Letters, Nov. 4

Reasonable limits

Re: Trustees want say in school zone redesign (Oct. 31)

I have some ideas about school zone speed limits, and urban speed limits in general. I’m an octogenarian with a maximum points driver’s licence.

I haven’t had a speeding ticket — school zone or otherwise — for quite a while. Despite being so virtuous, and despite living right around the corner from a 30 km/h school zone, its not uncommon for me to forget to slow down when I first enter the zone. Happened twice last week. I then brake and spend what seems like an excessive amount of time squinting at the bottom left corner of my speedometer, making sure the needle doesn’t creep past the 30 mark.

I often wonder if that distraction might cause me to be more dangerous to school kids. During evenings, weekends and summer holidays, when the limit reverts to 50 km/h, I find that I naturally drive through the school zone at around 40 km/h. It’s a two-lane road with a lot of side streets and that makes me cautious without the need of a speed limit.

The article indicates that a universal residential speed limit of 30 km/h is being considered, but it’s really hard to keep your speed down that low. This makes me wonder whether a universal residential speed limit of 40 km/h, with no 30 km/h school zones, might be a more practical solution for Winnipeg. Four-lane routes through residential areas could maintain their 50 or 60 km/h limits and be posted as such. But there would be the presumption of a 40 km/h limit in the absence of signage — just like 50 km/h is now.

There will be those who will be alarmed by this suggestion. But there’s no way to know if there is justification for this reaction. Despite recently published data about traffic incidents in school zones, I have never seen any comparative data from the pre-30 km/h limit era. I suspect it doesn’t exist. We just don’t know if a 30 km/h limit reduces harm.

To those who feel a reduction in the residential speed limit will add time to their commute, I believe it would be miniscule. Most of their journey would be spent on main routes with the same speed limit as today. They’d just have to slow down a bit near their home.

Terry Dann

Winnipeg

Overtime pay unnecessary

Re: Nurses relieved as police presence at HSC adult emergency department begins (Oct. 31)

Given the frequent and disturbing safety issues at the HSC, it is helpful to read that “two Winnipeg police officers will be on each shift to have a visible presence in the adult emergency department and conduct patrols of the hospital.”

What deflated that announcement for me was that “the officers will be working on voluntary overtime” according to Winnipeg police spokesman Const. Pat Saydak.

Why are they not assigned to this role on a permanent basis instead of spending additional millions in overtime pay to have them on-site?

Surely our public funds could be better spent on making this part of their regular day, rather than doling out time-and-a-half for their first four hours and double time for everything after that.

Further, Health Minister Uzoma Asagwara told the Free Press, “It will also allow for these police officers to build really important relationships with everybody at the site.”

As a longtime community volunteer at the downtown library, I’m reminded of the role police officers on overtime seemed to take there in response to its safety concerns: sitting on chairs near the entrance, paying scant attention to either staff or patrons while they appeared to spend the day scrolling through their phones.

Most days, neither looked up as I wished them an enthusiastic “Have a great day!” every time I exited the building, although occasionally one would glance in my direction and neither ever responded.

So, based on my experience, I’m glad their presence will help HSC staff and patrons feel safer, but good luck with building those “really important relationships” while they collect overtime pay and add more hours to their pension calculations.

Rob Shaw

Winnipeg

The cynicism of anti-science views

Re: Measles-free Canada? Not any more (Editorial, Oct. 31)

The harm of decreased support for vaccination may be underestimated if we blame a motivation specific to vaccines, whether unjustified beliefs about risk or exaggerated concerns about greedy pharmaceutical companies. Misinformation and rejection of vaccines is bad, as noted in the article, but it may reflect an even more dangerous and general anti-science sentiment.

Populist and other authoritarian governments sow distrust of expert opinion and research in favour of the common sense of ordinary people. The goal is to promote a political nationalism far more extreme than pride in country, as observed in Hungary, India, the U.S., and other countries. Some in Canada adopt the same strategy for political gain, so far with less success.

Common sense will never fully explain our complex world, including human bodies. Pre-scientific cultures cannot do bypass surgery because they lack the necessary knowledge. Many did not even understand the value of hygiene to avoid disease, given misguided theories about illness and harmful practices like blood-letting. Science overcomes the limits of common sense.

An inadequate level of vaccination could be just one of many practical harms of anti-science. Greater still, however, is the risk that the curiosity-driven research required for future applications will not be done.

Let’s avoid the cynicism of anti-science, whatever its source, and instead encourage further scientific exploration that will ultimately save lives and improve quality of life, most immediately for older Canadians, but more importantly for future generations, our children and their children.

Jim Clark

Winnipeg

Time-change solution

Every spring and fall the same arguments for and against switching back and forth from standard time to daylight time and then back to standard time are repeated over and over.

I wonder if people who wish to stay on standard time all year are prepared for the sun to come up at 4 a.m. and set at 9 p.m. on the longest day of the year. Currently the sun rises at 5 a.m. and sets at 10 p.m. under daylight time.

During winter solstice the sun will not rise until about 9 a.m. and set around 530 p.m. if we stay on daylight time.

The simplest solution, as I see it, would be for people to go to bed one hour earlier for daylight time change and go to bed one hour later for the switch to standard time, as most people have a tendency to sleep roughly for the same length of time each night. Generally, people’s circadian rhythm is determined by the amount of light rather than the hands of a clock.

When people travel to different time zones, sometimes with several hours difference, they generally adapt within a day or two, so I fail to see why it is such an issue when the clocks change twice a year by one hour.

Alice French

Winnipeg

Ford’s ad misguided

Ontario Premier Doug Ford should not have run a $75-million campaign about American tariffs. He should have worked with a private group with interests in the matter to run such a campaign. I have done the “lobbying” thing in Washington. It was made very clear to me by American and Canadian officials that foreign governments are not appreciated when they try to interfere directly in the U.S. political process.

U.S. politicians accept provincial governments representing their interests directly to them in Washington, but not governments running TV ads across the across the United States. A private group running such a campaign is tolerated.

Prime Minister Mark Carney had no choice but to apologize to the U.S. president … and probably loathed having to do so.

I get the sentiment, but this is not the time for huff-and-puff tactics. If you need to show the folks back home that you have their back, figure out something else.

Andrew Dickson

Winnipeg