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8 { PORT PERRY STAR - Tuesday, July 23,1991 "Scugog's Community Newspaper of Choice" Drinking and driving statistics Letters io the editor show decline in road tragedies The most recent statistics for the province of Ontario indicate the fight to reduce impaired driv- ing tragedies is gaining momentum. The Drinking & Driving In On- tario Statistical Year Book, 1988-89, produced by the Drink- ing/Driving Countermeasures Of- fice of the Ministry of the At- torney General, details a decline in alcohol-related fatality and crash rates over the past decade -- the most useful indicators in helping determine the problem of impaired driving. Most of the data are at their lowest since statistics of this kind have been recorded. Of drivers fatally injured in traffic crashes, the percentage of those whose blood alcohol levels were over the legal limit dropped from fifty per cent in 1980, to 30 - per cent in 1989. This is the lowest figure reported since this data became available in Ontario. Between 1980 and 1989, the number of alcohol-related crashes decreased by 42 per cent. At the same time in Ontario, the number of licensed drivers in- creased by 26 per cent. The number of young drivers involved in alcohol-related crashes has been declining faster than any other age group in On- tario. Once the age group which accounted for the largest percen- tage of drivers judged impaired by alcohol, 16-24 year old drivers were surpassed by 25-34 year olds in 1988 and 1989. "Much of the credit for the reduction in impaired driving crash and fatality rates of 16-24 year olds should be taken by the student-led movement in secon- dary schools across the pro- vince,"" said John Lefebvre, Turn to Page 9 Back Talk | have to agree with local council that it is time to do something about Highway 7A. Actu- ally it was time to do something a few years ago, but I'll take what | can get. The part of 7A | would like to see something done about is the causeway. On a number of occasions | have had to press the ole brake pads harder than the tires could take because of someone running across the highway. | Most of these people were running across with a fishing pole in hand probably wanting to show their buddy on the other side of 7A what he had just reeled in. Not to say | am against fishermen being on the causeway, but | certainly think | would pre- fer if once they were there, they didn't feel the need to run back and forth. Something has to be done to make it impera- tive they stay put and not decide the fishing looks better on the other side. | think the whole scenario is caused by fisher- men pride. When one reels in a trophy size fish their smile is ear to ear and figure they need to share it with everyone in a mile radius. So caught up they forget they are on the side of a road that has a constant line-up of Snyining om motorcycles to 18-wheelers going by at 8 clicks. On a weekend it is worse on this stretch. When the cars are lined up there is no chance to see a pedestrian when he darts out. On a less congested road you may have time to see the person. When there are cars parked up and down the side of the road, people tend to dart out from behind bumpers in every direction which leaves the driver absolutely no chance. The sad part about this problem and most other problems that require safety measures (not just in Scugog but everywhere), is that when something needs to be done to provide extra safety to individuals it is never done until those who can fix it have their attention grabbed. The pathetic part is the only way their attention is grabbed is when someone is injured or killed. In my opinion that kind of defeats the pur- pose. Why is it that someone's tragedy or disaster is the only way to get these people's attention to a problem area? by Kelly Lown dy be a good enough reason for action, thus saving it from happening in the first place? amount of time and money spent coming to a conclusion. Why the waiting period? point, so its time to let go of the purse strings and do something about it before more acci- dents happen. walks out in the line of traffic it is their own fault if they are hit. The problem with this is that the person running into the traffic rarely gets hit, it is the innocent drivers who swerve to miss them that end up hitting another car, or guardrail. Day weekend proved just that when a person running across the road caused a serious crash. the Ministry of Transportation to negotiate a cost sharing agreement on having a parking lot construct ately adjacent to the north side of the roadway. tion of a fishing pier on the northside of the roadway, which was an idea previously sug- gested by the MTO. g strict fishing to the northside of the road, and stops the forth. And the parking alongside the north would eliminate any vehicles being there. quickly before more accidents happen. wards collecting the 7A problems. Reduced speed limits, or additional stoplights would only hinder the already present congestion. with every car constantly braking when decend- ing on the hills, and more traffic li tom of the hill or anywhere else on the stretch of 7A through Port Perry is crazy. The lights we have congest traffic enough without making the problem worse. road to watch for traffic problems. | guess there haven't been enough accident to warrant their a Varrante 7 i Why can't the possibility of a potential trage- There seems to be such a outrageous The money is going to be spent at some Some people think that if the pedestrian An accident on this stretch on the Canada The township currently has a proposal into on a vacant parcel of land immedi- Another alternative discussed is the construc- . This is a solution to the problem. It can re- strians from running back and Whatever the solution it needs to be done This may be the solution or at least a start to- A lower speed limit would cause problems ghts at the bot- The Ministry of Transportation monitors the For Better or For Worse® [IF YOO RE TAKING YOUR yoo BIKES, WAH FOR HIM. 8A HoT Just another big lie To the Editor: Another Big Lie! This week I (and everyone else in the Uxbridge area) received a little gift from Canada Post Cor- poration. It is proposing to give everyone new postal codes and even included a series of cards which we could mail to our cor- respondents to alert them of our new address. There was a com- plicated sheet of instructions in- cluded which told us that this was all part of their on-going battle to bring us more group mail boxes, thereby improving their efficien- cies. This really means that they will be closing some more post of- fices in the area and reducing mail delivery even further. The amazing thing is that they won't deliver any parcel or courier envelope to my rural address now! I receive a card in the mail box and have to drive to Uxbridge to a store to pick up an envelope or parcel that my supplier has paid extra to have delivered. Some service! Some efficiency! To make matters worse, I now find out that the Postal Corpora- tion has applied to Brian Mulroney's cabinet to raise the rates of a first class letter by two more cents in January of 1992. All other requests for such increases have been approved by the Postal Corp.'s only shareholder so I guess this one will go through automatically. After all the cor- poration in its annual report has just rewarded the cabinet with a profit of several million dollars. You scratch Brian's back and he'll scratch yours. The Canadian Courier Associa- tion and the Community Newspapers Association has just published a critique of the Postal Corporation's annual report and effectively demonstrated that the "profit" is fictional and that the Canada Post Corporation has never shown a profit. Every year a different auditing firm is used. The post office in fact reduced its assets to show a paper profit. Extra ordinary ex- penses were to be amortized over a 15-year period showed up only once for about a three per cent reduction and then mysteriously disappeared. In the beginning of the Mulroney "reign of error' a com- mission was set up to review, an- nually, the activities of the Postal Corporation. In its first series of reports the commission stated that they had no way of knowing what rates Canada Post should charge for any class of mail since the figures weren't available. The post office would not produce the figures and a battle ensued. The Commission stated that it found that if Canada Post charged ap- propriately for all of its services the rate of a first class stamp would be reduced by about four cents or every post office in Canada could have been kept open and mail delivery to every address in Canada could have been continued. No group mail monsters would have been need- ed! We would have had a real postal service. Canada Post forces all Cana- dians to pay extra for first class mail so that it can stay in the com- petitive parcel delivery and flyer distribution business because of the ego of the managers. There can be no other reason. Thirty-three pound boxes of greeting cards or gifts are sent from Toronto to any address in Ontario and Quebec for $1.33 by one of Canada Post's large customers. I send a 0.5 lb. envelope from one Uxbridge loca- tion to another and it costs me $1.25. Who is paying the correct price for the cost of the movement? The Mulroney government solv- ed the problem -- they cancelled the budget of the commission so on one could ask Canada Post to prove its need for rate increases. We need a postal review agen-' cy to police the post office. It is ob- vious the Federal Cabinet ¢an'tor won't. To add insult to injury the an- nual report of Canada Post Cor- poration is released two days after the Members of Parliament recess for the summer so that the Tories won't have to answer any embarrassing questions about its contents. Doug Moffatt ADVERTISING DEADLINES REAL ESTATE 5:00 P.M. Thursday DISPLAY ADVERTISING 12 NOON MONDAY Things could be worse. PRESSING MATTERS (Continued from Page 6) We're not gonna discuss costs. The folks working on our mouth are talented toothologists, and outstanding humanitar- ians. They still have a lot of work to do, and they also might have access to a paper running this column, Keep up the great work, guys. EMMERSON INSURANCE BROKERS LIMITED 193 QUEEN ST., PORT PERRY, ONT. LIL 1B9 PHONE (416) 985-7306 ALL LINES OF GENERAL INSURANCE » HOMEOWNERS - FARM - AUTO COMMERCIAL » » SE a i nis. a sn Si a ov bv wis Li ll GUE, Gp Sl wo Ba MTA Ts A lB ls ea AT = Ea"