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<A a= -- ht aa -- __ PORT PERRY STAR -- Tuesday, August 9, 1968 -- 7 Viewpoint by John B. McClelland MENACE ON THE HIGHWAYS | know | have written about this before, but it has become one of my major pet peeves. On the Sunday of the August 1 holiday week- end, | packed two of my kids in the car to take them off to summer camp for a week. It's a camp on High- way 41, north of Kaladar, so we followed Highway 7 from Peterborough before turning north on 41. | expected a nice leisurely drive. It was after all, the Sunday of a holiday weekend, and | thought the traffic would be light. Wrong. Highway 7 was choked with traffic, and again on several occasions, | encountered the menace of the highways: not a drunk driver, not a hot rodder doing 100 miles an hour, but rather the driver who insists on poking along at a speed well below the posted 80 km/hour. : If you have ever travelled Highway 7, you know the results. When some guy (or girl) decides to am- ble along at 60 km/hr on a busy Sunday afternoon, it doesn't take very ong Sejors there is a long line of traffic jammed up behind, and pretty soon tem- pers and patience begins to wear very thin. Highway 7 is not my favourite thoroughfare un- der the best of circumstances, and on at least three occasions | got stuck in one of those long lines of traffic with one driver leading the pack. It didn't take very long before drivers in the line began to move in an out of the line, passing when they really should not have been passing. On dou- ble lines, hills, corners, or when another car was | lost track of the number of "near misses" | wit- nessed, and quite frankly, they scared the hell out of me. . If somebody Wants to travel at 60 kmvhr on a busy highway where the limit is 80, that's fine. But surely that person should know enough to pull over from time to time to let the line of vehicles be- hind go by. Also, the drivers in that long line should leave several car lengths so that when Mr. or Mrs. Impatient decides to take a chance and pass as many as possible, he/she will have at least a little space to duck in when a truck suddenly appears in the opposite lane on the brow of a hill. That was not the case. So many drivers in a long line travel bumper to bumper with no space for a passing car to pull into when needed. These things seem so fundamental to me, yet every time | drive a busy two-lane highway, | en- counter the same thing. And of course it is worse in the summer with the large number of vehicles pull- ing boats or trailers and travelling at slow speeds. We have had massive public info campaigns about the perils of speeding, drinking and driving and so on. How about one aimed at getting people to leave space between their cars, and to get those pokey drivers to pull over once in a while so the mile-long line of cars behind can get by without risk- ing a dangerous passing trick on a hill or a curve. OK, that's pet peeve number one off my chest for this week. Peeve number two is the pusilani- mous effort by the Canadian government to get South Africa to change its apartheid ways. ic exchanges, including independent golfers and tennis players who represent themselves, not their country. Athletic boycotts don't work in the world of inter- national affairs. Forbidding golfers or tennis players who happen to be South African from competing in tournaments in Canada won't change one damn thing. It Canada really wanted to make a statement on apartheid, it might consider bans and sanctions against a long list of countries that continue to trade heavily with South Africa. Korea, for example, home of the Olympics, is one of eight countries that in- creased its coal purchases from S. Africa. Israel is cited by one international agency as the number one exporter of weapons to the Pretorian government, along with the United States and our ATO allies in Europe such as West Germany, Italy, France and Great Britain. Would we dare ruffle their feathers with some tough sanctions for dealing with South Africa? Of Golifse not. But Canada has to do SOMETHING, right : So we take out our disgust over apartheid on a few hapless tennis players and golfers, denying them the right to compete in Canada. It's a joke. Speaking of international jokes, | noticed last week that the Soviets released Mathias Rust from prison after he served 14 months of a four year sen- tence. He's the West German teen-ager who piloted a light plane from Finland through the Soviet air de- fense system, buzzed the Kremlin and eventually clearly coming in the opposite direction. Our government has slapped a ban on all athlet- (Turn to page 8) . Yesterday's Memories 70 YEARS AGO Thursday, August 8, 1918 If anyone has to use the railroads to either send or receive freight - DO IT NOW. The short wheat crop in the West will not be sufficient to keep the cars all busy. To our Subscribers - Owing to an Express Strike, we are com- ~ peled to issue our paper one day late and in this form. Congratulations to Miss Florence Cook, who has passed her examination in Theory Music, Intermediate Form, with honours. Attending the Fitchett-Montgomery Wedding at Blackstock last week from Manchester were Mr. and Mrs. Edward Barrett, Miss Aletha Barrett and Mr. Chas Lambe of Lindsay. 45 YEARS AGO Thursday, August 5, 1943 A movement has started for the beautification of the Highway between Port Perry and Manchester, as a War Memorial. It has been suggested that people save petunia and hollyhock seed for the purpose. : A Recruiting officer will be at the Port Perry Armouries every Monday from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. Congratulations to Mr. A.W. Lawrence, Port Perry on win- ning the second place of a $200. War Bond at the Lions Fair in Bowmanville. Among those graduating recently in trade training from No. 2 Composite Training School, Toronto, R.C.A.F., was Elizabeth Griffen. Mrs. R.G. Doubt, Toronto, was in Port Perry visiting friends. 35 YEARS AGO Thursday, August 6, 1953 On July 31, 1953, Mr. Clarence D. Purdy ended 41 years of successful service with the T. Eaton Co. He started with the com- pany in Winnipeg on May 27, 1912. Mr. Purdy was born in Port Perry, the son of the late Mr. and Mrs. E.H. Purdy. Mr. A.D. Wheeler of Port Perry, celebrated her 93rd birth- day on August 2. Mrs. Wheeler was born H.A. Tenty Ireland, in 1860, the daughter of Mr. and Mrs. T.J. Ireland and received her schooling in Seagrave. Dr. and Mrs. G.H. Jackson, their son Stanley and his friend Alan Graessle, have returned to their home in Union, N.J. after a vacation with the Doctor's mother, Mrs. George Jackson. 30 YEARS AGO Thursday, August 7, 1958 Mr. Douglas Farndale and Miss Patricia Gerrow were united in marriage at a pretty summer ceremony at the Port Perry United Church. (Turn to page 8) ethers Why only day meetings? To The Editor: It was with great interest that I read Peter Hvidsten's column: regarding the number of vacan- cies for council in the up-coming municipal election. Consequently I gave serious consideration to entering the race this fall as councillor. However, I was surprised to discover that for some unusual reason, council meetings are held Roy and his letters To The Editor: In recent weeks I have had a number of total strangers tell me that they read all of my letters (and like what they read). I must be doing something right? Perhaps it is the theme which runs throughout many of my let- ters, not just about our govern- ments: 1, the way our money is wasted on inefficiency and indeci- sions of the bureaucratic bumblers around us. 2, We pay high postage for a poor service. 3, High prices for substandard goods. 4, The unemployment in- surance system, which hounds the unemployable but pays others to holiday down south. We have a legal system which throws innocent people into jail for years on crimes they did not commit but will let dangerous of- fenders out on the street where they commit murder again. We operate government funded schools for crime but call them jails. We are so concerned about our civil liberties that the criminals can and do go free. As someone whose experience is a few lengthy letters to the editor. I get inquiries from people who think they too would like to write a letter to the editor - many people like another person writing about their ideas. I usually sug- gest that they write their own let- ters, but they rarely do. Remember, the press is only as powerful as it's ability to rally the indignation of a usually apathetic public. I recall a phone call last fall from a person who wanted me to write about the illegal parking around the area of John and Queen Streets, u-turns on Queen and Water Streets, the illegal parking or stopping around the post office building, (to say nothing about the vehicles that are coming out from the parking lot behind and going the wrong way as posted in both these lanes). I believe ALL lanes should (Turn to page 8) during the day. As a full-time worker, I therefore became im- mediately ineligible to run for local politics. In larger communities such as Oshawa, Whitby, Ajax and Pickering, meetings are held in the evening. It was heartening to see full-time wage-earners able to take an active role in their community. This policy in Scugog is somewhat discriminatory towards citizens who work full- time and do not have the luxury of flexible hours. I cannot believe it is in the interests of the Scugog area to shut its doors on a large segment of concerned, talented residents merely on the basis of meeting times. Other communities carry on the affairs of state quite efficiently in the evenings. Is it time for a change? Sincerely, Catherine Black, R.R.1, Blackstock. to the editor. Letters to the Editor ... our policy . It has always been the policy of this newpspaper to encourage our readers to make use of the letters to the editor column. Our readers have a right to freely express their opinions and view- points on just about any subject, and we feel that a lively letters column helps make a better community newspaper. We insist, however, that a letter writer sign his or her name. On rare occasions, we will agree to with-hold publication of a letter writer's name, if we feel there are very good reasons to do so. Under no circumstances will this paper print an anonymous letter While we enjoy receiving letters from our readers, we must con- tinue to insist on knowing the identity of the writer.