Is it OK to use "slowly" after "to edge"?

Question

I came across a sentence

Why does a car have to edge forward slowly when turning from a side street into a main street?

The use of slowly made me look up the definition of edge as a verb in a dictionary. It says to edge basically means to move slowly.

He clutched them to his body and began to edge slowly toward the door.

The crowd that was entrenched around the two men began to edge slowly backward to give the contenders more room to harass each other.

Again he sort of drifted into the herd, mixed with it, and began to edge slowly toward Mrs. Tompkins.

I turned to a collocation dictionary to figure out if slowly is commonly used with edge. Apparently, it is, and I don't truly understand why. Is it a tautology?

Answer 1

Even though "to edge" means to move slowly, you can use "slowly" to emphasise that movement. In this case, it helps to emphasise that additional care is to be taken when moving the car onto the road.

It is similar to saying that "the athlete ran" vs "the athlete ran quickly". It emphasises the existing verb, and lets the writer be more descriptive.