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AAA offers advice to keep motorists safe on winter roads

COLUMBUS, Ohio (February, 6 2020) Winter is the deadliest season on U.S. and local roads, according to a new analysis from the AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety. AAA recommends all drivers take extra caution and avoid all distractions when driving in winter conditions.

Rain, snow and sleet can reduce your visibility, making it difficult to safely maneuver or even bring the car to a stop if necessary, said Kellie ORiordan, traffic safety program manager for AAA Ohio Auto Club. Everyone needs to be diligent when driving in these conditions, especially if the road is wet or covered in ice or snow.

Winter Crash Data:

The AAA Foundation analyzed 2017 national and regional data for crashes occurring in adverse weather and road conditions. Researchers found:

.Nationally, nearly half a million (456,000) crashes and more than 2,000 deaths occurred during adverse weather and/or road conditions during the winter months (December, January, February). Thats 29% of all winter crashes and 25% of all winter crash deaths.

.In the Midwest, 146,000 crashes and more than 500 deaths occurred during adverse weather and/or road conditions during the winter months. Thats nearly 42% of all winter Midwest crashes and 33% of all winter Midwest crash deaths.

.Of all seasons, winter had the highest number of crashes and deaths during adverse weather and/or road conditions, both nationally and regionally.

Winter Breakdowns:

Roadside assistance calls often double, or triple, during winter weather, due to motorists spinning out on slick roads, flat tires, dead batteries and other breakdowns.Last winter AAA responded to more than 312,000 roadside assistance calls. The most common calls were for tows, batteries and tires.

Motorists can help prevent winter breakdowns with preventative vehicle maintenance, including:

.Tires: Adequate pressure and tread depth are essential for stopping and going on ice and snow, but tire pressure can drop during cold weather. Make sure tire pressure matches the sticker on the drivers side doorjamb and the tread depth is above the wear bar indicators marked on the tires.

.Battery: The average life of a battery is 3-5 years. Cold weather can drain batteries quickly, and leave drivers stranded. Have a technician inspect the battery at least twice a year.

.Replace old windshield wipers and solvent: Precipitation and salty spray from the roads often make it hard to see when driving during the winter. Solvent and good windshield wipers can greatly improve visibility.

If you break down or spin out during a winter storm, it may take longer for help to arrive. Thats why its important to be patient and pack an emergency roadside kit that includes blankets and extra clothes to stay warm, flashlights and extra batteries, an ice scraper, safety reflectors, a shovel, a first aid kit, a simple tool kit, water and non-perishable food, jumper cables and a mobile phone and charger to call for help.

Safe Winter Driving:

Motorists can also avoid spinning out on slick roads by remaining alert and driving for conditions. To stay safe on winter roads, AAA recommends motorists:

.Slow down: Always adjust your speed to account for less traction when driving on snow or ice. This often means driving below the posted speed limit.

.Accelerate and decelerate slowly: Apply the gas slowly to retain traction and avoid skids. Also remember, it takes longer to slow down on slick roads.

.Increase following distance: Allow five to six seconds of following distance between your vehicle and the one in front of you. The extra space will allow you time to stop safely.

.Never use cruise control: Using cruise control on any slippery (wet, ice, snow, sand) surface can cause your vehicle to lose control more easily.

.Dont panic: If you start to slide, hitting the brake is the worst thing to do. Instead, take your feet off the pedals and keep your eyes focused on where you want to go.

.Leave early: Expect trips to take longer in bad weather.

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Roadway Fatalities Spike During Winter Weather WKTN- A division of Home Town Media - WKTN Radio

Brain freeze, mind-numbing, deadwood, a feeling of forcibly being confined in a cold storage during a recent visit to the Kashmir Valley, journalists search for words to describe to me the experience of having been stripped of their professional identity and dignity by government diktat.

The morning of August 5, when all forms of communication were abruptly suspended in the erstwhile state of Jammu and Kashmir, remains etched in their minds. As one young journalist puts it, We were thoroughly disoriented. It struck us that we, who should have been reporting on this moment that was changing Kashmir forever, were reduced to mute spectators. The disorientation continues to this day.

Six months have passed since the dilution of Article 370 amidst occasional protests of mediapersons, but nothing has changed for them in substantive terms. The Supreme Courts verdict of January 10, which recognises that expressing ones views or conducting ones business through the internet are protected under the Constitution, and which stated that all forms of communication, subject to overriding consideration of national security, shall be normalized, has been met by a combination of doublespeak and executive sleight of hand on the part of the Modi government. On the one hand, the government claims that internet has been largely restored; on the other, you have communication minister Ravi Shankar Prasad stating in Parliament that the right to the internet is not fundamental and that the decision to stop internet services is taken by local authorities based on law and order concerns.

So resumption of the internet here boils down to providing 2G services, which one newspaper editor in the region succinctly summed up as just a piece of trash. Journalists here have innumerable complaints about having to wait forever for a page to open up. Accessible websites in the Valley now number some 300 odd whitelisted sites (according to one report, only 58 of these are functional), when the unrestricted worldwide web actually comprises over 1.5 billion sites. Certain sectors like tourism, hotels, software companies have been provided with net access, but Internet Service Providers have to ensure that they sign an official undertaking agreeing to comply with government strictures.

Also Read: Modis Thought Control Firewall in Kashmir May Be the Internets Future in India

The undertaking form apart from asking for names and contact details, clearly states that from the allowed IP, there will be no Social Networking, Proxies, VPNs and Wi-Fi; that no encrypted file containing any sort of video/photo will be uploaded; that we also have MAC binding in place to restrict internet access to registered devices through single PC; that all the USB ports will be disabled on the network. It also specifies that the undertaker will be responsible for any kind of breach and misuse of the Internet and that the company will provide complete access to all its content and infrastructure as and when required by security agencies.

So wide-ranging are these clauses that no journalist or media organisation can sign such a document without seriously compromising the fundamentals of journalism.

The Dear Leader Shows the Way for Us All. Artist: Pariplab Chakrabarty

The media facilitation centre

To understand the chilling effect of the current media lockdown, one only has to visit the modest room that goes by the nomenclature of Government Media Facilitation Centre, near the Polo Grounds in Srinagar. One journalist to whom I spoke, even as he worked on his phone, puts it like this, Earlier, there was censorship, but it was largely self-censorship. After August 5, you have open, in-your-face surveillance. He adds, You can imagine what journalists are going through the wait, the desperation to file a report on a computer that is available to you only for a brief span of time, the sure knowledge that your identity and the material you are researching or reporting would be under the scanner, and that if you put out any material the state considers seditious, you could land up in prison.

As an office bearer of the Kashmir Press Club comments, Kashmir is hungry for information. It has some 150 Urdu, English and Kashmiri publications of which there are at least are 20 robust newspapers. We understand the government doesnt want the press, but the extent to which it would go to thwart journalists was a discovery.

There has been a slight respite since the days immediately following the dilution, when the media centre operated in a hotel room equipped with four computers for Srinagars 300 plus journalists. Today, with this new facility, there are more computers, but uncertainty still reigns because, at any point, the Internet can go on the blink. Then there is pressure from others who have queued up for their chance.

For many, the worst aspect of the present system is the servility it entails. The words of a journalist at the media centre are rife with bitterness, What we are facing is a system of apartheid against journalists, they have framed us as potential terrorists. The media centre is a double-edged sword. It is like an undeclared sub-jail. While the government claims that it is expediting journalism, the general public here believes that the government is actually locking us up in a room and telling us what to write. Where is our credibility? It is so humiliating to be dependent on this facility. It makes us dislike a profession that we were once so passionate about.

Despite all the challenges, violence and chaos over the years J&K, with its high literacy levels, always had a vibrant media scene, with news flowing in from distant corners of the erstwhile state. Today that legacy is on the verge of being destroyed. Reports abound of stringers now forced to do manual labour to keep their families going. Since there is no connectivity to speak of in rural areas, anyone filing a story from, say, Kupwara, would have to embark a three-hour journey to Srinagar, and then wait at the media centre for a slot.

Women journalists, many of them with extremely promising careers, are a disconsolate group. They point out how the general sense of repression and fear all around has stymied their work. Reveals one young woman, Srinagar is generally a safe city and in the earlier days, we would return home after dark without our relatives getting too worried. Now I am constantly being told to return home before sunset but news doesnt stop with the setting sun.

A male colleague adds, Travelling anywhere, even for men, is a problem. You dont feel safe. With the aggressive troop deployment and innumerable checkpoints, you never know when you will be picked up, so one prefers not to travel. Normally, one would go in the morning for a special assignment and return late at night. Now we just dont have the same liberty.

Anuradha Bhasin, executive editor of Kashmir Times, who courageously challenged the communication blockade and media gag in the Supreme Court last August, is disappointed with the outcome of her petition. The judgment will not have much of an impact on the status of the media here. There are aspects of the verdict which are good, but it did not usher in any real change. For me what was particularly distressing was that it did not treat the media separately. The court refused to acknowledge the chilling effect of the communication lockdown on the journalist and journalism as a whole, she observes.

Also Read: Why the SC Judgment on Kashmir Internet Shutdown Falls Short of Expectations

So what are the costs of this extraordinary exercise in ring-fencing the media in the name of law and order in the region? When issues of great concern to the local people now come under a blanket of state-directed control and misinformation, what are the consequences for a society? Rumours abound and fake news proliferates, even as editorials in local newspapers focus on subjects like wetland conservation and the effects of Parkinsons disease. At the press club in Srinagar, army personnel escort local notables and aspiring politicians who go on to praise Prime Minister Narendra Modi fulsomely, even as ministers in Delhi as if on cue write newspaper articles claiming that there is a yearning for change among the people of J&K.

We need to look carefully at the Kashmir model of media control. It could, before long, become the model for controlling the Indian media.

The regular column will return next week. Write to publiceditor@thewire.in

Read this article:
Backstory: The Kashmir Model of Humiliating Journalists for Media Control - The Wire

February 7, 2020 7:50 AM

Posted: February 7, 2020 7:50 AM

Doctor Li Wenliang sounded one of the first warnings on the Wuhan coronavirus, and was silenced by Chinese authorities. CNNs David Culver reports.

Speaking to state media in late December, one of Chinas top medical officials hailed eight residents of Wuhan who had attempted to blow the whistle on the coronavirus outbreak now devastating the country.

In retrospect, we should highly praise them, said Zeng Guang, chief epidemiologist at the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CCDC). They were wise before the outbreak.

One of those whistleblowers, detained for spreading rumors as the citys government continued to downplay the dangers of the virus, was Li Wenliang. A young doctor in one of Wuhans main hospitals, Li posted in a private group chat about the spread of a SARS-like virus.

I only wanted to remind my university classmates to be careful, he told CNN this week.

Li was speaking from his hospital bed, having succumbed to the virus himself. In the early hours of Friday morning, his condition worsened, and the 34-year-old died, becoming one of hundreds of fatalities from an outbreak that has spread well beyond Wuhan, affecting all of China and dozens of countries around the world.

If Lis initial arrest was an embarrassment for the authorities, his death is a disaster.

The reaction on the Chinese internet as news of Lis death spread was immediate and almost unprecedented.

Countless young people will mature overnight after today: the world is not as beautiful as we imagined, one commenter wrote. Are you angry? If any of us here is fortunate enough to speak up for the public in the future, please make sure you remember tonights anger.

As the grief and rage poured out, those in charge of Chinas vast censorship apparatus, the Great Firewall, seemed at a loss over what to do. Topics relating to censorship itself, usually absolutely verboten, trended for several hours before being deleted, rare evidence of indecision and confusion.

On Weibo, a Twitter-like platform, two hashtags The Wuhan government owes Dr. Li Wenliang an apology and We want freedom of speech attracted tens of thousands of views, before being deleted. Another hashtag, I want freedom of speech, drew more than 1.8 million views in the early hours of Friday morning, before it too was censored.

The anger over Lis death was made worse by an apparent clumsy attempt to control the narrative, one that was highly reminiscent of the overreaction that led to his initial arrest.

Multiple state media outlets reported Lis death late Thursday night, citing friends and doctors at Wuhan Central Hospital, only to subsequently delete them without explanation. The hospital claimed efforts to resuscitate Li were underway, but later issued a statement that he had died.

While it is possible that this was a mistake and Chinese media wouldnt be the first to misreport someones death the suggestion that the censors hands were involved was enough to spark fury online.

A doctor had to die twice, wrote one user on the popular social media app WeChat. That is national humiliation.

Others pointed to the timing of the eventual confirmation, suggesting the authorities had tried to push the announcement until most people would be in bed so they could better control the reaction.

I knew you would post this in the middle of the night, wrote one user. You think weve all gone to sleep? No. We havent.

The fury and the pushback against the censorship apparatus itself has not been seen to this extent since the Wenzhou train crash in 2011, when authorities rushed to cover up the causes of a high-speed rail collision, even abandoning the search for survivors while many were still alive.

That incident became a lightning rod for frustrations about poor safety standards in China and the uncaring attitudes of the authorities, just as it appears Lis death will be a conduit for anger over a host of issues beyond the virus.

Lis death and the authorities clumsy handling of it has exacerbated a crisis that is already shaking the very foundations of the Chinese state.

Since the transition from socialism to state capitalism and the brutal suppression of the 1989 Tiananmen Movement, Chinas government has based its legitimacy on its ability to grow the economy, keeping its people safe and successful.

The Wuhan conronavirus threatens this social contract in two ways. The utter failure to contain the outbreak has put hundreds of millions at risk of a potentially deadly virus; while at the same time, the outbreak and efforts to tackle it have delivered yet another hit to an economy already struggling with structural issues and the US-China trade war.

Making matters worse is the evidence that it was the Communist Party system itself, which does not reward speaking out or risk taking, that likely led Wuhan city officials to initially downplay the virus and attempt to control the narrative.

Revelations about how Wuhan government functionaries handled the early weeks of the outbreak especially the news that Li and other whistleblowers had been detained led to considerable anger, but the central authorities were largely able to keep this focused on local officials by allowing a rare amount of transparency and giving Chinese media a relatively free hand in covering the outbreak.

In the past week or so, however, the central authorities have tightened their grip on the flow of information, as increasingly draconian methods of control are put in place nationwide to stop the virus spread. Most of the country is on voluntary or mandatory quarantine, and the economic toll of such measures is starting to bite.

In response, state media has been emphasizing positive stories of resilience and heroism, and it seemed like Li might have fit into this new narrative, fulfilling a role similar to that of Jiang Yanyong, a retired military doctor and whistleblower during the 2003 SARS pandemic. Perhaps Li could have been reframed as someone fighting the pointless formalities and bureaucratism that state media has been inveighing against all week.

Lis death has thrown this out of the window, and in doing so has exposed the cold reality at the heart of the Chinese social contract: when it comes down to it, individuals are absolutely expendable if the stability of the Party is at stake. Chinese authorities make a big point out of the country being a collective that pulls together in a crisis, unlike the individual-focused societies of the West, but ultimately people know that it is the Party, not the country, that comes first.

Chinas censorship apparatus is built on this principle. Anything that threatens the Party, from open dissent to simply organizing outside of official structures no matter how innocuous the topic is not tolerated and must be erased.

The need to maintain stability is what will dominate the response to Lis death. An outpouring of grief is fine, even some anger is acceptable, provided it can be focused on individuals and not the system at large, and some scalps may be offered to help this along. What the authorities cannot allow is for the Party or the central government to become a target, even when the Wuhan crisis and Lis death have exposed their many shortcomings.

Whether they will be successful in doing so remains to be seen. Lis sheer normality makes his death resonate all the more with the public. He was not some Party cadre or police officer of the type lauded in state media, noble and personality free, but a relatable and ordinary person, who posted on social media about loving fried chicken and ice cream, complained about work, and commented on pop culture.

He is every person whos felt unloved by the Chinese bureaucracy, and hes infinitely more sympathetic than the steely-eyed men and women trying to control the narrative around his death.

cnn

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China's censors tried to control the narrative on a hero doctor's death. It backfired terribly - YakTriNews KAPP-KVEW

Just what is it about potential pandemics that scare us so? While the odds of dying from a car accident or heart disease are greater -- at least in the United States -- rare infectious diseases still loom larger in our collective nightmares.

The truth is, the odds don't factor into what frightens us. Our rational minds aren't calling the shots here -- our irrational fears are. There is something supremely unsettling about the invisibility of germs and viruses and the way they spread that invokes our deepest, most primal survival instincts.

But here is a quick reality check: While the Wuhan coronavirus (2019-nCoV) has produced a dozen confirmed cases in the US (mostly involving people who recently traveled to Wuhan, China, where the virus originated), the common flu has affected approximately 19 million Americans and killed about 10,000 people so far this season.

Anxiety can sometimes be a constructive response, as it inspires caution and careful analysis of a situation before jumping in. But as anyone who has experienced overwhelming anxiety can attest, it is not likely a response based on logic, facts and figures, or realistic threat levels.

The public may respond with panic, fear and suspicion-- and sometimes even outright superstition, paranoia or moral judgement when it comes to unfamiliar illnesses. The victims, even after recovery, may be shunned and discriminated against. Communities, even families, can be torn apart.

People who are fearful may follow not only the guidelines recommended by health experts, but go far beyond them: My children can't be in a classroom with your children, we don't want a clinic in our village, you aren't allowed entry back into the country under any circumstances.

When the 1918 influenza killed 759 people in Philadelphia in one day alone, John Barry, who chronicled the pandemic in his 2004 book The Great Influenza, wrote, 'Fear began to break down the community of the city. Trust broke down. Signs began to surface of not just edginess but anger, not just finger-pointing or protecting one's own interests but active selfishness in the face of general calamity.'

Dangerous misconceptions can emerge out of this pervasive fear, anxiety and ignorance -- the less people know, the more they might panic. The results can be deadly. We saw this around victims of AIDS, SARS, and Ebola. Indeed, health workers and responders battling the latest Ebola outbreak suffered more than 300 attacks in 2019 by armed groups in the Democratic Republic of Congo, leaving at least six dead and 70 wounded.

Outbreaks can, indeed, be terrifying, and often involve mass casualties. And there's no denying that some diseases have the potential to kill in horrific ways. In their relentless march from host to host, infectious diseases seem to underscore what we know, but -- whistling past the graveyard -- try to ignore. We are vulnerable, we are mortal, we will all die.

But when our emotions and fears take over, we have difficulty making rational decisions. We become anxious or angry and unable to process information. Experts might be trying to get out the facts in a clear and concise manner, but if you're already in an emotionally vulnerable place, you might not be hearing them. Public health professionals have long recognized the importance of acknowledging people's feelings and reassuring them with facts.

One helpful resource is the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which presents the latest confirmed statistics and gives scientifically valid advice on preventing the spread of respiratory diseases like coronaviruses, including: washing your hands often with soap and water for at least 20 seconds or with alcohol-based hand sanitizer; avoiding touching your eyes, nose and mouth with unwashed hands; and staying home when you are sick.

Facts do win out in the end, although this may take years. When was the last time anyone except for the most alarmist among us worried that the person sitting next to us on the subway or serving our salad had HIV/AIDS? And yet, there was a time when 'AIDS hysteria' was commonplace, and a Florida family, whose three young sons were infected with AIDS, were subjected to bomb and death threats and a school boycott before their house burned down in a suspicious fire.

We all live in a world with random, indiscriminate threats: terrorist attacks, plane crashes, unexpected losses and unexplained illnesses.

In the face of a perceived threat, try to listen calmly -- with an open mind and an open heart -- to the facts. And rather than run from your fears or get stuck in them, try to be present with your anxieties and transform your fears. Use them to make yourself more cognizant of your surroundings and to do what is appropriate to take care of yourself and those around you.

I assure you, misguided decisions based on fear can be just as dangerous as the original threat itself.

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Excessive fear of the Wuhan coronavirus can be dangerous - KEZI TV

And social media has been more than a vehicle for information: It has also spawned more journalism and a greater variety of voices in recent years. Some of the deeper coverage of the coronavirus crisis has come from nontraditional, online-only news sites, like Tengxun and Sohu, which officially arent allowed to carry out independent reporting, and so-called self-media (zi meiti in Chinese), self-operated social-media accounts that produce anything from entertainment to political commentary. Some of these platforms are now profitable, run by former journalists, and feature citizen journalism.

But the window for critical reporting in times of crises tends to be quite narrow, and it opens and shuts rather unpredictably. This is partly because officials practice what I have described elsewhere as guarded improvisation: With social stability as their ultimate aim, the authorities try to strike a fragile balance between political control and curated transparency, alternating between censorship or propaganda and allowing the media, or its surrogates, to press for accountability.

I found, for example, that news investigations into the earthquake in Wenchuan, Sichuan Province, in 2008 more than 69,000 dead were allowed only for a few weeks. After accounts revealed that poorly built schools had contributed to the death toll, the government blocked independent inquiries into the disaster.

Once a crisis seems like it could cause social instability especially when public blame appears to shift from the local to the central authorities the government starts reining in the media and tries to co-opt it into delivering a unified, official message. Even Hu Xijin, the editor of the nationalistic Global Times, has called out the Wuhan government for silencing whistle-blowers in the early days of the coronavirus outbreak. On the other hand, some critical articles about the epidemic though not necessarily the hardest-hitting ones have already vanished from the internet.

There is no telling how much longer Chinese journalists and concerned citizens will be able to report on and raise hard questions about the crisis. But its worth remembering that authoritarianism also is the mother of creativity. Chinas efforts to steer, muffle or control the media have produced alternative news sources that subtly, indirectly skirt restrictions. And this, the authorities tolerate, to a point. Even under President Xi Jinping, the government is sensitive and somewhat responsive to bottom-up pressure from the people their need to know, their calls for accountability. In China, too, as the coronavirus epidemic reveals, there is a social contract between the public and the party-state.

Maria Repnikova (@MariaRepnikova) is an assistant professor of Global Communication at Georgia State University and the author of Media Politics in China: Improvising Power Under Authoritarianism.

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The Subtle Muckrakers of the Coronavirus Epidemic - The New York Times