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OAKVILLE BEAVER Thursday, June 25, 2009 · 6 The Oakville Beaver 467 Speers Rd., Oakville Ont. L6K 3S4 (905) 845-3824 Fax: 337-5571 Classified Advertising: 905-632-4440 Circulation: 845-9742 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. Editorial and advertising content of the Oakville Beaver is protected by copyright. Unauthorized use is prohibited. Commentary Letter to the Editor NEIL OLIVER Vice-president and Group Publisher, Metroland West DAVID HARVEY General Manager JILL DAVIS Editor in Chief ROD JERRED Managing Editor DANIEL BAIRD Advertising Director RIZIERO VERTOLLI Photography Director SANDY PARE Business Manager MARK DILLS Director of Production MANUEL GARCIA Production Manager CHARLENE HALL Director of Distribution SARAH MCSWEENEY Circ. Manager WEBSITE oakvillebeaver.com Slow down for the kids S ummer is once again upon us and children are flocking outside to enjoy the sunshine after a long winter. I am writing this to urge all motorists to please slow down within residential settings and watch for our little ones out playing. Research shows that an increase in speed increases the risk of injury, but did you know that a pedestrian struck by a car travelling at 50 km/hr has an 80 per cent chance of being killed? Yet a child hit by a car travelling at 30 km/h, has up to a 95 per cent chance of surviving. (World Health Organization. Speed Management: A Road Safety Manual for Decision-Makers and Practitioners. Geneva, Global Road Safety Partnership, 2008: 4-5). As an adult and a licenced driver, the onus is on you to maintain and operate a motor vehicle in a responsible manner. Children are incapable of being responsible for their own safety on the road. A child will chase a ball into the road to retrieve it with little thought to their actions, they just want to retrieve their ball. They are simply unable to make safe judgments about pedestrian safety. While it is the responsibility of parents and caregivers to teach safe behaviours, the responsibility falls to the driver in the case of a collision with a child pedestrian. You are responsible for children on the road. Expect children to be children. Share the road and always yield to pedestrians. Remember, roads are public spaces meant to be used by everyone. Is your time really more valuable than the life of that child you may save by driving at an inappropriate speed? Does getting home a few minutes earlier compare to a lifetime of anguish you may cause and having to live with the consequence of killing a child for the rest of your life? Running late is not an excuse to possibly take a little one's life. Just imagine explaining to that child's parents, "I'm sorry, I really had to hurry and get to an appointment." As a mother, who sits outside every day with my children and watches the cars speed down Westmount Drive as a shortcut to get home, I am sickened by the danger speeders put my children and the other children on my street in on a daily basis. It is dangerous enough if you were just doing 50 km/hr, but far too many cars are travelling in excess of even that. I implore town council to lower the speed limits in residential areas. I implore all drivers to please use a little bit of common sense and protect our children as they are unable to take care of themselves. NICOLE MCKERROW RECOGNIZED FOR EXCELLENCE BY: Ontario Community Newspapers Association Canadian Community Newspapers Association Suburban Newspapers of America THE OAKVILLE BEAVER IS PROUD OFFICIAL MEDIA SPONSOR FOR: United Way of Oakville TV AUCTION SUBMITTED PHOTO TO THE RESCUE: These five ducklings managed to meet four new friends at just the right time. The ducklings had been abandoned and were being attacked by geese in north Oakville when some Good Samaritan passersby came to their rescuers.The ducklings are pictured here with their rescuers, from left, Dave Hemsley, Tori Myers, Sean Morgado and Casey Morgado. He's got 100 cans of the good stuff, but his patience is expiring henever the economy tanks, hardship thrives. Thankfully in these tough times -- when the only thing scarcer than optimism is disposable income -- there are people ready and willing to coach us on how to spend some of that cash we don't have. Personally, I thought society had reached an all-time high in inventiveness and entrepreneurial pluck when someone came up with the concept of a life coach, and then convinced Oprah to convince the world that no one should be forced to live without one. A life coach: someone who has an immeasurable, inexhaustible wealth of life knowledge they're dying to share, or someone who became a certified expert online in the time it takes to get an oil change. But forget life coaches (they're so yesterday). Hell, even forget love coaches who have sprouted up all over the dating scene. Now someone with even more inventiveness and even more entrepreneurial pluck has come up with the concept of a Shopping Coach. I know, I read about it in Doom `N Gloom weekly, er, I mean Maclean's magazine. A shopping coach: someone who, for a fee, can coach us on saving some of the money we haven't had since the economy went into W the biggest tailspin since The Great Depression. Shopping coaches. There they are, popping out of the aisles in grocery stores, lurking in the lingerie departments of clothing stores. Just waiting to save us dough, if we're willing to spend, well, dough. So, how does one become a shopAndy Juniper ping coach? I suppose, one shops. One hunts bargains, experiences the kill, then one can coach others in this art form. You want a shopping coach? Call my wife. Seriously, who in the world is better trained, has more experience, is better at shopping? No one, that's who. We once drove to Niagara-on-the-Lake to experience all that quaint community has to offer, from beautiful vistas to wine sampling, and fine dining to superb shopping. Not much for superb shopping, so I decided to forego that in favor of ducking into a local establishment for a restorative libation. Within 90 minutes I got a call from Visa reporting "suspicious activity" on our account. "That's not suspicious activity," I told the Visa rep. "That's my wife." SCIT. Shopping coach in training. One thing I've noticed in this damnable downturn is that people are flocking to those stores that shall remain nameless and sell everything under the sun in incredible bulk. Now, I don't know if this makes good fiscal sense, or any sense -- hey, maybe I need a shopping coach to guide me ­ but I do know that regardless of what mayhem may befall our economy, our household will not suffer without toilet paper, tonic water or a brand of hair conditioner everyone refuses to use for the next, well, 100 years. Now all we need to do is buy a bigger house to store all we've bought in incredible bulk. Hey, if anyone's hot for chili, I've got 100 cans of the good stuff, all with 2010 expiry dates. The economy, and all things related, is driving me crazy. Maybe my shopping coach can find me a cheap mental health coach. Andy Juniper can be visited at his Web site, www.strangledeggs.com, or contacted at ajjuniper@gmail.com.