Journalists urged to work together towards effective road safety campaigns

Journalists have been entreated to collaborate with each other to achieve effective results in the quest to create road safety awareness.

Mr Kojo Akoto Boateng, a broadcast journalist at Citi FM and Citi TV, said even though there is a scramble for audience within the media circle, journalists should regard road safety reporting as a public good.

“If you do the story and you win with it but other media houses do not get the same to educate their listeners to make us all aware, have we won together as a team? We win together, so we must work together,” he said.

Mr Boateng was addressing journalists on Thursday in Accra at a day’s workshop on the effective ways the media could report on road safety issues.

The event was organized by the Accra Metropolitan Assembly in collaboration with the Bloomberg Initiative for Global Road Safety (AMA/BIGRS), a non-profit making organization based in the United States of America.

Mr Boateng said road safety reportage should not be done once in a while but rather, it should be done on a consistent basis and feature in regular discussions.

He said the mass media is instrumental in communicating to specific target groups and even a large number of people.

As such, the constructive use of the media could assist in teaching society the true essence of road safety and impact behavioural change.

Mr Boateng said in order to reap maximum results out of road safety reportage, journalists should make road safety stories relatable, in that, casualties and injuries should be reported and conceptualized properly for the audience to understand.

He said by interviewing victims and people who have been affected, the attention of the audiences could be drawn to the seriousness of road safety issues.

Dr Raphael Awuah, Data and Surveillance Coordinator for AMA/BIGRS, urged the media to include data on road crashes in their stories to help describe the magnitude of road-related crashes, provide insights for future planning, measure the impact of strategies and interventions, among others.

He said good road safety data systems should be able to identify all crashes together with associated deaths and serious injuries, provide enough detail to identify causes and information on the vehicle, road user, type of roads and the environment.

Dr Awuah said good road safety data systems should also provide adequate crash location information and timely information for evidence-based decisions.

He said the main data sources for road safety include Police crash reports, hospital emergency departments and mortuary records, and observational studies on the risk factors associated with road crashes.

Dr Awuah said in disseminating relevant data, considerations should be given to the police to highlight their role in data collection and to help them improve target enforcement efforts.

He said relevant data would help road agencies to identify high-risk locations and develop appropriate solutions.

Relevant data would also aid the health sector plan for adequate health services and appropriate interventions to prevent road traffic injuries, he said.

Dr Awuah said the availability of data to road safety policy-makers would help diagnose priority problems and implement appropriate strategies and interventions.

He said policy-makers in finance, transport, law enforcement and health would benefit and appreciate the impact of their policies on road safety.