They can try to keep it quiet but info is still available. Do a search on the palm beach clerk of courts website. They have the info on the lawsuit from this accident and the previous one for public review.
All I can say is, this was our home track and it doesn’t look good.
Was/is the State of FL named as a defendant in any of those lawsuits ? I havent looked at the public record on it. Based on their quick/intense crackdown, I’m guessing so. And if so, that’s not good for us.
No, the state was not named as a defendant. But if you read through the civil complaint you can see that the parties involved did not do much to shield themselves from any lawsuits. In particular, the track was leased to OTK in Orlando not palm beach karting.
The state came down on all the tracks because they were notified by the Palm Beach Sheriff about the accident, (I can only speculate)
This is the like to the clerk of courts website, it won’t let me post a link to the docs for some reason, but you can search for the case by name (palm beach karting)
From there you can see the previous case, which was a similar accident and was settled out of court. The settlement was not disclosed publically, but it looks bad for THIS particular track. I think the rest of the tracks should be fine as long as they comply with the current state rules.
…and that’s the hook, comply with all laws governing rental/concession karts. That means rental track must have nonmovable barrier at sides of the track. I took a look at the kart track at the mini golf/amusement place here in town when I was there with the kids recently – solid steel spring loaded barrier on both sides. Same thing at Autobahn (indoor kart rentals).
As Jorge stated, the senior inspector for the governing body from the state hand delivered his letter of non-compliance to them. Thats a big deal. My suspicion is there’s a pending suit against the state for negligence to enforce existing regulations statewide, hence the immediate and heavy crackdown.