The Oakville Beaver, W e d n e sd a y June 4, 2003 - A 3 Bad driving habits abound (Continued from page A1) truly awful driving. "1 wanted to show a reporter how pro lific the problem is." said Staff. Sgt. Perkins. Equally predictable is the daily pattern of bad driving behaviour, with speeding and disobeying stop signs peaking during the morning rush, lunch and the evening dash home. Perhaps the most blatant illus tration of how some motorists feel the rules of the road apply to everyone but them occurs daily at Wilson and John Streets near Downtown Oakville. It's there that the Town has restricted access to Wilson to northbound from Lakeshore only, blocking the southbound lane with a wide curb and clearly marking the site with red Do Not Enter signs. The idea is to placate area residents by divert ing drivers heading for Tim Hortons around their neighbourhood. Within minutes of Staff Sgt. Perkins establishing his position, a large white pickup truck careened south the wrong way through the intersection, forcing a nothbound driver to slam on their brakes. On his wayback north, coffee in hand, the pickup driver wisn't wearing his seatbelt. A moment later a second driver did the same thing. "These are peope who don't think the rules apply to them." said Staff Sgt. Perkins. "A ticket is the only way to make them obey." The posted limit road outside Holy Family School on Grosvenor Street is 40 kmh, but you wouldn't know it while watching the vehicles - notably minivans with child seats driven by mothers - race by. Armed with his L1DAR (Light Detection and Ranging) unit Staff Sgt. Perkins clocked vehicles traveling as fast as 72 kms/hr and even a child daycare van doing 53. He explained that the area had been a worse speedway until a stepped-up police presence helped curtail the freefor-all. ``Aggressive enforcement helps since it's usually the same people using the route," said Staff Sgt. Perkins. "It puts the fear into them." On Old Abbey Lane near Abbey Lane School, where the posted maximum is also 40. the closest anyone came to the limit was 41 while others felt free to cruise by at nearly 60. True, says Staff Sgt. Perkins, drivers do tend to slow down in school zones, but they still have a long way to go to actually comply w ith the /aw. "Double your speed, quadruple your stopping distance." he said. "So for every kilometer over the limit, it takes you much longer to stop." On Eighth Line between Upper Middle Road and Falgarwood Drive the average speed clocked in the 50 zone was 66 kmh with some drivers pushing 70. On Pilgrim's Way at Windrush. where the limit is 50. Staff Sgt. Perkins says drivers regularly abuse the limit in the 80 to 90-kms/hr range - especially during lunchtime. One interesting bad driving trait point ed out by Staff Sgt. Perkins is the way compliance for three-way stop sign inter sections is far worse than that at four-way stops. This, he said, is because drivers feel falsely more secure having to check only two points of oncoming traffic instead of three. At the three-way stop at Falgarwood Drive and Grosvenor. a mother in a van with her child barely slowed down as did the driver of a Town of Oakville mainte nance truck. "No one is immune," said Staff Sgt. Perkins. "It goes to show that no one is perfect. We put on auto-pilot and forget we're driving a weapon." At the three-way stop at Heritage Way and King's College Drive the overwhelm ing offenders were moms dropping their children off at school. Another huge problem involves right turns on red lights w ithout stopping fully, like the three-way intersection at Iroquois Shore Road where drivers routinely ignored the signage and took off south to the North Service Road with barely a hint of brake lights. "Sometimes it's barely a yield," said Staff Sgt. Perkins. Compliance at four-way stops can also be atrocious, however. At Glenashton Drive and Grenville Drive, a big problem was right turns where drivers rarely came to a complete stop before proceeding. In fact, of the 60 cars seen there during the ridealong. 15 vehicles blew right through with only a cursory attempt at stopping and only two came to a complete stop. Many slowed to a roll but didn't bother to look in every direction for oncoming cars. "You need to come to a complete stop to give your brain lime to react," said Staff Sgt. Perkins. Dog gone it R e la y w i ll o b e y b a n o f d o g s a t R e l a y f o r L ife By Wilma Blokhuis O.XKVILLK BEAVER STAFF Relay is a very sad Golden Retriever. His masters. Glen and Ann Herring are giving him extra attention in a valiant effort to pacify the almost fully-grown year-old purebred. The very loveable dog keeps coming back to them for extra pats and more treats. So why is Relay so unhappy? H e's been told he can't come to this week end's Relay for Life at Appleby College. The event, a fundrais er for the Canadian Cancer Society, has adopted a no dogs allowed policy and the Herrings c a n 't even sneak Relay into the event as a canine celebri ty. since they were instrumental in banning dogs from the event. "It would be nice to have dogs, but with 2.500 to 3.(KK) people on site, it would be too Harrison Smith · Special to the Oakville Beaver Glen and A nn H erring will attend this y e a r's Relay for Life at Appleby College this weekend, but they will leave th eir Golden R etriever Relay at home and obey the event's ban on dogs. His ow ners nam ed Relay after the fundraising event the O akville Unit o f the C anadian C ancer Society because he was born during last y e a r's Relay for Life. much." said Glen, co chair of the second annu al Relay for Life event. "Not everybody is comfortable with dogs, and nobody likes to step in messes in the grass. There will be people run ning and other activi ties," he said. "It simply w on't be safe for dogs. "Our decision to not have dogs at the Relay for Life was made last year. Plus, it's Appleby policy. We really feel dogs and people don't mix with that volume, and it's not nice to tell people to take their dog home once they arrive. "Last year we turned away people with dogs." Relay will instead spend the night - the Relay for Life is a 12hour overnight event starting Friday at 7 p.m. - with his friend, a Siberian Husky named Akira, owned by Alice Lee. the entertainm ent coordinator for this weekend's event. "We met through our dogs, and we dog sit for each other," said Herring. "A mutual friend o f ours will stay with our two dogs.' As for Relay's celebrity status, he was bom during last year's first annual Relay for Life. The Herrings named his Relay for that reason. He replaces Maggie, who died in August 2001 while on a walk. "Ann was walking Maggie along the trails in Glen Abbey, and she just lay down on the trail and died.' She was seven years old. "The first puppy from a litter of 10 was bom at 20 minutes to 7 p.m., just as last year's relay was starting.' said Herring, noting Relay has nine siblings and comes from a small family-run ken nel in Cayuga. He will be a year old on Saturday. "We board Relay at the kennel when we go to Florida in the winter." Herring said. "Both his mother and father, and a grandmother, live at the kennel." C o m p la c e n c y le a d s t o m a n y d r iv in g e r r o r s (Continued from page A1) obligations to lack of personal respon sibility and. of course, the increasing volume of vehicles at a time when police resources are stretched to the limit. For Staff Sgt. Perkins, however, the onus is on every motorist to con form to the rules of the road. "We have an obligation to comply with the law," he said, adding that men and women are statistically equal in their penchant for traffic offenses. Driving safely is complicated enough as it is. Staff Sgt. Perkins con tinued, but cell phone usage, applying makeup, loud music and even reading newspapers virtually ensures accidents will happen. "Driving becomes so routine that we become complacent and almost like automatons. We could drive the routes blindfolded and know every pothole." said Staff Sgt. Perkins. "This is how we fall into the trap of regularly commit ting quite serious - and dangerous offenses and perhaps not even realize it." In an ironic twist, the overwhelming majority of offenders on residential streets are the local residents them selves. he added. One time, after offi cers responded to complaints and step ping up enforcement in a school zone, the very first person stopped was a teacher doing 62 in the 40 zone. Lots o f residents - w ho think their street is the worst in Oakville and should therefore be on top o f the police's enforcement list - often give posal, namely discretion. A driver can officers flak for monitoring non-resi- talk themselves into or out of a ticket dential streets like Burloak Drive and depending on the circumstances and Upper Middle Road. excuses but often a warning is all that's "Many people feel issued if the infraction is their street should be the minimal. major concern o f the "We have an "Enforcement is not Town." said Staff Sgt. the be-all and end-all." obligation to comply Perkins, who counters by said Staff Sgt. Perkins, with the law." saying that, given fatal who dismisses police, Halton Regional Police ticket "quotas" as an collisions on both abovementioned roads, he Staff Sgt. Chris Perkins urban myth in Halton. stands by their policy. Some residents who While he knows fullwant "zero tolerance" well speeding is a very real problem enforcem ent, however, sometimes and is not trying to duck the issue. Staff demand that police write tickets for Sgt. Perkins explained that velocity is even one kilometer over the limit. Sure, also a matter of perception that does not said Staff Sgt. Perkins, the law provides always match w'ith what homeowners for a $7.50 fine for that negligible think they see. offense but officers w on't be handing After responding to a complaint, an them out any time soon. Fear of clog officer will often be stationed on a ging the courts and the calibration errors street only to find that the speeding o f most speedometers rule that out. does not nearly approach the epidemic Another simple reason for police residents swear runs rampant through being unable to pursue enforcement on their neighbourhood. everyone's street is simply the Police The reasons for this are manifold C hief's delicate balancing act of allo and can include such seemingly incon gruous factors as the colour and size of a vehicle, the width and curve of the road, engine noise and more. The loca tion of the observer is probably the biggest factor, said Staff Sgt. Perkins, as is whether they're mobile or station ary. If someone is caught speeding, says Staff Sgt. Perkins, an officer possesses an important subjective tool at their discating precious resources where he feels they're needed most - especially in response to emergencies. (Oakville officers handled more than 33.000 calls for service last year.) Yet even when faced with this fact, some homeowners remain adamant their street should be on top of the Chief's to-do list. In short, says Staff Sgt. Perkins, if police do nothing they're criticized just as they are if perceived to be heavyhanded with enforcement. "There are many other policing issues these people are not aware of." he said. Seatbelts are another problem, says Staff Sgt. Perkins, who underscored the seriousness of non-compliance with this sobering thought: in a front impact at roughly 50 kms/hr. a 160-pound per son will hit the windshield with a force o f three tons. 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