Dear editor:

Seriously?

Some drivers find the speed camera in Virgil inconvenient? (“Traffic camera beside Crossroads school vandalized,” May 29). Or, they deem it to be a cash-grab? But they were “only” doing 52- 53 kilometres an hour in a 40 zone?

I seriously do not get the mentality. Countless research has shown that when a vehicle hits a pedestrian at a slower speed, less harm is inflicted. Countless research has shown that drivers cannot make correct decisions on the road every single day.

Look at Four Mile Creek recently as a case in point — an average of a collision a week, in dry broad daylight, sometimes involving an air ambulance.

This is an extra-wide straight road with an 80km/hr speed limit and yet people routinely do 100+ there.

There is no measurable disadvantage to a driver getting to their destination any slower as a result of them being “delayed” for a 500-metre section of road, by driving at 40 instead of 50.

As for a cash-grab by local government, give your heads a wobble. Nothing would please everyone more than to see zero revenue from the cameras, because it means that no one is speeding.

But yet, everyone thinks they are a “very good driver.” Clearly they are not.

The laws are created due to car collisions, they are not accidents, they are usually a direct result of driver error and/or law-breaking. Speeding, distracted driving, following too closely, impaired driving, etc. But yet we all think, “No way, not me.”

Every day I drive on Four Mile Creek, I can see two out of three drivers with their heads down on their phones as they go by in the opposite direction.

I can only imagine that this is one of the primary causes of collisions; it only takes a second or two before they wander into the opposite side of the road.

Don’t look to the police to help with any of this. They are part of the cleanup crew, to write up reports for insurance, to lay charges if appropriate, to take witness statements, to manage traffic at a collision scene, and in the worst scenarios, to go to someone’s home, to tell a family that their loved one has died in a vehicle collision and they will not be sitting at their dinner table that evening … or ever again. Lives changed, forever ruined.

Wake up, everyone, please. Life is short and precious: Let’s not accelerate our demise.

We are all supposedly adults, it was all a part of getting a driver’s licence in the first place. To indicate that we are supposedly mature enough to handle 4,000 to 5,000 lbs of rolling metal, glass and rubber.

Please, let’s behave as adults.

Frank Hayes
St. Davids