Study: Africa's Road Safety News Coverage Fails to Convey Crisis Scale
A new study reveals that news coverage in Africa largely fails to inform the public about the nature, impact, and scale of the growing road safety crisis.
Road traffic deaths in the WHO African Region increased by 17% between 2010 and 2021, outpacing other regions. This region accounts for nearly one-fifth of global annual road deaths, despite possessing only 3% of the world's registered vehicles.
A new analysis of nearly 1,000 news stories from five Anglophone African countries indicates that media coverage frequently obscures the fact that road deaths are preventable. Reports also often neglect to address systemic causes such as poor infrastructure and inadequate laws and regulations.
"This landmark study shows that when it comes to road safety, the news must catch up with the science. The media has a crucial role to play in calling for policies and actions that save lives, so we must help them dig deeper into the facts, data, and what works in reducing road deaths," stated Dr. Nhan Tran, Head of Safety and Mobility at WHO.
The report, "Content analysis of media coverage of road collisions and road safety in Africa," produced by Science Africa with support from WHO and Bloomberg Philanthropies, found that 45% of reports blamed poor driver behavior as the main cause of crashes. Victim-blaming was prevalent, while systemic issues like infrastructure or transport system failures were only covered in a fraction of reports.
The findings will inform the upcoming Fourth Global Ministerial Conference on Road Safety in Marrakech, Morocco, which will feature a special session dedicated to shifting the narrative surrounding road safety issues.