15 still governs and it is narrow. A cart may cross from one side to the other, at a right angle, only after stopping and yielding the right-of-way to all approaching traffic, and crossing as closely as possible to an intersection or approach. Operating on such a highway in any other manner is a Class 2 misdemeanor.

The municipal route in SDCL 32-14-14 is separate and carries real conditions. Any municipality, or a township with an unincorporated town, may adopt traffic regulations by ordinance permitting golf carts on a highway within its platted boundaries. The statute does not leave the terms to the town: the ordinance shall require that the cart is insured and that the operator hold a driver license and obtain a permit from the authority having jurisdiction. The town or township may charge a fee for that permit. It may also require a slow-moving vehicle emblem under SDCL 32-15-20, which must be the American Society of Agricultural Engineers specification per SDCL 32-15-21 and mounted on the rear so as to be clearly visible, or a white or amber warning light under SDCL 32-17-46, which must be flashing or rotating and clearly visible to motorists approaching from the rear. SDCL 32-14-16 extends the word municipality to any municipality organized under Title 9 and to any improvement district a county establishes under chapter 7-25A, and lets the county adopt ordinances to enforce and administer 32-14-14 for that district.

A low-speed vehicle is regulated as a real motor vehicle and is not a golf cart. SDCL 32-3-1(11) defines it as a four-wheeled motor vehicle whose speed attainable in one mile is more than twenty and not more than twenty-five miles per hour on a paved level surface. SDCL 32-3-71 issues a title only to an LSV meeting 49 C.F.R. 571.500 as amended to January 1, 2008, requires the manufacturer certificate of origin or title to identify it as a low-speed vehicle, and expressly forbids the department from issuing a vehicle identification number to a homemade low-speed vehicle or a retrofitted golf cart, which do not qualify as LSVs in South Dakota. SDCL 32-5-152 requires registration under SDCL 32-5-5 and a plate indicating that the vehicle is a low-speed vehicle. SDCL 32-12-4.8 requires the operator to hold a valid driver's license, and SDCL 32-35-125 requires the LSV to maintain financial responsibility as required by SDCL 32-35-113. SDCL 32-25-27 then caps the roads: no low-speed vehicle may be operated on any highway where the speed limit is more than thirty-five miles per hour, and it expressly preserves the power of a local government to adopt more stringent ordinances.

One more line closes off a common workaround. SDCL 32-20-13 lets certain all-terrain and off-road vehicles be licensed as motorcycles for highway use, but it says the section does not apply to a golf cart as defined in SDCL 32-14-13, a low-speed vehicle as described in SDCL 32-3-71, or a toy or youth off-road vehicle. A cart cannot be plated as a motorcycle to escape the speed-limit caps.

Operating a golf cart on a state or county highway in a way SDCL 32-14-15 does not permit is a Class 2 misdemeanor, capped by SDCL 22-6-2(2) at thirty days in a county jail, five hundred dollars, or both. A slow-moving vehicle emblem violation under SDCL 32-15-20 is only a petty offense, prosecuted as a civil action under SDCL 22-6-7 and chapter 23-1A with a twenty-five dollar judgment under SDCL 23-1A-22, while missing the after-dark warning light required by SDCL 32-17-46 is a Class 2 misdemeanor.

For a low-speed vehicle, failure to maintain financial responsibility is a Class 2 misdemeanor under SDCL 32-35-113, and SDCL 32-35-121 attaches a driver license suspension to that conviction. Where a municipality has adopted a SDCL 32-14-14 ordinance, the permit it issues is the town's to condition and to revoke, and the county performs that role for an improvement district under SDCL 32-14-16. 1 requires anyone engaged in the retail sale of low-speed vehicles to be licensed as a vehicle dealer or used vehicle dealer.