The drift velocity isn't important. The velocity under an EMF (aka, a signal) is much closer to the speed of light. An individual electron doesn't move far, the first will displace another, so on to the other end of the conductor, but the electrons are moving very fast when a signal is imposed.
ADDED: It occurred to me that I better point out that "drift velocity" is the normal movement of electrons in a conductor without an imposed voltage, that is when the wire is just sitting there.
That is not true. The drift velocity is the average velocity of the electrons due to the electric field. If there is no electric field, the drift velocity is zero. The term you're looking for is the Fermi velocity.
If you really want to be physically correct we'd have to admit that it doesn't really make sense to talk about the velocity of a single electron, since you cannot really follow a single electron. But by analogy to a water hose, it is sensible to define the velocity as the average velocity of water particles, instead of looking at a particular particle which is also moving randomly due to heat. This is the drift velocity. An alternative is to look at the average speed (the length of the velocity vector). Then we'd be talking about the Fermi velocity (which isn't the speed of light either BTW), but from the quote in the article it's clear that this is not what they mean, because they are talking about the velocity at which electrons move through a cable as a signal, not the velocity at which one electron moves randomly due to quantum mechanical effects.
If you don't agree with these definitions of drift and Fermi velocity, check their respective wikipedia pages.
ADDED: It occurred to me that I better point out that "drift velocity" is the normal movement of electrons in a conductor without an imposed voltage, that is when the wire is just sitting there.