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Exploring the direct link between drug abuse and the internet

Drug overdoses account for a staggering number of deaths in the United States. In 2017 alone, more than 70,000 U.S. citizens died from opioid overdoses, a number that eclipses the death toll due to traffic accidents, gun violence, or HIV in the same year. Among the academic community, media and national organizations such as the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), there is a growing consensus that the internet plays a key role in enabling access to illicit drugs in America. As far back as 2005, the DEA referred to the internet as an “open medicine cabinet; a help-yourself pill bazaar to help you feel good.” But until now, the jury has been out about whether online platforms actually drive substance abuse among internet users. Research by Anandhi Bharadwaj, vice dean for faculty and research and Roberto C. Goizueta Endowed Chair in Electronic Commerce, along with doctoral candidate Jiayi Liu 22PhD, casts compelling new light on this issue. Their paper, Drug Abuse and the Internet: Evidence from Craigslist, was published in March 2020. By using data from Craigslist, one of the largest online platforms for classified advertisements, the researchers found a significant uptick in drug abuse in areas where Craigslist had become active in the last decade or so. Launched in San Francisco in 1995, Craigslist is a location-specific site that has been spreading to different U.S. cities in a staggered fashion since 2000. As the site has grown, so too have the number of illicit, user behaviors that exist in tandem with the many positive services it offers. Among these are prostitution and the sale of controlled or illicit drugs. The internet: a pipeline for narcotics Historically the sale and purchase of illegal drugs has happened in physical spaces—streets and urban areas prone to certain boundaries and limitations, not to mention the risk of arrest or potential violence. The internet has changed the game in two key ways. First, there is the simple mechanism of buyer-seller matching. Dealers and buyers transact online, which is more straightforward, faster and cuts through many of the risks associated with physical interaction. Simply put, it’s easy to buy drugs online. Second, there is the issue of anonymity. Research has documented how human beings behave differently when we believe our identity is shielded from others. We are prone to take more risks under the cloak of anonymity. Working off these two premises, Bharadwaj and Liu hypothesized that the internet not only facilitates the sale and purchase of drugs—it must also proactively spur supply and demand. To put this to the test, they documented the U.S. cities and counties where Craigslist has become operational since 2000 and then analyzed three other key variables: total number of people admitted into drug treatment facilities in different counties between 1997 and 2008, county-level drug abuse violations, and number of deaths caused by overdose per county. Eager to understand how this new access to drugs online might also be impacting people at a demographic and socioeconomic level, the researchers merged this data with statistics on age, ethnicity and poverty from the U.S. Census Bureau. Additionally, the authors compiled information about income and unemployment, crime and arrests from the Bureau of Labor Statistics and the FBI respectively. What they found was stunning. Not only is there a marked increase in drug-related treatments (14.9 percent), violations (5.7 percent) and deaths (6.0 percent) wherever Craigslist becomes operational in a city or county; the momentum of increasing drug abuse also continues to grow over time in that area. And that’s not all. Economic disadvantages—poverty, unemployment and lower standards of education—are typically associated with a higher risk of substance abuse. But the findings suggest that in fact it’s the wealthier, higher-educated groups—especially among whites, Asians, and women—that are more likely than others to engage in drug abuse once Craigslist starts operating in an area. In fact, they conclusively found an uptick in this kind of behavior where crime and drug abuse had been less prevalent previously. In other words, where drugs are becoming readily available online, there is a dramatic increase in new and first-time users. If you are interested in learning more or if you are a journalist looking to cover this research – then let our experts help. Professor Anandhi Bharadwaj is the Vice Dean for Faculty and Research and the Goizueta Endowed Chair in Electronic Commerce and Professor of Information Systems, Operations Management. To arrange an interview with – simply click on her icon today.

UConn’s Dr. David Banach was one of the first to be vaccinated – let him explain the COVID-19 Vaccine

The initial doses of the first approved COVID-19 vaccine are here, and health care workers are part of the group that’s getting it first. One of them is Dr. David Banach, UConn Health infectious diseases physician and hospital epidemiologist, who sees the vaccine not only as a major breakthrough in the fight to end the pandemic, but also as an opportunity for his clinical colleagues to lead that effort and set the tone for the rest of the world. Here are some key facts about the COVID-19 vaccine, with Dr. Banach providing explanations of each: The COVID-19 vaccine won’t infect you with COVID-19. “There is no live virus in this vaccine, so you can’t actually get infected with SARS-CoV-2 from the vaccine. What this vaccine has is messenger RNA, which is a little bit of genetic code that allows the body’s natural machinery to make the protein that will generate an immune response." You may actually want some side effects from the COVID-19 vaccine. “You might get some soreness at the injection site, maybe some fatigue for a day or two, but that can be a good thing, a sign your body is making that immune response. That’s what is going to protect you in the future if you get exposed to the virus. The data from the clinical trials show the side effects – the soreness, fatigue, in some cases a short-lived fever – occur the first few days afterwards, and the rate of serious side effects is extraordinarily low for this vaccine.” The vaccine was developed relatively quickly, but not by compromising the scientific process. “When you look at Operation Warp Speed and how this process moved really quickly, that was really focused on the research and development piece and the manufacturing piece. Importantly, the phase 3 clinical trial was not rushed. This is the same type of clinical trial that we would do for any other vaccine. We followed people for at least two months. The clinical trials were huge, and they had diverse populations. So that part of the whole process wasn’t rushed at all, and that’s the most important part.” Don’t throw out those masks just yet. “We know this vaccine prevents people from developing symptomatic and severe COVID infection. I think what we don’t know is the effect it’s going to have on viral transmission, including asymptomatic shedding of virus. For instance, people who get the vaccine might still potentially shed virus, potentially at a lower level. The vaccine will prevent them from actually becoming ill, but vaccinated individuals might still be able to have virus in their nose and their respiratory system. Immunity from the vaccine is not instantaneous. “The COVID-19 vaccine clinical trials using the Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna mRNA vaccines were designed using a two-dose series in order to generate the optimal level of protection from the vaccine. That’s why getting both doses of the vaccine is essential. Although there is likely some individual variability, immunity may not be optimal until several days after the second dose. The phase 3 clinical trials used a period of at least one-to-two weeks after the second dose as a marker of immunity during which they were able to demonstrate the efficacy of the vaccines in protecting against COVID-19 infection.” Dr. David Banach is one of the lead experts on COVID-19 in America. He is available to speak with media regarding the vaccination and what the future holds with regards to COVID-19. To book an interview – simply click on his icon and arrange a time now.

Top Germicidal UV Lighting Questions Answered

Amid the COVID-19 pandemic, germicidal lighting has been eyed for indoor disinfection. Bob Karlicek, the director of the Lighting Enabled Systems and Applications (LESA) Center at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute led a team of engineers who designed and built a UVC system to disinfect masks for reuse. In addition, he has been answering some of the biggest questions people have surrounding this potential tool in the current global public health crisis. These are a few examples: 1. Can UVC radiation kill SARS CoV 2? Yes, several groups have demonstrated that UVC radiation can quickly deactivate the SARS CoV 2 virus that causes COVID-19. To be effective, however, the delivery dose needs to be high enough and the required dose depends on several environmental factors (surface or airborne, relative humidity, and other environmental factors) that impact the delivery of UVC radiation to the virus’ RNA. The higher the dose, the faster the process, and the greater the percentage of virus deactivated. 2. Can UVC LEDs be used for germicidal applications? Absolutely, and there is considerable published evidence for the effectiveness of UVC LEDs in germicidal applications including SARS CoV 2. Also, the output power, reliability and cost-effectiveness of UVC LED solutions are continually improving with continuing research on the design and manufacturing of UVC LEDs. Note that both UVC mercury lamps (254 nm) and UVC LEDs have lifetimes that are considerably shorter than LEDs used in solid-state lighting, so that should be factored into the design of GUV systems using either technology. 3. How can UVC sources be used safely around people? So long as humans are not in the direct line for exposure to the UVC radiation there should be no issues. Ordinarily, UVC systems are used only when people are not present or in disinfecting air (either inside of ductwork of HVAC systems or with specially designed optics to irradiate the upper portions of room-air) with little or no radiation to the people below. Some UVC lamps come with presence detection systems that turn off when persons approach, but these systems will have to have very low false-negative error rates (turning on when the system falsely thinks that people are not present). You can read more questions and answers here. If you'd like to interview Robert Karlicek, please click on his ExpertFile profile.

Is Georgia really seeing a 'blue wave'? Not necessarily, expert says

Though the ballots are currently being recounted, Georgia’s 16 electoral votes are expected to go to Joe Biden. The Peach State turned out to be ripe for the picking for Democratic votes, playing a pivotal role in Biden's road to winning the White House. Georgia was a lock for President Donald Trump in 2016 and has been voting Republican since 1996. However, it's a little too soon to say the state has done a complete political about-face, especially as the nation watches the upcoming runoff races for Georgia's two Senate seats. “There's no ‘blue wave’ in Georgia, or really in the nation,” says Augusta University’s Dr. Gregg Murray. “Donald Trump lost by a very small percent. Georgia's U.S. House delegation didn't change from red to blue (or even the Democrat versus Republican count, for that matter). There may be small Democratic gains in the Georgia House and Senate, but the Republicans still dominate. “It's also highly unlikely, a less than 25 percent chance, that Democrats will gain control of the U.S. Senate, as it's unlikely both of Georgia's Democratic Senate candidates will win the runoff." With the balance of power in Washington essentially resting on the outcome of the Georgia runoffs, all eyes will be on the state. Murray is a go-to expert on state politics and a regular in the media, appearing on major outlets like CNN. If you are covering this topic, then let our expert help with your story. Dr. Gregg R. Murray, professor of political science at Augusta University, is available to talk about the presidential race and election results. Murray’s research focuses on political behavior and psychology with specific interests in voter mobilization and turnout. He is also executive director of the Association for Politics and the Life Sciences. Simply click on Murray's icon now to arrange an interview today.

Social media as a weapon

Best-selling author Peter Singer talks with the Brunswick Review about winning the increasingly crowded and contentious war for attention What do Isis and Taylor Swift have in common? According to author and digital-security strategist Peter Singer, both the terrorist organization and pop star are fighting for your attention online and employing similar tactics to try and win it. ISIS kicked off its 2014 invasion of Mosul with the hashtag, “#AllEyesonISIS.” More recently, the terror group posted photos of its members holding cute cats in an effort to make them more relatable – tactics familiar to most celebrities and online marketers around the world. These online battles, the rules governing them, and their real-world impact are the focus of Mr. Singer’s latest book, LikeWar, which he coauthored with Emerson T. Brooking, at the time a research fellow with the Council of Foreign Relations. “A generation ago people talked about the emergence of cyber war, the hacking of networks. A ‘LikeWar’ is the flip side: the hacking of people and ideas on those networks. Power in this conflict is the command of attention,” says Mr. Singer, who in addition to his writing is also a strategist and Senior Fellow at the New America Foundation. Pretty much everyone who posts online – from governments to marketers to reality TV stars – is a combatant in this fight for virality, according to Mr. Singer. Triumph in a “LikeWar” and you command attention to your product or propaganda or personality. Lose and you cede control of the spotlight and the agenda. Mr. Singer recently spoke with Brunswick’s Siobhan Gorman about the trends he’s seeing in LikeWars around the world, and what companies can do to avoid being on the losing end. What were you most surprised by in researching LikeWar? One of the more interesting characters in the book was at one time voted TV’s greatest villain: Spencer Pratt, a reality TV star on MTV’s “The Hills.” He’s basically one of these people who became famous almost for nothing. But what Pratt figured out really early was the power of narrative, which allowed him to become famous through, as he put it, “manipulating the media.” In the same week, I interviewed both Pratt and the person at the US State Department who’s in charge of the US government’s efforts to battle ISIS online. And Pratt, this California bro who’s talking about how to manipulate the media to get attention, understood more of what was playing out online than the person at the State Department. Spencer Pratt, a reality TV star… understood more of what was playing out online than the person at the State Department.” How much have online conflicts changed the rules in the last few years? First, the internet has left adolescence. It’s only just now starting to flex its muscles and deal with some of its responsibilities. The structure of the network changes how these battles play out. So, it’s this contest of both psychological but also algorithmic manipulation. What you see go across your screen on social media is not always decided by you. The rule makers of this global fight are a handful of Silicon Valley engineers. Another aspect of it is that social media has effectively rendered secrets of any consequence almost impossible to keep. As one CIA person put it to us, “secrets now come with a half-life.” Virality matters more than veracity; the truth doesn’t always win out. In fact, the truth can be buried underneath a sea of lies and likes. And the last part is that we’re all part of it. All of our decisions as individuals shape which side gets attention, and therefore which side wins out. But you highlight that this is playing out differently in China. Exactly. There are two different models shaping the internet, and shaping people’s behavior through the internet, playing out in the West and in China. Essentially, internet activity in China is all combined. Look at WeChat, which is used for everything from social media to mobile payment; it’s Amazon meets Facebook meets Pizza Hut delivery. And you combine that with an authoritarian government that’s had a multi-decade plan for building out surveillance, and you get the social credit system, which is like Orwellian surveillance crossed with marketing. The social credit system allows both companies and the government to mine and combine all the different points of information that an online citizen in China reveals of themselves, and then use that to create a single score – think of it as your financial credit score of your “trustworthiness.” For example, if you buy diapers your score goes up, because that indicates you’re a parent and a good parent. If you play video games for longer than an hour your score goes down because you’re wasting time online. And it’s all networked. Your friends and family know your score. It creates a soft form of collective censorship; if your brother posts something that’s critical of the government, you’re the one who goes to him and says, “Knock it off ’cause you’re hurting my score.” And you do that because the score has real consequences. Already it’s being used for everything from seating on trains and job applications to online dating. Your score literally shapes your romantic prospects. So, you have this massive global competition between Chinese tech companies and other global tech companies not only for access to markets, but also for whose vision of the internet is going to win out. How can companies win a “LikeWar”? Everyone’s wondering: What are the best ways to drive your message out there and have it triumph over others? The best companies I’ve seen create a narrative, have a story and have emotion – in particular, they have emotion that provokes a reaction of some kind. It’s all about planned authenticity. That sounds like a contradiction, but it’s about acting in ways that are genuine, but are also tailored because you’re aware that the world is watching you. A good comparison here is Wendy’s versus Hillary Clinton. Wendy’s is a hamburger chain – not a real person – but it acts and comes across as “authentic” online and has developed a massive following. They’re funny, irreverent. Yet Hillary Clinton – a very real person – never felt very authentic in her online messaging. And that’s because it involved a large number of people – by one account, 11 different people – all weighing in on what should be tweeted out. Inundation and experimentation are also key. Throwing not just one message out there, but massive amounts of them. Treating each message as both a kind of weapon, but also an experiment that allows you to then learn, refine, do it again, do it again, do it again. How do you measure and gauge battles online now? Is it just volume? It all depends on what your battle is, what your end goal is. Is it driving sales? Is it getting people to vote for you, to show up to your conference? This is what the US gets wrong about Russian propaganda and its disinformation campaigns. We think they’re designed to make people love or trust a government. From its very start back in the 1920s, the goal of propaganda coming from the Soviet Union, and today Russia, has been instead to make you distrust – distrust everything, disbelieve everything. And we can see it’s been incredibly effective for them. First, we need to recognize that we’re a part of the battle. In fact, we’re a target of most of the battles. How effective have disinformation campaigns actually been in the US? What can be done? One of the scariest and maybe saddest things we discovered is that the US is now the story that other nations point to as the example of what you don’t want to have happen. There’s no silver bullet, of course. But one example was something called the Active Measures Working Group, a Cold War organization that brought together the intelligence community, diplomats and communicators to identify incoming KGB disinformation campaigns and then develop responses to them. We’re dealing with the modern, way more effective online version of something similar, and we haven’t got anything like that. There are also digital literacy programs. I find it stunning that the US supports education programs to help citizens and kids in Ukraine learn about what to do and how to think about online disinformation, but we don’t do that for our own students. What can people like you or me do? First, we need to recognize that we’re a part of the battle. In fact, we’re a target of most of the battles. And we need to better understand how the platforms work that we use all the time. A majority of people actually still don’t understand how social media companies make money. The other is to seek out the truth. How do we do that? And the best way is to remember the ancient parable of the blind man and the elephant – don’t just rely on one source, pull from multiple different sources. That’s been proven in a series of academic studies as the best way to find the facts online. It’s not exactly new, but it’s effective. Where will the next online war be fought? The cell phone in your pocket, or if we’re being futuristic, the augmented reality glasses that you wear as you walk down the street. It’ll come from the keepsake videos that you play on them. If you want to know what comes next in the internet there have always been two places to go: university research labs and the porn industry. That’s been the case with webcams, chat rooms and so on. What we’re seeing playing out now are called “deep fakes,” which use artificial intelligence to create hyper-realistic videos and images. There’s also “madcoms,” which are hyper-realistic chat bots that make it seem like you’re talking to another person online. Combine the two, and the voices, the images, the information that we’ll increasingly see online might be fake, but hyper-realistic. The tools that militaries and tech companies are using to fight back against the AI-created deep fakes are other AI. So, the future of online conflict looks like it’ll be two AIs battling back and forth. Let me give you a historic parallel, because we’ve been dealing with these issues for a very long time. The first newspaper came when a German printer figured out a way to monetize his press’s downtime by publishing a weekly collection of news and advice. And in publishing the first newspaper, he created an entire industry, a new profession that sold information itself. And it created a market for something that had never before existed – but in creating that market, truth has often fallen by the wayside. One of the very first newspapers in America about a century later was called the New England Courant. It published a series of letters by a woman named Mrs. Silence Do-good. The actual writer of the letters was a 16-year-old apprentice at the newspaper named Benjamin Franklin, making him the founding father of fake news in America. In some sense it’s always been there, using deception and marketing to persuade people to your view.

Are we on the verge of a vaccine? Let our COVID-19 expert explain if you are covering

It’s breaking news that is dominating headlines, impacting financial markets and perhaps finally relieving some of the anxiety that has been growing across America since late winter. On Monday, Pfizer announced that early results from its coronavirus vaccine indicate that it is 90 percent effective at preventing COVID-19. The pharmaceutical giant expects to be applying as soon as this month for emergency use approval from the Food and Drug Administration. If you are covering this breaking news and need to know about: What is the testing process for vaccines? How they are developed? What is involved in final approval? How will it be administered? And how quickly will it take to show positive results in our population? Then let the experts from UConn help with your coverage. Dr. Paulo Verardi is a virologist who specializes in vaccine research and development. He is an Associate Professor at UConn and a member of the Center of Excellence for Vaccine Research. Dr. Verardi is available to speak with media regarding this emerging development – simply click on his icon now to arrange an interview today.

Optimizing the delivery speed promise can boost sales

After the coronavirus pandemic forced most of the country into lockdown, online shopping soared. According to CCInsights.org, by the end of April 2020 there was a 146% year-over-year increase in U.S. and Canadian online retail orders. Amazon was so overwhelmed by the combination of increased demand, logistical nightmares, and warehouse worker safety issues that the company announced significant delays in its Amazon Prime shipping speeds. When the company announced it would prioritize the shipping of essential items, the online retailer’s third-party sellers were left to manage their own shipping — something Amazon usually did for them. Shoppers who placed orders for non-essential products at the end of March sometimes received estimated delivery dates of more than a month away. While consumers often received their orders sooner than the 30-day estimate, for Prime shoppers used to getting their items delivered for free the next day, the change in delivery speed was a shock. Amazon shoppers turned to alternative outlets that promised much quicker delivery speeds. Companies with strong e-commerce positions and supply chains, such as Walmart, took advantage of Amazon’s situation. “People are very sensitive to delivery and how fast they can get products,” said Ruomeng Cui, assistant professor in information systems & operations management. “Maybe, just maybe, Amazon would be able to deliver faster than one month, but they chose to promise customers one month — that was their choice.” Unfortunately for Amazon, by setting conservative delivery speed promises, they exacerbated an already bad situation. According to Cui’s paper “Sooner or Later? Promising Delivery Speed in Online Retail” (Ruomeng Cui, Tianshu Sun, Zhikun Lu and Joseph M. Golden), optimizing delivery speed promise can have a substantial effect on a company’s sales. How substantial? Without changing the actual delivery speed itself — only the delivery speed promise — Cui’s research showed that when the retailer promised customers one day faster shipping, sales increased, profits increased, and customers spent more on each order. “It’s a very critical decision for retailers to try to determine how to manage delivery and how to manage the information aspect of delivery,” added Cui. The study is attached and found two key findings: The value of communicating delivery times From a customer satisfaction standpoint, the conservative disclosure lowered customer satisfaction while the aggressive disclosure didn’t affect the company’s satisfaction score, although it did increase product returns when shipping speed was overly aggressive and products were delivered late. “These results indicate that in our research context, promising customers a faster delivery speed can boost sales and profitability but at the cost of a higher product return rate,” the researchers wrote. They go on to caution retailers that promising a conservative shipping speed can be costly. “It’s a careful balance that companies need to think about — how to manage customers’ expectations properly,” explained Cui. Crafting the delivery promise Given online retailers’ adoption of machine learning, Cui believes companies could tweak their algorithms to explore what products and which types of customers are more tolerant to over-promising as it relates to the delivery speed promise. “Companies can then use the analysis to customize and differentiate the types of products that adopt different types of information strategies,” Cui said. “Just change your algorithm, learn and incorporate some of the data-driven decisions and methods.” Going forward, Cui hopes to customize algorithms for companies in an effort to help them dynamically optimize how to promise the correct delivery speed to customers. While many companies, like Collage.com, don’t own their own delivery function and can’t change the actual delivery speed by changing infrastructure, these companies can “manage the information,” said Cui. “It’s easy, and I think it should be the retailer’s responsibility and job to optimize.” “I want to advocate for all retailers to think strategically in their information aspect,” said Cui. “Don’t let such an easily fixed lever just sit there at almost zero cost.” If you are a journalist looking to cover this study or speak with Professor Ciu about subjects like online shopping and operations management, simply click on her icon now to arrange an interview today.

Is it time to stop taking Georgia for granted? The state voted blue – let our experts explain why

As the final few votes still remain to be counted, the state of Georgia has taken a political turn it has not seen in more than two decades. After a long stretch as a presumptively Republican stronghold, in 2020, voters in Georgia made their voices heard and likely shifted the balance of power in Washington. What has changed? Are more voters engaged and showing up to vote? Have demographics shifted? Has the population changed? Have Peach State citizens changed their outlook on issues and politics? Moving forward, few will take the state’s 16 electoral college votes for granted. Is Georgia now one of the battleground states that will shape presidential elections in the future? If you are covering this topic, then let our experts help with your story. Dr. Gregg R. Murray, professor of political science at Augusta University, is available to talk about the presidential race and election results. Murray’s research focuses on political behavior and psychology with specific interests in voter mobilization and turnout. He is also executive director of the Association for Politics and the Life Sciences. Simply click on Murray's icon now to arrange an interview today.

Will it be a long wait for the results on Tuesday?

The election is finally here. And in a year like few others in modern history, the 2020 election may go down like no other as well. Americans are engaged, there is no doubting that. In fact, CNN reported that with one week before the election 75.8 million ballots had been cast representing about 56% of the more than 136.5 million total ballots cast for president in 2016. And there was still time left for more votes to pour in. On Election Day, a massive turnout is expected. But with social distancing in play and other COVID-19 precautions enacted, the day that is already wrought with long lines and delays in the best of years could see for an even longer night for election officials in most states. Americans are making themselves heard – but the results they want to see might not be on election night. A recent article by Pew Research explains why: "Mail ballots pose a challenge to election workers, because they must be manually removed from their envelopes and verified as valid before they can be fed into the tabulating machines. Although election workers in at least 33 states can start processing ballots (but not, in most cases, counting them) a week or more before Election Day, these counts may not be finished by election night depending on how many come in. In a half-dozen states, including the battlegrounds of Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, processing can’t start until Election Day itself. Also, in 22 states (plus D.C.), mail ballots postmarked by Election Day (or in a few cases the day before) can still be counted even if they arrive days later – further lengthening the counting process. Bottom line: Any vote totals reported on election night will be even more unofficial than they typically are." There is going to be a lot to cover leading up to and after Nov. 03 about the final results of what is poised to be a very close and hard-fought election. And if you’re covering, that’s where our experts can help. Dr. Gregg R. Murray, professor of political science at Augusta University, is available to talk about the current race to lead the DNC. Murray’s research focuses on political behavior and psychology with specific interests in voter mobilization and turnout. He is also executive director of the Association for Politics and the Life Sciences.

MEDIA RELEASE: Stay Alert Stay Safe: Daylight saving time ends soon

CAA South Central Ontario ( CAA SCO) is reminding all motorists and pedestrians to stay alert as daylight saving time ends at 2 a.m. on Sunday, November 1. The return to standard time means fewer daylight hours and reduced visibility for all road users. “We know that typically, in November, there is a spike in collisions between motorists and pedestrians. Road safety and pedestrian safety are a shared responsibility. Taking precautions and being aware of other road users helps us all arrive at our destinations safely,” says Raymond Chan, manager of government relations, CAA SCO. While pedestrian incidents increase every year at this time, the latest research indicates the potential for harm is even higher today due to COVID-19. Earlier this year, CAA SCO conducted a study of 1500 Ontario licenced drivers that found, because of COVID-19, people are most comfortable driving their vehicles, walking or cycling to get around over the coming months. The study also found that: Respondents were more likely walking one to three times a week before the pandemic but are more likely to walk four to seven times per week during the pandemic. These numbers are in line with a CAA National survey that also found 30 per cent of cyclists increased their activity. “Our study also showed that not yielding to cyclists/pedestrians and drivers running stop signs or red lights were the most reckless driving behaviours seen within city limits during the pandemic," says Chan. "We are facing additional challenges this year. Physical distancing means pedestrians may step out onto the road to keep their distance from others or may take longer to cross at intersections. It is important now more than ever to remind road users to follow the rules of the road and be patient." What motorists can do to stay safe: Always look for pedestrians crossing the road. Be alert and attentive while driving and yield to pedestrians who are stepping on to the road to maintain physical distancing. Mind your blind spots. Be aware of blind spots when making turns at intersections. Stay focused and vigilant behind the wheel. Avoid distractions inside and outside of your vehicle. Slow down in school zones. Reduce your speed and obey speed limits in school zones and residential neighbourhoods. Prepare for the unexpected. Residential streets and school zones have different types of obstacles, such as children playing outdoors, riding bikes, skateboarding, etc. Be cautious and considerate. Be alert around stopped transit vehicles and be courteous to pedestrians with different mobility needs that may require more time. Use your lights. Motorists should use their full lighting system when it gets dark and in low visibility situations. What pedestrians can do to stay safe: Be careful when physical distancing on the sidewalk. Try to avoid stepping out onto road and if you end up stepping on the road, ensure there are no vehicles in the lane. Always be aware of your surroundings. Avoid distractions and be alert while crossing the street and stepping onto the road. Follow the flow. Follow signals and cross at designated locations or crosswalks. Stop, look, and listen. Ensure all traffic has come to a complete stop before crossing the road. Keep an eye out. Make eye contact with motorists—never assume that drivers can see you or know your intentions. Be visible. Pedestrians should wear bright or reflective clothing or accessories at night to help with visibility. Additionally, motorists should take extra caution on Halloween as some regions could have trick or treaters and they may have the added visual restrictions of wearing a mask or face shield. CAA SCO is offering free reflector tags at CAA Stores that can be attached to backpacks and jackets. Find your nearest CAA Store here and stop by to get up to four free tags per family.