The following text may have been generated by Optical Character Recognition, with varying degrees of accuracy. Reader beware!

6- The Oakville Beaver, Friday August 31, 2007 www.oakvillebeaver.com OPINION & LETTERS The Oakville Beaver 467 Speers Rd., Oakville Ont. L6K 3S4 (905) 845-3824 Fax: 337-5567 Classified Advertising: 845-3824, ext. 224 Circulation: 845-9742 Editorial and advertising content of the Oakville Beaver is protected by copyright. Unauthorized use is prohibited. THE OAKVILLE BEAVER IS PROUD OFFICIAL MEDIA SPONSOR FOR: The Oakville Beaver is a division of IAN OLIVER Group Publisher Media Group Ltd. NEIL OLIVER Publisher JILL DAVIS Editor in Chief ROD JERRED Managing Editor DANIEL BAIRD Advertising Director RIZIERO VERTOLLI Photography Director TERI CASAS Business Manager MARK DILLS Director of Production MANUEL GARCIA Production Manager CHARLENE HALL Director of Distribution ALEXANDRIA CALHOUN Circ. Manager Make it back to school or work Take a close look at the photograph on this page and remember the smashed glass and twisted metal got off easy -- people are not always so fortunate. Someone lost their life in a smash-up on the QEW in Oakville Tuesday. As you drive along the highways and byways this long weekend, please think of the image and remember no matter how much you may not want to go back to school or work, you wouldn't want to not make it back alive. With the long weekend here, the OPP are cautioning motorists to take it easy, drive carefully and stay safe. Extremely high volumes of traffic are expected this weekend as people return from their summer vacation. Additional OPP officers and Ministry of Transport crews will be out and focusing on aggressive and impaired driving, and seatbelt infractions. Traffic snarls are expected to be in full throttle, bright and early Tuesday for the start of yet another school year. Motorists should think of themselves or their loved ones when they decide to speed or drive aggressively. The OPP attributed Tuesday's fatal crash to an unsafe lane change, which was not characterized as major. However, it set off a chain reaction that saw other unsuspecting drivers ensnared. The lane change ultimately led to a fatal consequence. Outspoken OPP Highway Safety Division Sgt. Cam Woolley said it hasn't been a good summer for the OPP -- they've seen 300 people die on provincial highways. Woolley predicts chaos in Oakville next week thanks to the back-to-school traffic combined with population growth. He calls it " a shock of traffic" that no one ever expects. That sets off a dangerous cycle of aggressive driving that not only slows down drivers, but can lead to tragic results. Drive safe. It's better to arrive late, than not at all. LETTERS TO THE EDITOR The Oakville Beaver welcomes letters from its readers. Letters will be edited for clarity, length, legal considerations and grammar. In order to be published all letters must contain the name, address and phone number of the author. Letters should be addressed to The Editor, Oakville Beaver, 467 Speers Rd., Oakville, ON, L6K 3S4, or via e-mail to editor@oakvillebeaver.com. The Beaver reserves the right to refuse to publish a letter. Amazed at council concerns I read with some amazement the request by Oakville Town Council for comments on protection of trees on private property. Seriously, has our council so few important issues that it wastes its time and our money on such a foolish issue? In our neighbourhood, like most in Oakville, the majority of homeowners spend considerable time and funds landscaping their homes, planting and maintaining their flowers, shrubs and trees. If only the Town maintained its parks and woodlots as well (see Bayshire Woods, for example). Developers clearcut entire blocks not saving so much as a single tree only to facilitate their construction needs. Now our council believes it should tell individual homeowners whether or not they can remove a tree on their own property? What next, "tree police" patrolling our streets? Such a measure could result in residents being reluctant to plant any trees on their property. I am positive council will next decide we must have a permit to remove/replace a tree, just another tax. It seems to me council could better spend its time and our money on important issues, assuming they are capable of identifying issues of serious concern to the taxpayers of Oakville. DAVID SHANNON Still concerned about deer family I am very concerned for the safety and well-being of the beautiful deer family that has lived for many years and generations on the south side of the Lakeshore in the former Shell House area on the lake. Now that the new condominium apartment will be built, I hope arrangements have been made to humanely move the deer to a conservation area prior to beginning construction. All of the park areas, which used to be nearby and contained so much wildlife, are now packed with housing. I don't think the deer family could safely make their way through heavy traffic and relocate to a new park home site, such as Bronte Creek Provincial Park, without some kind of humane assistance on the Town's part. I sincerely hope this has been part of their planning process, since there will be many upset residents if the bulldozers arrive one morning and drive the deer off their long-time home. YVONNE MCARTHUR Pud BY STEVE NEASE snease@haltonsearch.com The Oakville Beaver is a member of the Ontario Press Council.The council is located at 80 Gould St., Suite 206,Toronto, Ont., M5B 2M7. Phone 416-340-1981. Advertising is accepted on the condition that, in the event of a typographical error, that portion of advertising space occupied by the erroneous item, together with a reasonable allowance for signature, will not be charged for, but the balance of the advertisement will be paid for at the applicable rate. The publisher reserves the right to categorize advertisements or decline.