Page 6, Whitby Free Press, Wednesday, September 7, 1994 The only Newspaper owned and operated by Whitby residents for Whitby residents! MEMBER OF: ONTARIO CANADIAN COMMUNITY A COMMUNITY NEWSPAPER 4 NEWSPAPER ASSOCIATION ASSOCIATION rM CANADIAN CIRCULATIONS CNA DIVISION AUDIT BOARD ISSN#0844-398X 26,500 COPIES DELIVERED WEEKLY Published every Wednesday by 677209 Ontaro Inc. Box 206, 131 Brock St. N., Whitby, Ontario L1N 5S1 Phone: 668-6111 Out of town:1-800-668-0322 Fax: 668-0594 Doug Anderson - Publisher Maurice Pifher - Editor Alexandra Martin - Production Manager Printed on newsprint with minimum 20% recycled content using vegetable based inks. © All written material, illustrations and advertising contained herein is protected by copyright. Any reproduction by any means for commercial purposes without the express permission of the newspaper s prohibted and is a violation of Canadian copyright law. Reproduction for non-commercial distribution should bear a credit line to the whitby Free Press. mo the urnrtor. Don't target families To the editor: In reply to the recent letters commenting on the sale of firearms in the Wal-Mart store, please accept this side of the issue. The sale of firearms has been taking place in stores frequented by families since my great-great-grandparents settled in this country in the1800s. Firearms were obtained through the local general store along with other necessities or ordered through the Sears Roebuck catalogue which contained numerous items that cater to the entire family. These stores and catalogues contained items for ail family members and subsequently ail family members had access to them. The idea that a store is no longer suitable to the family when it contains firearms is absolutely ludicrous- A store with a good, well-rounded sporting goods section along with ail the other items a family might want or need, to me means that possibly more families will go together and do their shopping under one roof. Canadian Tire is a very family-oriented store that stocks items and ammunition. I am sure this store has not created any stress or emotional difficulties to a family that have gone there shopping for other items. Ih is also important to note that firearm and ammunition displays are locked and therefore not accessible to just anyone going through the store. This is the law to which Wal-Mart also must adhere. In regards to the statement made about the law and the success of controlling beer and liquor sales in comparison to firearm control, please catch on to what is really happening. To buy, borrow, lend or sell a firearm requires a person to have a valid f irearms acquisition certificate. At one time this certificate was obtainable through the local police station by filling out an application that allowed the police to check into your background to determine if in fact you were suitable to obtain a legal f irearm. Now citizens that want to obtain a firearms acquisition certificate must not only go through a detailed background check but must complete a course and pass an examination on safe firearm handling. The other recent change in law requires a store selling ammunition to obtain photo identification from the purchaser and record the amount and type of ammunition purchased. These laws make it tougher and tougher for law-abiding citizens to obtain such items but do not address the real problem of illegal firearms that are, and always will be, available to criminals and the use of these firearms in crime. It is the criminal and illegal firearms you want to target, not the family that enjoys hunting or sport shooting. The tone of one letter indicates that possibly buying, owning, using or having firearms indicates that you may no longer represent a family. There are various ideals that make a family and they can differ from one family to another, but one must be careful in determing what is family-oriented and what is not. I attend a practice range on a regular basis. My family has been there, there are other families there enjoying the sport of pistol, rifle and shotgun target practice. All learn, practice and enjoy the sale use of firearms, just as other families enjoy the wide variety of sport options that are available to all Canadians. The ability to do this is the Canadian way of life that caters to the needs and wants of the various cultures that are contained in Canada. The use of firearms for sport has been in my family for a very long time. They are part of my heritage and my culture and something that I will not have taken away. You boycott Wal-Mart for the sale of firearms and ammunition but, for Heaven's sake, don't ask the rest of the population to follow your lead based on a subject you obviously know little about. William D. Grylls Brooklin Tote edior, The real 'crash' data To the editor: Re: "The Speeding Free Press, Aug. 24. Addiction," The letter from Dugals Gorden was littered with false information on speed-related crashes. Speeding did not kilI 1,100 people. This is the number of people who died in traffic accidents of all sorts (40 per cent were impaired). Neither did speeding cause 90,000 accidents. The facts: Table 2.8 from the Ontario Safety Annual Report 1992 (at your library) clearly shows crash data by Apparent Driver Action: driving properly, 45 per cent; fail to yield, 12 per cent; following too close, seven per cent; lost control, seven per cent; speed too fast for conditions (rain, snow, fog, etc.), seven per cent; other, six per cent; improper turn, four per cent; unknown, four per cent; disobey control, three per cent; improper lane change, three per cent; speed too fast, one per cent (this is what photo radar is concent rat ing on). Twenty-one countries have a higher speed limit than Ontario. If 85 per cent of the people are not obeying the speed limit, perhaps the speed limit is set too low. Highway engineers around the world agree the proper speed limit is the speed that 85 per cent of the traffic is going at or below. This minimizes speed differential by keeping the flow of traffic uniform. In fact the "Fair Speed Act 1994" is going before Congress at this moment to protect motorists from unfair speed laws that are designed to generate revenue in the U.S. The government of the day launched a photo radar misinformation campaign on Aug. 15. Jim Kenzie (Toronto Star, June 19, 1993) compared OPP supplied crash data for speeders versus non-speeders. Ninety-five per cent of those crashes involved non-speeders and only three per cent involved speed in excess of the posted limit. In addition, traffic speed histograms for the 401 freeway show that 85 per cent of people disobey the arbitrarily posted 100 kilometre-per-hour-limit, leading to the conclusion that 85 per cent of traffic disobeys the posted limit and yet cause only three per cent of accidents. The Ontario Traffic Conference, made up of highway engineers, law enforcement and politicians, has voted to "study raising the maximum posted speed limit. However, if the posted limit is raised to 120 kilometres per hour to protect the legal rights of the majority, then the economic benefits of photo radar would be drastically reduced. Consequently, the government is poised to not only remove our driving freedom, but also to unfairly fine and prosecute us for reasonable driving activies irregardless of whether we are actually driving the vehicle that has been identified. I have written MPP David Turnbull (Toronto), who opposes photo radar, for his comments on the matter. His reply was that no other issue in his two years of service had generated as much public outrage and that we should continue forwarding letters and calls to our MPPs. Maybe someday the government will realize we live in a democratic country. Lane discipline, failure to yield right of way and following too close cause more frustration, anger and crashes on our freeways than speed problems. In the meantime, the Ontario Chapter of the National Motorist Association (NMA) is the only oasis in the desert that helps more than 13 million licensed drivers in Ontario to voice their injustice with photo radar. For further information contact Ivor Nixon, RRI, Carrying Place, Ont. KOK 1LO, (613) 962-297q/fax 5675. Rosa Turek NMA Ontario Treasurer/Secretary To the editor: My husband and I went to the Rolling Stones concert Saturday, Aug. 20. We had arranged to meet some friends at the beer garden before the concert, rather than drink and drive, and we decided to take GO Transit. After checking with GO Train information, i found that trains were not operating from Whitby but buses were taking commuters to Pickering. We don't like buses. Also we knew we would not get home from the concert until 1 a.m., so we decided to drive to the Pickering GO Train station. The concert was great. We caught the last train at 12:30 a.m. This particular train was making all regular stops to Whitby. When this was announced, groans and complaints rumbled throughout the To the editor: Re: Letter,'Fire hall project: Reporters didn't do their job,' Free Press, Aug. 24 1 would like to commend Barbara Branton for being a concerned citizen of the community. However, the new f ire department headquarters is not a project which has started overnight. The Whitby Free Press and the local politicians have openly discussed this much needed section. Most people in my section were from Whitby and Oshawa. Most had driven to Pickering and took the train. (i guess they don't like buses, either). Most people got off the train in Pickering and an almost empty train proceeded to Whitby. i cannot understand why trains would not run from Whitby on a weekend, when the CNE was on and where there is a major happening. I am an honest, taxpaying citizen. i take the train once or twice a year and when I do, it is a major hassle. Why do we have such a modern train station but have to take buses to Pickering? The cost of the GO Train service is not cheap and we, the people, are not getting a fair shake. Yvonne McDonald Whitby project for many years. Her comments, well intended, are not based on fact and therefore lack credibility. A simple five-minute phone call to the mayor or fire chief would have answered any of her questions or concerns months before any of the work was started. The Town of Whitby would be better off if its citizens were proactive on important issues instead of reacting negatively after the fact. Mike Pfeiffer . Brooklin The GO hassle Comments off base