Crash Lane News

A Traveler Should Know Who Controls the News

2015 Property of CrashLaneNews.com

Chapter 1
Pages 1-6

A Traveler Should Know Who Controls the News

A traveler should know the government of the country he or she is traveling
in and how the companies that lobbied that government into office want it
to function. The government will try to protect its supporters and lobbyists.
This can include passing laws that will protect those supporters while
amending laws that might threaten them. The news releases from the
public relations office in the government may offer a limited version of
what occurred to protect the government and its friends.
There is an entire public relations operation controlling the amount of
news being released by each company and government. Most government
news releases do not focus on the bad but on new programs and technologies
that promise improvements. It is the private news industry that has the
ability to sometimes build a story when the government fails to release
information. This can lead to investigations of an incident by an oversight
committee or other kind of inspection through the inspector general.
The president of the United States and the U.S. Congress control
the news significantly when it comes to foreign policy issues and issues
surrounding everyday life in America. Large corporations that lobby
the government will also convey information in a news release, which
influences the news even more than the government. Companies can alter
the truth of safety news that goes out to the public.

This is where Crash Lane News comes in. It is an alternative source of
accident news. If you are driving and realize your lane on the interstate or street is stopped, you can wait it out or try to get out while you can. Many drivers do not want to wait for someone else’s accident to get investigated and cleaned up, and so they change out of the crash lane. Crash Lane News covers issues the regular media swerve around as they make no effort to discover the real story.

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There is a level of false reporting that exists due to the major news
media controlling what is reported. False reporting protects the existing
government from becoming irrelevant. False reporting protects businesses
from becoming safety and security violators. As false reporting controls
the news media, false reporting controls the world.
A traveler should know that news releases can sometimes mislead the
public into thinking things are getting safer. In the category of “color of
law” violations, this could represent a “failure to keep from harm” violation
on the part of the government if a report ends up causing injury and death
because the public believed something to be safe. Another issue is the fact
that manipulation of safety data released by governments and companies
may cover up the reality of dangers.

One example is the traffic violations and accidents caused by
commercial truck drivers. Many members of the public have fears regarding
the safety of trucks on the highway. The Federal Motor Carriers Security
Administration (FMCSA) is a Department of Transportation program. The
FMCSA is designed to control and release safety data to the public, hoping
to increase awareness of unsafe driving issues related to commercial motor
vehicles. Trucking companies have had their safety information posted
online on the FMCSA website for a few years, and the data are presented
as showing a reduction in accidents and fatalities.

With all the good the government and large companies appear to
be doing with the FMCSA, there is an issue of why things get reported
and released to the public the way they do. Unfortunately, the strategy of
focusing on the trucking side means that safety at the warehouse and the
responsibility shipping and receiving companies bear in the violations and
accidents are not mentioned by the FMCSA. There are other causes to the
accidents and violations than what is mentioned by the FMCSA. Currently,
the commercial trucking industry is broken down by the FMCSA with a
focus on the physical act of trucking not being safe, forgetting to mention
the problems of management. The company rating is as close as the
FMCSA gets to the trucking companies’ involvement, but it does not
mention management to be the cause of the poor ratings. The data the
FMCSA presents are on a violation’s citation. They leave out the example
of an accident being caused by the weather or management. Even though

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there is this company rating, the FMCSA shows the accident to have only
been caused by the driver, being that they do not rate the dispatchers and
the trucking companies’ supervisors.

The death rate is also something the regular news does not really
focus on. The number of trucking issues is also relatively small compared
to the death rate from health problems, violent crime, property crime,
and disasters. Yet this FMCSA website goes into detail on accidents and
violations. It can cause confusion as to what is most important. With the
example of the FMCSA, the government seems to be suggesting that traffic
violations and accidents are more important and more in need of detailed
examination than healthcare, violent crime, property crime, and disasters.
Most of the public would appreciate a government website that rates
healthcare with a focus on increasing the quality and length of life. Most of the public would also like to know the details of violent crime and property crime areas and other circumstances. The public would like to know where the color of-law-violating law enforcement officers are so they can avoid becoming a victim of misconduct. Most of the public would like to know more about how to prevent damage from a disaster and ways to avoid a disaster. Most of the public does not get this information through the news media in any simple form.

News about the government is spread out and very limited at times.
Some of the government agencies that provide information to the public
include the Department of Health, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA),
the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), the Department of Justice,
the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), and the Department of Defense.
This book contains some lessons learned from traveling in the weather
as well, including interviews with personnel from the National Oceanic
Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), also known as the National Weather
Service. NOAA is a part of the Department of Commerce, which also has
some information available to the public online. Note that one of the issues
presented about FMCSA is that some of the causes of accidents are never
made public. There are many violations publicized in which the driver did
something wrong, but when you take a step back, there may be other issues on
the management end of a driver’s company that resulted in accidents. Other
accidents may result from the absence of an updated law enforcement system.
Most law enforcement agencies work with weather information, and

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are the first eyewitnesses as to what kind of accidents occur as a result
of the weather. Unfortunately, it is also a challenge for law enforcement
to keep the public safe by not being everywhere in a storm system.
Another continuing problem is law enforcement and the Department of
Transportation’s lack of road closures during severe weather. The solution
is that the public needs the government to be available at the right time,
helping to prevent accidents. Many times, this issue does not come back as
a failure of law enforcement to keep a traveler from a harmful situation, so
the strategy to make the needed changes does not get funded or become an
updated part of how things are done. For the most part, the public is more
informed than ever by law enforcement and NOAA, but questions remain.
The graphic of the blooming into disaster meter on the front cover is a
good example of some of the issues that affect travelers that may go unnoticed by the news agencies because of the political issues or the ability of a challenged investigative reporter. The managers of news agencies sometimes

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make decisions to limit reporting that would tarnish local area businesses and provoke lawsuits. Some things that affect everyone do go unreported—for
example, issues with healthcare. Large industries can sometimes limit and
silence a news story, which is another important thing to be aware of.
According to the FMCSA, most accidents are caused by unsafe driving.
But when the same logic is applied to other vehicles and types of travel,
the reality of how the weather is a danger sometimes is forgotten. The
interviews and the discussions with NOAA summarize some suggestions
for travelers that may add to their knowledge of how to be safe.
The attempt to make a news report based on the weather information
available through NOAA is a continuing theme in this book. The information
about the weather and how to learn more about it is one of the more important
areas of focus. Travelers should know that news agencies are going to have
a weather reporter as well as a weather page that can help them know about
hazardous conditions when traveling. Also note that there is a great deal of
information on government websites that is worth searching out. Ways to
find that information and learn from it are included in this book.
Unfortunately, there are some things that are not as transparent and not
available on the Internet and to the public as a result of a lack of government accountability and oversight. Some of those are issues for an inspector general to deal with; in other cases, the authorities employ a strategy of learning what hazards exist for a location in order to keep them from becoming an issue.

It’s worth remembering that often what is available to the public is what has
been reported in the news media. A traveler should watch the news, because it
offers a point of view on which issues the news agency has chosen to focus on. Some of the information made public by the government regarding
travel may not include the entire story. Many in the United States feel as
though their freedom to travel has become restricted as a result of violations to their constitutional rights. One example is that there are many safety violations that can be handed down by law enforcement. The public did not vote directly on these laws, but their representatives did, which is the basis for an interesting discussion of how freedom and democracy can be defined. It is not the intention of this book to badmouth the government that is in place now or in the future, just to make clear that there are many opinions about traveling and the issues of why things are the way they are. Another

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example is how some of the larger and better-financed groups can end up
working with the government in a way that benefits them more. This is also
something to be aware of, because it can affect which news is reported.
The reason behind a particular news story is not always obvious.
Some decisions are made behind the scenes that determine how the public
receives the news. Politics is sometimes a motivation for a story about an
issue, and a news agency will not always reveal what political concerns are
a factor in the way a news report is created and planned. There is a complex
maze of available information that can help a traveler learn about an area,
but remember, the level of transparency can vary.

Crash Lane News shares information about some areas through realworld
experience and professional discussions of security and safety. The
topics of organizational security and management focus on ways to manage
security that travelers can supply to their own needs to make a plan on how
to be safe and secure. Many travelers rely on businesses to plan their trip
but should know the security management strategies these companies rely
on. A traveler can build a substantial list of areas to remember and plan to
visit on a trip. After reading this book, travelers will have advice they can
use to be more safe and secure.

This book was written in the United States of America, and it is for
U.S. citizens who travel. A reader should keep an open mind when reading
this book, knowing that it may contain some errors and some information
that is out of date. The main intention is to discuss serious issues at a
simplified and understandable level. Travel safely.