Road Safety Reporting Initiative Empowers Journalists to Shape Public Opinion and Drive Change

Strategic Insights -

A World Health Organisation (WHO) workshop in Natal, Brazil, has brought together 21 Latin-American journalists to enhance their reporting on road safety. The workshop is part of the Road Safety Reporting Initiative, supported by Bloomberg Philanthropies, with the aim of giving journalists the evidence, tools, and know-how to cover road safety comprehensively. Flavia Peixoto, a journalist with Brazil's public news agency, emphasized the importance of journalists in pushing for change in the field of safe and sustainable mobility.

The workshop includes sessions on the science behind road safety, road safety progress in the Americas, motorcycle safety, emergency care, and a field trip hosted by the Natal city authorities. Participants from previous workshops also share their experiences, along with practical exercises. Dr Nhan Tran, Head of Safety and Mobility at WHO, highlighted the significance of the media in holding leaders to account, sharing facts, and driving demand for change.

Key Takeaways:

  • Road crashes claim more than two lives per minute, killing far more people each year than armed conflict and terrorism combined, with 145,000 fatalities in the WHO Region of the Americas.
  • The WHO Regional Advisor on road safety and injury prevention for the Americas, Dr Ricardo Perez Nunez, emphasized that reducing road deaths has long been misunderstood, and that we know how to prevent these tragedies.
  • Small changes, such as framing crashes as a preventable, society-wide public health crisis, can have a big impact on public opinion and policy choices.
  • Journalists must highlight the complex nature of the issue, including street planning, infrastructure, laws, education, and regulation, to place crashes in a broader road safety context.
  • The solutions journalism approach to reporting shifts the focus from issues to responses, sharing what works, what doesn't, and why.
  • The global goal, set as part of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals and the Decade of Action for Road Safety 2021-2030, is to halve road deaths by 2030.
  • The Global Plan for the Decade of Action for Road Safety offers a blueprint for governments to boost road safety by applying the safe systems approach.

Statistics:

  • Road crashes claim more than two lives per minute.
  • 145,000 people die in road crashes in the WHO Region of the Americas each year.
  • The world has set an ambitious goal of halving road deaths by 2030.
  • The safe systems approach has been proposed as a solution to reduce road deaths.

Sources:

  • World Health Organisation "Journalists in Brazil are just starting to open their eyes to issues of safe and sustainable mobility"
  • Bloomberg Philanthropies
  • Solutions Journalism Network
  • United Nations Sustainable Development Goals
  • Decade of Action for Road Safety 2021-2030