The Australian news media typically portrays road crashes as “accidents” involving human tragedy.The pattern is all too familiar: scenes of mangled wreckage, an ambulance leaving the scene, an interview with emergency service personnel who describe the crash as “the worst they have seen”. We might ask “What’s the take-out message from this sort of coverage?” An accident, by definition, is an unpredictable event beyond the control of the individual– according to the dictionary“an incident that happensby chance or without apparent cause”. Overseas researchers argue that describing crashes as “accidents” fails to convey important safety information and potentially builds barriers which may block or inhibit the adoption of road safety countermeasures. In 2004, for the first time in the history of the World Health Organisation, World Health Day focused on the theme of road safety. Road traffic “collisions”– as WHO prefers to call them - kill more than 1.2 million people a year around the world, but are largely neglected as a health issue, perhaps because they are still viewed by many as events which are beyond our control. Yet the risks are known: speeding, alcohol, non-use of helmets, seatbelts and other restraints, poor road design, poor enforcement of road safety regulations, unsafe vehicle design, and poor emergency health services. Another interesting feature of the Australian media’s reporting of road crashes in the preoccupation with the “road toll” - an issue that receives extensive reporting in the Australian media but is less common in overseas coverage of road fatalities.


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    Title :

    Road Safety Is No Accident


    Contributors:


    Publication date :

    2008



    Type of media :

    Article (Journal)


    Type of material :

    Electronic Resource


    Language :

    Unknown




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