Guest Editorial by Cherry Chee

ONTARIO, Canada – In my opinion, driving faster than the posted speed limits shouldn’t be considered an “offense” if done in safe situations. Of course, I don’t mean road-racing.

Why do people consider speeding bad, but driving slowly tolerable? Actually, most accidents are caused by careless drivers without good judgment, quick reflexes or fast responses in critical situations.

Driving under the influence isn’t what I’m debating. Nor am I discussing the people who drive too fast to show off their stupidity.

Two incidents that happened to me years ago demonstrate the dangers of lapsed concentration, as opposed to the safety of prompt reactions.

Once, as I turned right onto a main road, stopping to check on traffic, a car hit me from behind. The driver hadn’t realized that I’d stopped.

Another time, when driving home on Halloween night, I slowed to let children cross the road. Again, a driver behind failed to see what I did and bumped into my vehicle. He confessed to not anticipating my action.

Recently, I watched two cars at an intersection. I’d stopped for a red light, but two other drivers, one turning left and the other coming straight from the opposite direction, without seeing each other, slowly approached and crashed, causing rather serious damage to both vehicles.

Too often, I see a slow-moving car in front of a line of traffic. Such situations upset the drivers behind and cause them to honk and speed up to overtake. Thanks to the slow drivers, accidents happen that way.

In my 30 years of driving, I’ve gone fast, but only under safe conditions. When receiving speeding tickets, I never considered them fair. With an open road stretching straight ahead, what’s so terrible about slightly exceeding the 100-km-per-hour speed limit? That’s my constant question.

Shouldn’t police officers differentiate between fast drivers and reckless ones? Rather than placing their vehicles in discrete spots and using radar guns to do an easy job, shouldn’t they patrol the streets and roads in search of the people who cause real problems through street racing, road rage or car theft?

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