THE WINSTON CHURCHILL MEMORIAL TRUST OF AUSTRALIA

Report by Dr Stephen Jiggins, 2008 Churchill Fellow

The 2008 Churchill Fellowship to Study Media Reporting of Road Crashes

I understand that the Churchill Trust may publish this Report, either in hard or on the internet or both, and consent to such publication.

I indemnify the Churchill Trust against any loss, costs or damages it may suffer arising out of any clam or proceedings made against the Trust in respect of or arising out of the publication of any Report submitted

to the Trust and which the Trust places on a website for access over the internet.

I also warrant that my Final Report is original and does not infringe the copyright of any person, or contain anything which is, or the incorporation of which into the Final Report is actionable for defamation, a breach of any privacy law or obligation, breach of confidence, contempt of court, passing-off or contravention of

any other private right or of any law.

Signed Dated

“There are no accidents.”

Master Oogway, senior master of the Jade Palace.Kung Fu Panda (2008 Dreamworks Animation)

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accident

noun 1 an unfortunate incident that happens unexpectedly and unintentionally. 2 an incident that happens by chance or without apparent cause. 3 chance.

crash

verb 1 (of a vehicle) collide violently with an obstacle or another vehicle. 2 (of an aircraft) fall from the sky and violently hit the land or sea. 3 move with force, speed, and sudden loud noise. 4 make a sudden loud, deep noise. 5 (of shares) fall suddenly in value. 6 Computing fail suddenly. 7 (also crash out) informal fall deeply asleep. 8 informal gatecrash (a party).

toll

noun Tax or duty paid for use of market, public road etc

Compact Oxford English Dictionary of Current English

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INDEX

INTRODUCTION

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

PROGRAM

DISCUSSION

Communicating Complex Scientific InformationThe Terminology of Crash-Related News ReportsRoad Crash News ContentThe Public Health Model of ReportingThe Contemporary Media EnvironmentEmerging Communication Technologies

CONCLUSIONS

Towards Vision ZeroWhere To From Here

RECOMMENDATIONS

Road Safety AuthoritiesMedia ProfessionalsEmergency Response Personnel

IMPLEMENTATION

APPENDICES

- Search of Newspaper Archives for Key Terms- Edited Extract of FaceBook Page associated with Protest Against Licensing Restrictions for Novice Drivers

BIBLIOGRAPHY

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INTRODUCTION

Any observer of Australian news media would quickly observe that collisions on our roads are typically portrayed as “accidents” with a human tragedy storyline. A typical story:

Mates Nathan Watts, 17, and Jack Muir, 16, die in crashA LEARNER driver and one of his best mates have died in a high-speed accident in Carrum Downs. Driver Nathan Watts, 17, and friend Jack Muir, 16, slid out of control in a parent’s Holden Vectra as they sped through an unsealed stretch of road at 12.50am on Sunday (Herald Sun, October 12, 2008).

An accident, by definition, is an unpredictable event beyond the control of the individual. Public health professionals are concerned that such an approach, which has been typical in western news media, fails to convey important safety information and potentially builds barriers which may block or inhibit the adoption of road safety countermeasures.

Road crashes are a staple of our news media but they contain little contextual information that would provide the community with a better appreciation of road safety issues and the measures available to improve personal and community safety. Given the enormous cost of road crashes to the community - conservatively estimated at $18 billion per annum by the Department of Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development and Local Government (2009) - this is a significant issue.

Two questions become apparent: is the Australian news media’s pre-occupation with road ‘accidents’ reflected overseas; and, can we do a better job of educating the community about road safety via the news media? To answer these questions I traveled to France, Great Britain, Canada and the United States of America to meet with road safety authorities, media professionals and ‘other stakeholders’.

The rationale for selecting these countries is reflected in the following chart.

Road deaths per 100,000 people for OECD nations and Australian states/territories 2006

Source: International Road Safety Comparisons: the 2006 report

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The chart shows that in 2006, Australia recorded 7.7 road deaths per 100,000 people. Two of the countries visited as part of this study, Great Britain and France, achieved better levels of safety compared to the Australian average, and the other two countries, Canada and the United States, achieved worse levels of road safety performance (further data is available in the report by the Department of Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development and Local Government, Road Safety Report No 2, International Road Safety Comparisons: the 2006 report). The UK, Canada and the United States have similar newspaper regimes to Australia, France has a somewhat more ideologically focused media than we have in Australia (according to Professor Labasse, pers. comm.).

Due to the nature of Churchill Fellowships, time did not permit an exhaustive quantitative study of newspaper content, nor is this report written in an overly academic style. Rather, the report aims to stimulate discussion of the issues and for other parties to respond to the recommendations as they see fit.

In answer to the question “Can we do better”, to borrow from President Obama, the answer is a resounding “Yes we can”.

I wish to thank the NRMA-ACT Road Safety Trust for sponsoring my 2008 Churchill Fellowship. I also wish to thank the staff of both the NRMA-ACT Road Safety Trust and the Winston Churchill Memorial Trust for their guidance and support in the execution of my Fellowship. Thanks also to all those persons whom I met who gave generously of their time to discuss issues associated with my Fellowship. And deep personal thanks to my wife, Trace, for her support and logistical skills in negotiating several cities, delivering me to meetings, and preventing me from getting hopelessly lost.

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EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

Author: Dr Stephen Jiggins, Secretary, ACT Chapter of the Australasian College of Road Safety. PH: 0408 480 779, Email: stephenjiggins@gmail.com.

Project: An examination of news media reports about road safety.

As noted by the World Health Organisation, although road traffic collisions kill more than 1.2 million people a year around the world, they 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, seat belts and other restraints, poor road design, poor enforcement of road safety regulations, unsafe vehicle design, and poor emergency health services (WHO 2004).

Australian news reports about road crashes, somewhat of a staple in terms of frequency, typically present crashes as ‘accidents’ with a human tragedy storyline which does little to educate the community about the issues and promote known safety measures. In the USA, Canada, Great Britain and France, road crashes generally do not meet reporting thresholds for news. They are so common they are not regarded as being sufficiently newsworthy to make it into the paper or news bulletin. The US is typical. Despite the fact that over 40,000 people are killed in road crashes each year, very few of these deaths are reported in the national news media.

Due to pressures in the newsroom to maintain audiences in a highly competitive environment, the capacity of newsrooms to research complex issues, and to provide context, is likely to get even worse. For road safety authorities these developments are of concern which requires a rethink about traditional approaches for dealing with the media and communicating with target audiences. Authorities need to understand the pressures faced by journalists and to work within these new realities. This may mean putting more effort into packaging information for consumption by the media and embracing new tools like FaceBook, YouTube and Twitter to communicate directly with target audiences – particularly young people.

As suggested by the results of study of television news in the US (Rosenstiel et, al. 2007) media professionals need to rethink the way they view audiences. Professor Labasse, from the National Centre for the Advancement of News Publishing in Lyon, argues that for effective communication to take place, audiences need to be made to care and to be encouraged to think about the issue. Currently, it could be said that too much emphasis goes into exhortations to “obey the road rules” rather than explaining to the public why the rules exist. We can do a lot better. The key is for those that are responsible for improving the safety of our road system to take more responsibility for conveying appropriate information to the public.

They also need to banish the word ‘accident’ from their lexicon.

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PROGRAM (TRAVEL UNDERTAKEN DURING MAY AND JUNE 2009)

FRANCEDr Nicholas ClabauxThe French National Institute for Transport and Safety Research Accident Mechanisms UnitSalon de Provence

Mr. Pierre Van Elslande The French National Institute for Transport and Safety Research Accident Mechanisms UnitSalon de Provence

Christophe PerrinThe French National Institute for Transport and Safety Research Accident Mechanisms UnitSalon de Provence

Dr Michael BehrUniversité de la MéditerranéeMarseilles

Mr. Robert HollowayDirectorAgence France Presse FoundationParis

Mr. John White *Former DirectorJoint OECD/ECMT Transport Research CentreParis

Dr Benoit HironUrban Road SafetyHead of UnitCentre for Studies on Urban Planning, Transportation andPublic Facilities (CERTU)Lyon

Mr. Hubert TreveRoad Safety OfficerCentre for Studies on Urban Planning, Transportation andPublic Facilities (CERTU)Lyon

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Professor Bertrand LabasseResearch DirectorNational Centre for the Advancement of News PublishingLyon

UKProf. John TullochProfessor of CommunicationBrunel UniversityLondon

Inspector George HarwoodCO15 Partnership UnitLondon Metropolitan PoliceLondon

Mr. Robert GiffordExecutive DirectorParliamentary Advisory Council for Transport SafetyLondon

Ms Fiona Seymour *Head of Marketing/THINK CampaignDepartment of TransportLondon

Mr. Mike Fawcett *Head of Road User Safety DivisionDepartment for TransportLondon

Mr. Andrew HowardRoad Safety ManagerThe Automobile AssociationBasingstoke

CANADADr Paul BoaseChief, Road UsersRoad Safety and Motor Vehicle RegulationTransport CanadaOttawa

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Ms Aysha RajanTraffic AnalystAssociation of Chiefs of PoliceOttawa

S/Sgt Chris FraserNational Traffic CoordinatorNational Traffic ServicesNational Contract Policing BranchRoyal Canadian Mounted PoliceOttawa

Ms Brenda ZaninSenior Communications StrategistCommunity, Contract and Aboriginal Policing ServicesRoyal Canadian Mounted PoliceOttawa

Dr Brian JonahSenior Research ScientistTransport Injury Research FoundationOttawa

UNITED STATESMr. Wally DeanBroadcast DirectorCommittee of Concerned Journalists Washington

Ms Susan GorcowskiAssociate AdministratorCommunications and Consumer InformationNational Highway and Traffic Safety AdministrationWashington

Ms Alice Mathews“New Media” ContractorNational Highway and Traffic Safety AdministrationWashington

Mr. Brad KalbfeldFormer Director of Special Projects at Associated Press Former Managing Editor, Broadcast at Associated Press Washington

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Mr. Dan Bleier *Communications CoordinatorAAA Foundation for Traffic SafetyWashington

Ms Tina PascoExecutive DirectorMothers Against Drunk DrivingLos Angeles

Mr. Ron Miller *Regional CoordinatorCalifornia Office of Traffic SafetyLos Angeles

Mr. Brandon Stone *Management AnalystHonolulu Police DepartmentHawaii

Ms Katie UrbaszewskiStaff WriterHonolulu AdvertiserHawaii

Mr. Mark Platte *Senior Vice President and EditorHonolulu AdvertiserHawaii

NOTES+ The Program does not list the various newspaper libraries visited as part of meeting preparation

and background research.* Due to a range of factors it was not possible to meet with some key stakeholders. Where these

people have commented, via email, on questions put to them they have been identified in the Program for the sake of completeness.

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DISCUSSION

Communicating Complex Scientific Information

Many scientists believe that journalists fail to do justice to their work. Many journalists believe that scientists are poor communicators. But at the end of the day, it is the public - the "third circle" reached by the media - who suffer from this communication breakdown. Which is why a number of avenues are now being explored in an attempt to renew links between researchers and journalists.

This quote originates from a newsletter (RTD Info, n.d.) as part of their Science and Society series and is heavily influenced by the work of Professor Labasse who I met in Lyon. The special edition of the newsletter asked the question ‘How is scientific knowledge communicated?’ The article answers this way: ‘In concentric circles, like the ripples sent out when a stone is thrown into water, simultaneously widening and losing their intensity and precision. The first circle is from scientist to scientist, knowledge first being recognised within the peer group. Nature, Science and other publications play a vital role is this ‘blessing’ of new knowledge and discoveries. Then the second circle, through specialised publications, lectures, colloquia, conferences and expert studies, scientists spread the word and help guide politicians in their choices. On the borderline between an informed and a more general public, they also publish their ideas on the Internet, where they are debated, interpreted and even discovered by those for whom they were not primarily intended’.

According to Professor Labasse, once people have completed their formal education, they acquire knowledge mainly via the mass media, either directly or indirectly – thus highlighting the importance of the mass media in the communication of road safety issues.

Supporting this observation, colleagues at INRETS in Salon De Provence, relayed an anecdote about the introduction of speed cameras in France. The first speed camera was not introduced until 2003, however, media commentary about the new measure commenced in 2002. Researchers observed a significant reduction in crashes even before the cameras were introduced – the assumption being, on the part of many readers/viewers, that the cameras had already been installed and were operational. A study published by the National Inter-ministerial Road Safety Observatory (ONISR 2006) noted:

… that CA (automated control speed cameras) would be responsible for 75% of the reduction (in driver’s speeds) obtained over the period 2002–05. When the authorities implemented the CA in 2002, the number of road deaths was some 7200, the number of injuries some 138,000 and there were 116,000 accidents involving injury. By 2007, the official figures were expected to show a reduction in deaths to 4700. It appears that the operations of CA has significantly contributed to these substantial decreases.

This anecdote highlights two things: the ability of the mass media to put an issue before the community and the widespread assumption on the part of many experts that the public actually care about their area of expertise and will absorb detailed information. Clearly in

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the case of speed cameras, audiences did not focus on the detail of these reports but more their general thrust i.e. that speed cameras became operational in 2002. The French speed camera example is now part of a growing body of literature on the halo effects of publicity.

One other aspect of the French experience is worthy of comment. As explained by (Carnis 2007):

In July 2002, France's president Jacques Chirac decided to make road safety a priority for his term in office. This political commitment from the top executive level was the main catalyst for initiating an important change in the public policy of road safety. The support of the President has undoubtedly contributed to the success of the policy changes (in areas like speed control policy) in terms of effectiveness (it has operated since 2003) and outcomes (high reductions of fatalities and injuries). The political impulse was a determining factor for having a good understanding of the implementation process. Road safety issues were put at the forefront of the political agenda.

This high level of support was useful in demonstrating to the public and interest groups that automated speed camera systems have an important safety role and are not just a tool to raise additional revenue from the motorist. By way of context, Professor Labasse observed that in France the media tend to be less adversarial than in some other countries, and tend to support the policies of the government of the day …”facts are less important than the concepts and ideas that underpin them. In relation to speed cameras, for example, it is accepted that the government has a right to place some constraints on society, in this case speeding, as such constraints are in the greater public good”. This perspective is in stark contrast to the situation in the UK and Australia where the media is far more adversarial.

Scientific communication is a discipline in its own right and it is not possible to do justice to the topic here. Suffice to say road safety professionals need to recognise that the communication of scientific information is a significant issue that warrants further attention. Many of the researchers I met, understandably, saw themselves in the business of producing academic knowledge and not in the business of taking responsibility for the wider dissemination of this knowledge. What is lacking are connections between these researchers and intermediaries with the skill to present this knowledge to a wider audience.

By way of a brief summary salient to this study, Professor Labasse observes: The news media are reluctant to go into complexity; There is a need to challenge the notion that because it is important to scientific

experts (road safety professionals) it will also be important to the news media and their audiences;

The importance of road safety may be over-emphasised in the news media; Scientists tend to over-estimate the intelligence of journalists; and, Scientists may over-estimate the public’s desire to know.

It is not surprising that during my discussions with road safety researchers the most frequent criticism aimed at journalists was that of misinforming their readers. Colleagues in Lyon mentioned a newspaper story that claimed speed limits were enforced with a

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tolerance of 1km/hour – clearly an unrealistic tolerance (and an inaccurate one) that generated a lot of adverse community comments about speed limit enforcement. The articles were counterproductive in terms of community understanding of the dangers of speeding. The journalist had simply got it wrong.

The difficulties associated with communicating complex information are not restricted to road safety issues. In an excellent article Living Can Be Hazardous to Your Health: How the News Media Cover Cancer Risks, Christine Russell (1999) argues that for more than two decades, the news media has bombarded the public with often conflicting information about health risks, contributing to an atmosphere of hype and hysteria about cancer and

other diseases. In order to improve media reporting of health risks, Russell suggests that greater efforts are required by both those who cover the news and those who create it. Guidelines for bringing more perspective and balance to media coverage are presented as one option. These include putting cancer in context with other diseases, explaining absolute and relative risks, differentiating between individual and population risks, stressing the degree of uncertainty of new research and how it fits with previous data, covering the process as well as end results of science, understanding different media constraints and needs, and taking into account the diverse backgrounds and needs of the target audience—the general public.

The parallels between what Russell is suggesting and the points made by Professor Labasse are worthy of noting.

Although the points made by Professor Labasse and others about the news media are well made, we may be seeing a period of transition away from traditional news media to Internet based communication vehicles. A report by Nielsen Online, the ‘10th Australian Internet and Technology Report’, found that the amount of time Australians are spending online has, for the first time ever, surpassed the amount of time spent watching television. The study found that Australians were spending around 13.7 hours per week surfing the internet, while average television viewing was around 13.3 hours per week. These data support observations made elsewhere about the importance of the Internet, and other emerging information technologies, as communication vehicles.

The Terminology of Crash-Related News Reports

While Master Oogway, senior master of the Jade Palace in the movie Kung Fu Panda, reminds his colelagues that “There are no accidents”, the news media sees life very differently. As illustrated by the table at Appendix A, the word “accident” appears frequently in reports about motor vehicle collisions. For all the reasons set out in the introduction to this report this is not a good thing.

Mr. John White advised that in the OECD context, the ‘Safety on Roads - What’s the Vision’ report, 2002, adopted “crashes" instead of “accidents”. The ‘Achieving Ambitious Road Safety Targets’ project recently produced a flagship report, “TOWARDS ZERO Ambitious Road Safety Targets and the Safe System Approach”, (2008) also clearly favours the use of crash-related terms: road crash, crashes, crash

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forces, treatment after crashes, as well as collisions and crash avoidance. He noted , however, some countries and important road safety bodies still use the term “accidents” and that as long as they do, it is harder to expect journalists to fall into line on the use of “crashes” and crash-related terminology.

The Department for Transport in London echoed these views noting they do not generally use the term “accident” in their communications. But somewhat curiously, they do not attempt to influence the terms which journalists use in their reports. This perspective is also reflected in a consultation paper on a new road safety strategy for Great Britain.  The consultation document, A Safer Way, proposes a new approach to road safety, ambitious new casualty reduction targets and a number of other measures to assist in achieving those targets.  It also proposes a long-term vision to make Britain’s roads the safest in the world. 

The paper puts forward four national targets for achievement by 2020, compared with the 2004-2008 average. The headline target is to reduce road deaths by one-third.  Further targets aim to reduce serious injuries on UK roads, also by one-third, and to halve the combined total of death and serious injuries to children. 

Depite the significant effort put into the consultation process for the new strategy (see http://www.dft.gov.uk/press/speechesstatements/statements/wmsrss) the news media are not identified as a key stakeholder nor are any media organisations listed as part of the consultation process. I made this point in an email to the consultation secretariat and during my meetings with Mr. Robert Gifford, Executive Director, Parliamentary Advisory Council for Transport Safety.

The UK Department of Transport has branded its road safety advertising under the banner of the THINK campaign. Ms Fiona Seymour, Head of Marketing for the campaign, advised that the THINK campaign does not use the word ‘accident’, rather, they tend to say collision or crash. However, as they are ‘paid for marketing’ and have complete control over the language used Fiona was unaware of any formal guidance for journalists on the issue.

In France, despite the close association with the OECD with its headquarters in Paris, “accident” terminology is prevalent in official publications. This is somewhat surprising given the rethinking of the road safety paradigm evident in the work at INRETS, CERTU and PREDIT (Program for Research, Experimentation and Innovation in Land

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Transport). These bodies have adopted a safe systems approach to safety which relies on interventions across all sectors. CERTU describes its approach this way:

On the subject of urban road traffic and safety, Certu promotes safe travel in the city thanks to a global approach to the road network and the urban environment. In particular, this approach aims to calm traffic and ensure shared use of public space, with the emphasis on the most vulnerable users (CERTU website: http://www.certu.fr/en/Urban_road_traffic_and_safety-n196-s_page_single.html).

The notion of “accident” is embedded deep within organisational structures and the emperical study of road crashes is refered to in France as “accidentology”. Whilst the research approaches are the same as in Australia the pervasive use of the term “accident” is unfortunate.

Canada’s approach to safety is summarised in its long term plan Road Safety Vision 2010. The plan is coordinated through the Canadian Council of Motor Transport Administrators (CCMTA) that brings together provincial, territorial and federal government officials along with other traffic safety stakeholders including the Canada Safety Council. CCMTA receives its mandate from the Council of Ministers Responsible for Transportation and Highway Safety. Road Safety Vision 2010, aims to make Canada’s roads the safest in the world by reducing the number of road fatalities and serious injuries by 30 per cent for the 2008-2010 period compared to 1996-2001 average figures. This would bring annual traffic fatalities below 2,100 and serious injuries below 13,000 by 2010. The plan uses crash related terminology and would seem to have wide buy-in from its various stakeholders. As shown in Appendix A, from a limited number of Canadian newspapers studied, the term “crash” tends to be used more than “accident”.

An impressive aspect of Canada’s Road Safety Vision 2010 is its incorporation into a wide range of public education activities which summarises the plan’s aims and targets. For example, S/Sgt Chris Fraser from the RCMP provided me with copies of the media toolkit for Canada’s Road Safety Week. These contained Fact Sheets containing key messages that were readily accessible for the news media with good follow-up coverage as evident in this report from the Toronto Star newspaper:

In addition to the annual holiday blitz, the OPP also participated in Canada Road Safety Week last week. In total, the OPP laid 217 impaired driving charges and handed out 182 short-term suspensions for also falling within the warning range. Another 146 drivers were nabbed for traveling more than 50 kilometers over the posted speed limit and a whopping 7,391 speeding charges were laid with 727 people charged for not wearing a seat belt (21 May 2009).

.The National Highway and Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) in Washington and the Office of Traffic Safety in Los Angeles advised they had been working for years to replace the use of the word accident with the words “crash” or “collision” when speaking or writing about traffic incidents. Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD) a major advocacy group in the US, has long stressed the same distinction and one former MADD employee advised he had numerous conversations with print and broadcast media about the use of the word accident versus using crash or collision. In fact every time he spoke

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with a reporter, he discussed the issue. One newspaper reporter explained to him that when she wrote her story, after the conversation, she used the word “collision”, but her editor changed it to accident and that it was the newspaper’s editorial policy to use the word accident. The Office of Traffic Safety says this is still an ongoing battle, but every time the issue is discussed, it is an opportunity to cause people to think about traffic crash causation.

One obvious difficulty with the media using crash related terms is the problem of implied causality. The word accident does not imply a particular party was at fault whereas if a journalist were to write “The bus crashed into the car” there is an implication that the driver of the bus was at fault. There is a way around this problem and that is for the issue to be dealt with by in-house style guides. Mr. Robert Holloway, Director of the Agence France Presse Foundation showed me the entry from the Agence France Presse (AFP) style guide.

Under the heading causation is the following advice:

Take care when using words which imply causation. Do not write that a driver crashed into or rammed another car, unless you know precisely what happened. To write that one vessel or vehicle collided with another, might be interpreted as laying the blame on the first mentioned. Instead write, for instance, the two vehicles collided in thick fog…Take care.

This is a pragmatic way of dealing with the issue. Mr. Holloway advised that in reality junior staff may not appreciate the subtleties of the points made in this advice, however, copy editors were well aware of the sensitivities and at this level corrections are often made to copy. The use of the word “accident” by law enforcement officers and spokespersons is an area where there is still room for improvement. While some have changed to using collision, many persist using the word accident. In California, many law enforcement agencies have a position titled “Accident Investigator”, and this has helped to unfortunately preserve the use of the word in the vernacular. Mr. Brandon Stone from the Honolulu Police Department (HPD) echoes these views, “We in the Hawaii injury prevention community tried to get our local media to stop using the word ‘accident’ in favor of ‘collision’ or ‘crash’, but enjoyed only modest success”. The HPD did, however, change the language used in official reports, switching to "motor vehicle collision" and similar terms. Mr. Stone noted “While our language reforms have not blossomed, our media efforts have done much better”.

Road Crash News Content

A road accident is over when the way has been cleared for traffic.But for the victims and their families, the life accident has just begun.(PREDIT, 2007, p. 74)

In addition to concerns about terminology, there are wider concerns about the content of news stories about road crashes. A branch of communication theory, called Media

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Framing, provides a basis for examining newspaper content in terms of what the media typically include in their coverage of certain issues and, equally importantly, what they choose to ignore. In the case of road trauma, stories tend to be framed around which driver is at fault and the tragic stories of those that have been killed. We hear little of the broader factors impacting on crash rates and the significant burden borne by families and the wider community in relation to those that are seriously injured.

These observations are supported by the academic literature. Surveys of mass media content related to social issues (for example Coleman and Perlmutter, 2005), suggest that coverage generally focuses on the individual ‘act’ rather than issues of cause and prevention. Other commentators (Connor and Wesolowski 2004) have noted that newspapers presented fatal crashes as dramas with a victim/villain storyline; in keeping with this narrative strategy, papers were most likely to cover stories where a driver survived to take the blame. By highlighting crashes that diverge from the norm, focusing on the assignment of blame to a single party, and failing to convey the message that preventive practices like seatbelt use increase odds for survival, newspapers remove crashes from a public health context and positioned them as individual issues.

The PREDIT report, quoted earlier, notes that road safety is understood as a policy aimed at reducing fatalities on the roads by acting on driver’s behaviours. This framing defines both the problem and the solution (2007, p. 19). The authors of the report note that speed and mobility are positive values in our society but there remains an ambiguity between safety and performance. They ask is it feasible to maintain this discourse of “always more and always better” while disregarding the shortcomings of the system and blaming everything on road-user behaviour? The authors conclude it seems necessary, without delay, to discuss and even to move away from the current prevailing approach to road safety (2007, p. 90).

As noted by a number of people I had discussions with, the unquestioning authority of the car and the right to unrestricted personal mobility is now being challenged due to higher energy costs and the environmental impacts of the automobile. Discussions in London coincided with the announcement of a buy-back policy whereby the government was attempting to get older, less fuel efficient, less safe, vehicles off the road. The scheme works this way:

The vehicle discount or ‘scrappage’ scheme is a voluntary scheme for motor dealers. If a dealer joins they’ll give you £2,000 off a new vehicle if you let them scrap your old one. The scheme will run from mid May 2009 to March 2010, depending on whether its fixed budget runs out sooner (Direct.gov.uk).

Similar initiatives have already been implemented in France, Germany and Brazil. A related issue is the bailout of three major car manufacturers in the US to prevent them from going out of business due to impacts associated with the global economic crisis. Many commentators are questioning whether this is an opportunity to build safety and more environmentally sound vehicles as well as considering alternative modes of transport such rail and public transport. Murphy (2008) notes the reluctance on the part of

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legislators and the public to adopt such innovative solutions due to the centrality of the motor vehicle as a mode of transport in the US.

Australian academic Sarah Redshaw, in her excellent book In the Company of Cars, observes that cars are not simply neutral transport technology: consumers are very attached to their vehicles and particular cars are seen as saying something about the individual who owns them. While drivers have traditionally been blamed for mishaps and disasters, she raises the importance of considering the interaction between car and driver. In this context cars are seen as dangerous machines that are articulated in particular ways related to the type of car as well as the characteristics of the driver. High performance vehicles and inexperienced male drivers are an obvious example of the increased risk associated with some of these articulations. Redshaw notes that a range of studies have demonstrated that young men tend to engage in behaviours that are more dangerous and risk related.

Redshaw also comments on the social and cultural nature of driving and the institutional support given to the car as the dominant mode of personal transport such as the enormous need for parking areas and the negative impact on streets and other public places. The sheer weight and ‘bullying’ power of a motor vehicle compared to a pedestrian or cyclist evokes a power that it is not available to those that are not motorized, suggesting that with the growth of car use, pedestrians and others are simply bullied out of the way.

Redshaw argues there is a need to review current transport policies, with their emphasis on driver centered values, to a greater recognition and focus on the community aspects of mobility, so that places are primarily designed for people and not for motor vehicles. While the move towards alternative fuels and less powerful engines makes perfect sense from an environmental perspective, the implications are that society will need to move away from high levels of privately owned motor vehicles and its attachment to the internal combustion engine and its ‘fire power’. These changes are challenging for our politicians but they are also challenging for our mass media given that they too are embedded within our current social system.

By way of example, in the October 13 (2008) edition of the Melbourne Herald Sun, Australia’s largest selling newspaper, there was substantial coverage given to the results of the Bathurst 1000 car race. The same edition also contained a major story about the deaths of a leaner-driver and his passenger: both had allegedly been drinking before going on a high-speed joy ride which resulted in their deaths. The paper’s cartoonist, Mark Knight, linked the two stories in his daily cartoon. The cartoon showed an ordinary sedan with the number-plate “Hoon”, enveloped by a phantom vehicle representing the winning car at Bathurst. The caption for the cartoon read “Not Craig Lowndes” – Craig Lowndes is a professional driver and was the winner of the 2008 Bathurst race.

The clear inference from the cartoon is that young male drivers, fixated by speed and power, are likely to be influenced by broader social activities like motor racing. While the Herald Sun has a long history of supporting road safety initiatives, and voicing concern over crash rates and trends, the paper’s coverage of the Bathurst race highlighted the

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thrill and excitement of high speed driving: “Roarest pleasure at the Great Race” and seemed at odds with its coverage of the young driver fatalities.

Another aspect of road crash news content that is worthy of comment is the preoccupation in Australia with ‘Holiday Road Tolls’: these are designated periods over Christmas, Easter and certain long weekends where the media compare fatality numbers for previous periods. Appendix A contains the results of a search in various Australian and overseas newspapers for the phrase ‘Holiday Road Toll’. The results show that this is somewhat of a unique Australian preoccupation with significant amounts of coverage given to the issue with zero results across Canada, the UK and the US. Road safety colleagues in the UK, Canada and the US indicated that there was some reporting of holiday tolls in the 70s but that the practice was not common now. Mr. Andrew Howard in the UK said that the Automobile Association had lobbied to get the practice stopped as it was a meaningless exercise; Dr Paul Boase from Transport Canada advised that the practice ceased when the Police Chief in Ontario voiced concerns about the message that was relayed from such reporting – he was worried that the focus on enforcement over holiday periods detracted from the fact that ‘we do it every day of the year’. Professor John Tulloch observed that the holiday road toll story had become a conventionalised schema that was very easy to write.

There are three concerns with stories about the holiday road toll. First, a study by the Australian Transport Safety Bureau in 2006 examined annual trends in road fatality numbers for Christmas and Easter holiday periods. The analysis of average number of deaths per day found that fatality rates during holiday periods were not systematically higher or lower than fatality rates at other times of the year. The study also found no evidence of any change in the involvement of primary causal factors (speeding, alcohol or fatigue). The findings are broadly consistent with the results of a similar study undertaken in 2003 – so one might argue that focussing on holiday tolls is misleading. Second, the concept of a “toll” implies a tax or duty that must be paid. It could be seen that the holiday death toll is a cost that the community must pay for the use of our road network and, philosophically, is a barrier towards adopting an approach like Vision Zero which states that no deaths on our roads are acceptable. Third, there is a real concern that this sort of extensive coverage over-exposes road safety as an issue that distracts the community from public health messages that could reduce death and injury.

Finally, there is a tendency in the news media to give better access to those that were critical of road safety policy than the proponents for such measures. Some examples:

AA rejects road safety measures as unworkable Irish Examiner, January 14, 2009

THE brakes were put on stringent proposals to restrict learner drivers on Irish roads yesterday after some of the radical road safety plans were deemed unworkable.

The tough measures proposed by the Road Safety Authority (RSA) to curb road deaths include “punishing” learner drivers with double penalty points, forcing L-plate drivers to spend nearly €1,000 on lessons and banning them from driving at night.

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While some of new graduated licensing system proposals were welcomed, the Automobile Association (AA) warned others would be hard to police and involved practical difficulties.

The 7.30 Report television current affairs program in Australia:

MATT PEACOCK: We're told that speed kills.But some say it's not necessarily the speed that kills

DR ALAN BUCKINGHAM, SOCIOLOGIST, BATH SPA UNIVERSITY COLLEGE: Speeding is quite a rare cause of accidents.

Stephanie Cuthbert (2001) provides numerous examples of negative reports about speed cameras. She summarises the negative discourse this way:

The government and their stooges in the police force want to control our lives and extract as much money from us as possible. They employ next generation space age technology in order to do this. Speed cameras, which invade our privacy and raid our pockets, are another example of the measures they will take to achieve their foul aims. Speed cameras are used under the guise of reducing the road toll but speeding is merely a scapegoat used to avoid taking responsibility for driver training and poor road engineering. The truth is, a little speeding never did anyone any harm. For the hapless motorist, the best approach is to treat the whole thing as a game and use tricks and strategies to avoid getting caught.

This type of negative discourse was also commented on during discussions in the UK and Canada.

The Public Health Model of Reporting

Researcher D'Anne Hatley (2006) examined the public health model of reporting which posits that causes that lead to injury and death are thought to be preventable instead of inevitable by investigating the connection among the victims, the agent, and the environment. Under this model public health experts endeavor to pinpoint risk factors, then design and assess methods to prevent problems that impact on public health.

The model’s principal aim is to change the underlying conditions in society that lead to and prolong such problems, Hatley notes that for years, public health experts have recognized the power of the news media to alter the conditions that cause public health problems.

Many communication experts argue the news media’s focus on stories of individual suffering and struggle has resulted in the public blaming individuals for their health problems as opposed to holding society, government or other institutions responsible when appropriate. An alternative approach involves viewing health problems and conditions as part of a broader context.

Hatley notes this approach has a long history within the field of public health. In the 1960s, public health experts recommended adding safety features to cars, wearing seatbelts, and not drinking and driving to decrease the number of automobile deaths and injuries. As she points out, until the 1960s, society blamed “the nut behind the wheel” for

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traffic crashes. Prevention strategies were limited to requesting people to drive more safely. As researchers started recognizing societal and environmental risk factors and their roles in auto crashes, public health advocates sought to change the coverage of these events by presenting the findings to the news media. News stories started including the type of cars involved in crashes, as well as hazardous road and weather conditions. She argues this led to a change in the public’s views about the reasons for auto deaths and injuries, and the public passed social policies to discourage drunk driving, build safer roads, and compel car manufacturers to design safety features into cars.

The challenge then is to encourage the news media to move away from current media frames to a public health model of reporting.

One of the growing concerns of the injury prevention community in Honolulu, is the declining importance and viability of daily newspapers in spreading information. As noted by the HPD, “It looks as though the landscape is changing at an accelerating pace, and newspaper coverage - even the most positive - will be of less use in informing the community and shaping public opinion. The search is on for new strategies”.

The Contemporary Media Environment

As noted in the introduction, in the countries I visited, and is typical in the western news media today, road crashes generally do not meet reporting thresholds for news. They are so common they are not regarded as being sufficiently newsworthy to make it into the paper or news bulletin. The US is typical. Despite the fact that over 40,000 people are killed in road crashes each year, very few of these deaths are reported in the national news media. One reader of the USA Today newspaper made the following observation:

I have always wondered how road deaths would compare to the deaths of our service-members currently in combat zones…Since 1995, the annual total (of road deaths) has ranged between 41,000 and 43,000. In five years, that is approximately 200,000 deaths. In five years of the Iraq war, we have had approximately 3,000 deaths… About 70 of us die in our cars for every one soldier's death. (M. Lieder 2007)

These observations reflect, perhaps, that in those countries that have not moved to a Vision Zero approach towards road safety – where no deaths on the road network is regarded as acceptable (see the Conclusion for further discussion of this issue) society has become accepting of a certain level of road trauma. They also reflect hard-headed decisions about what audiences are interested in. Mr. Brad Kalbfeld, Former Director of Special Projects at Associated Press, explained the process this way “when I look at a possible story I am interested in two things: first, will I maintain my audience numbers and second, will I keep my job”.

The media environment has changed significantly over the last two decades (Australian Press Council 2006). Following a national study of newspaper content, the Press Council made these observations:

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The data are threatening. Reading habits are changing. Some age groups are reading newspapers less. Circulation is threatened. Nearly half of those who read Australian metropolitan newspapers are over fifty. Successful responses to the ubiquitous Internet challenge are essential.

Consequently newspaper companies are clearly in a transformational phase. The universal response is to embrace and try to make the Internet a second source of revenue. Nobody is sure where present trends will lead (free-to-air TV is feeling the Internet's effects in the same way). Preferences for modes of access to news as hand-held downloading devices become more available and online access more universal are yet to unfold fully.

Such is the significance of the 'new media' for the future of newspapers that the relevant data concerning the interaction of print and online versions of newspapers and the first reports on the rapidly developing blogosphere are essential inclusions (APC 2006).

Competition from the electronic media has resulted in newspapers moving towards the editorial and opinion business and away from the reporting business – quite simply it is cheaper. Some commentators argue this trend has also led to a dumbing down of media product and a move away from the journalism of verification to a journalism of assertion.

Media organisations are also becoming more business orientated (Kirk 2006) and the search for profit has impacted on the more costly forms of journalism such as investigative reporting with a significant decline in this area. We are also witnessing the impact of the Internet as an information source and the emergence of other forms of information technology, like mobile phones, where images and voice ‘grabs’ can be captured by anyone, published on the Internet or sent to media outlets.

The news media in Australia has a tendency to over-report crash events as opposed to analyses of the factors that lead to crashes, remedies, trends or issues. Knowing that journalists are under enormous pressure means that the packaged story, with relevant footage, spokespersons and background material, has a much higher probability of getting positive media coverage.

Wilson (2001) reports on the outcomes arising from a UK Conference that examined police/media relations and there are a range of insights that are relevant to the interface between the media and road safety professionals. The Conference observed that stories that arouse fear sell papers, and journalists exploit this – for example:

Fatal high-speed crash 'worst' ever

POLICE are investigating a crash in which two young men died in Sydney early this morning as the "worst" they've ever seen.

Two men aged in their 20s died on impact when a late model Alfa Romeo sedan slammed in to a power pole on Epping Road at Marsfield around 3am (Daily Telegraph, April 21, 2009).

The Daily Telegraph story focusses on the horror of the crash scene, a frame supported by the comments of emergency service personnel – in this case the police:

"In my 34 years in the police, it is the worst I've ever seen," Superintendent Peter Marcon from Eastwood police said.

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"It's like the vehicle exploded on impact."

"It was quite horrific and pretty disappointing."

Emergency service personnel should be encouraged to move away from these sorts of comments and focus on providing contextual information to the journalist. For example, a crash involving a novice driver and a carload of passengers could be used to make the following points:

Novice drivers are over-represented in crash data by a ratio of at least 3:1. Young drivers generally use less safe older vehicles because they are more

affordable, hence injury risk in a crash is higher. Young driver crash rates are elevated sharply when they drive late at night and

during early morning hours and when carrying two or more passengers; and That is why road safety authorities are examining curfews and passenger

restrictions for this group (National Road Safety Action Plan 2007 and 2008).

These comments do not go to the causal factors of the particular crash but highlight a broader pattern and set an agenda in terms of possible counter-measures. Similarly, a crash involving a motorcycle could point to the following messages:

Motorcyclists face a fatal crash risk about 20 times higher than drivers; their relative risk of serious injury is even higher.

Over 40 per cent of fatal motorcycle crashes are single-vehicle crashes. The severity of injuries faced by motorcyclists is higher than for other road user

groups. Potential riders should consider carefully the purchase of a motorcycle

particularly if the decision is lifestyle based Riders should undertake specialist courses to mitigate the higher risks they face. Promote to riders the safety advantages of ABS and linked braking systems in

motorcycles.

The St Catherine’s Conference mentioned earlier supports this approach and questioned whether this assumption couldn’t be turned around and positive stories, told in an interesting way, could also be used to sell papers. The Conference posed the question whether newspapers underestimate the curiosity and intelligence of the public and whether stories did need to be written to the lowest common denominator. Certainly in the case of the United States the study of television news content (Rosenstiel et, al. 2007) strongly suggests that media professionals need to rethink the way they view audiences. The traditional ‘audiences are dumb’ approach needs to be replaced with an ‘audiences are savvy’ particularly in the area of health where audiences want more data to back up the conflicting claims made in medical stories (2007, p. 52).

The study by Rosenstiel et, al established that that many of the best-known bits of conventional wisdom are demonstrably false – the idea that it is more important to “hook and hold” an audience than to cultivate one, the reliance on police tape to “grab

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eyeballs,” and the belief that TV can’t do idea stories well. The study found that what makes stories resonate with audiences was expert sources particularly when stories contained divergent viewpoints. Mr. Wally Dean, who was involved in the study and whom I met in Washington, said that one of the main findings from the study was that the better the data the better the ratings. So too the fact that hard work pays off with the inclusion of good graphics and comment from expert sources. However, as Mr. Dean pointed out, journalists in newsrooms are being asked to write more stories: in 1998 the average TV journalist wrote 1.4 stories per day, by 2003 it was 1.8 stories per day, now it is likely to be 2 stories plus. As Mr. Dean pointed out newsrooms are now under great stress and if you are relying on the news media to carry your message this needs to be recognized and accommodated as part of any communications strategy.

The fundamental ideal embedded in journalist codes of ethics is the objective reporting of events. However, we have seen in Australia over the last three decades, a more active media intent on pursuing a particular agenda. An issue to emerge during a number of meetings was the fact that journalists would come to a press conference about a piece of research, or ring up about a particular issue, and ask a series of questions aimed at supporting a preconceived idea such as speed cameras are really revenue raisers. Road safety researchers found this very frustrating and difficult to deal with. Colleagues in France argued that, in their experience, it was very difficult for journalists to step outside their own experience. Often this was based on notions that crashes were the result of a single “cause” or that some other group (to which they did not belong – such as young drivers) were a major problem. Whilst the scientists were data led journalists were more subjective. This suggests two completely different world views. The difficulty arising from this scenario is that the media has the ability to put pressure on politicians and other decision makers to address what may be atypical or lower order safety issues.

Chartier and Gabler (2001) noted that journalists are not educators, or at least, that is not their primary role. From this perspective, it is not surprising that media coverage seldom results in more than cursory coverage of an issue, contributing little if anything to the more complicated process of working through the problems. According to Yankelovich (1991), news coverage that presents positions as adversarial often actually retards progress towards dealing meaningfully with issues.

Chartier and Gabler (2001) also observe that drama seems to be the mainstay of media coverage. The media tend to highlight existing concerns, uncertainties and conflicts, rarely question the legitimacy of any source, and present all sources on an equal footing – these observations were reflected by the majority of road safety researchers I spoke to. Information is provided to the public with little or no analysis of its technical accuracy. This scenario presents major challenges for road safety professionals in trying to communicate alternative, ‘expert’, views to the public. The key, according to Professor Labasse in France, and Wally Dean in the US, was to make road safety stories interesting to the media – to take them beyond the mundane by providing data, trends and patterns. The media have neither the time nor the skills to do this – the obligation is on the road safety authorities.

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The St Catherine’s Conference Report (Wilson 2001) contained some practical suggestions aimed at narrowing the gap between the media’s view of the world and that of subject matter experts. The report recommends that system experts need to take risks and let the media into its world, so that real communication can take place; and, that the media should be made more accountable.

A recent story in the Canberra Times illustrates this point. The theme of the story was that speed cameras were largely revenue raisers:

Speed cameras net $14.5m, up 45pc in a year

THE TOTAL speed camera revenue in the ACT has jumped 45 per cent in a year to $14.5 million with the addition of lucrative new speeding hot spots.

A stretch of the Monaro Highway at Hume is proving to be a profitable speed trap for the ACT Government with two new speed cameras there alone generating $3million in fines last financial year.

Two other new cameras on the Barton Highway between Curran Drive and Gold Creek Road generated $21. million during the 12 months.

Already notorious speed cameras on Hindmarsh Drive at Phillip, near the fire station, and on the Federal Highway approaching the Antill Street roundabout southbound have also proven to be top earners for the Government, generating $960,000 and $1.6 million in fines respectively.

The Government has released to The Sunday Canberra Times new figures showing the revenue generated camera-by-camera.

The story included a defence of the cameras by a spokesperson for Territory and Municipal Services (the Department that administers the speed camera program in the ACT):

The cameras were on roads with “high volumes of traffic traveling at higher speeds and where a crash can have profound consequences”.

The Department has a website that explains the rationale behind the speed camera program – see http://www.tams.act.gov.au/move/roads/road_safety/speedandspeeding/act_government_safety_camera_program/mobile_speed_cameras. It explains, for example, that:

Mobile Speed Camera sites in the Australian Capital Territory have been selected based on data related to speed-related crash history and current speed surveys. At present there are 120 sites on the ACT mobile speed camera network.

One could ask the question ‘Why not list the summaries of the speed and crash data for each site?’ This would provide the media, and the public, with the data on which the program is based. If the location of the cameras is data driven – why not provide the data? The absence of data allows the issue to be framed as a conjecture story and the response of the Department looks weak.

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As suggested by the St Catherine’s Conference, the Victoria Police is taking the ‘risk’ of letting the media, and the wider community, into their world by publishing local area crime statistics on their website:

The Victoria Police My Place online application allows you to see what crime is taking part in your area and learn tips on how to prevent it.By entering your postcode into My Place, you are taken to your Police Service Area (PSA).Here you can view your local crime statistics, read a message from your local police inspector and follow links to targeted crime prevention tips.

Road safety authorities could do well to reflect on this practice – such practices could reduce the amount of negative reports about road safety programs. As noted earlier, the Honolulu Police Department (HPD) has had some success in achieving a more productive relationship with the news media. They put this down to a combination of several factors:

HPD constantly tries to get useful and compelling traffic safety information out to the media, as does the state Department of Transportation and other agencies;

HPD has a good relationship with the local media; and HPD, often in collaboration with other partners, frequently runs high-

profile traffic safety campaigns which are very well-reported by the media.

The state of Hawaii is relatively small, and traffic is one thing that has a great impact on residents. Many people in the community often know those involved in noteworthy collisions, prompting significant media coverage. The following is an extract of a road safety related story from the Honolulu Advertiser:

Police remind drivers about new cell phone law

Ignorance of the law will be no excuse for drivers receiving a $67 first-offense ticket on or after July 1 for operating electronic devices while driving, police said yesterday.

Police are using as many resources as they can to get the message out that when that law goes into effect, it will be illegal for drivers to use their hand-held cell phones, iPods or any other portable electronic equipment while their engines are running.

The law is sure to affect a lot of people. About 4 out of every 5 Hawai'i residents subscribe to a wireless service, according to 2007 figures from the Federal Communications Commission.

Department of Transportation overhead message boards began flashing reminders for drivers yesterday afternoon.

The story, whilst routine, is informative and supportive of the local authorities. As mentioned elsewhere the story was placed on the papers website and was supported by vision taken by the journalist at the police press conference launching the initiative. A win-win situation for all involved.

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Emerging Communication Technologies

Did You Know?There are 200 million registered users of MySpace.If MySpace was a country it would be the 5th largest in the world (between Indonesia and Brazil)(YouTube 2008 )

Colleagues in Canada brought to my attention an incident involving the withdrawal of a piece of road safety legislation following a FaceBook campaign against the measure. In November 2008, the Canadian province of Ontario introduced legislation that, amongst other things, would have limited drivers 19 years and under and holding a G2 license to having only one teen passenger in the vehicle. Irate teen drivers responded by creating protest groups on social networking site Facebook. A group started by Jordan Sterling, a Grade 12 student from Hamilton, Ontario, managed to attract nearly 150,000 responses in a matter of weeks. A copy of the FaceBook page is reproduced at Appendix B. The campaign called for FaceBook users to join the campaign be emailing their members of parliament (email addresses were provided), by emailing the Premier (his address was also provided) and by signing an online petition. The campaign was eventually picked up by the news media with the Canadian Press carrying the following report:

Ontario may be willing to back off from a proposed regulation that would restrict teen drivers to just one teenage passenger in a car, Premier Dalton McGuinty suggested Wednesday after an online protest against the new rules grew to more than 117,000 members.

The protest group was set up on Facebook last week after the Liberal government announced a package of reforms aimed at young drivers, including a zero blood-alcohol limit for all drivers 21 and under and licence suspensions for those caught speeding (November 26 2008).

The FaceBook campaign illustrates a number of things: the use of such media by audiences that are difficult to reach by traditional means; the speed at which information can be disseminated through these new media forms; and the potential power of such forums to influence decision makers. Whilst this case study illustrates the negative side of new media (where opponents of safety legislation can be mobilised) it also illustrates the potential of FaceBook and Twitter to reach younger audiences and the need for road safety authorities to engage audiences through these tools and to be aware of the nature of the discourses taking place. The NHTSA, for example, typed “NHTSA” as a search term into Twitter and discovered that the role of NHTSA was widely misunderstood.

The NHTSA in the United States now allocates 15 per cent of its road safety advertising budget to new media and Australian authorities might consider reviewing their advertising budget allocations in light of this.

As an interesting aside, the Victoria Police Force is leading the way, in terms of government agencies, with its approach to new media. As illustrated by the following

comments from their Chief Commissioner, Mr. Simon Overland:

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I hope you have all had a chance to have a look at our new website Victoria Police News (www.vicpolicenews.com.au), launched in April.The website is just one of many ways Victoria Police is embracing the digital age. We are committed to new media communications, such as SMS, online forums, video, audio, podcasts, vodcasts and regular use of social media.

Victoria Police have established a Digital Media Unit to maintain its various online outlets (Victoria Police 2009). These include:

Victoria Police News website Victoria Police Twitter

Victoria Police Forcebook

VPBlueTube and

My Place

A quick glance at road safety websites in Australia suggests there is much to do in this area. Whilst road safety authorities in some of the smaller jurisdictions may not have the resources to replicate what the Victoria Police have done, it may be possible to enter into some form of collaborative venture with federal authorities. To some extent this form of cooperation exists with the provision of holiday fatality data to the media – as noted elsewhere in the report, the value of providing such data is questionable.

For those interested in the new media Ms Alice Mathews, a new media consultant to the NHTSA, recommended checking the Ad Council website http://www.adcouncil.org/default.aspx?id=15 for information about the use of new media in public service advertising campaigns. The Ad Council (www.adcouncil.org) is a private, non-profit organization that marshals talent from the advertising and communications industries, the facilities of the media, and the resources of the business and non-profit communities to produce, distribute and promote public service campaigns on behalf of non-profit organizations and government agencies.

One of the Council’s current campaigns, developed for the NHTSA, relates to an ongoing drunk-driving campaign. The campaign’s aim was to inspire dialogue and recognition of the dangers of "buzzed" driving (driving after a few drinks while not being overtly drunk) and subsequently, to motivate people to stop driving buzzed. The overall campaign hopes to educate people that consuming even a few drinks can impair driving.

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The campaign materials have been linked to Facebook, YouTube and Twitter sites (see the following link Buzzed Driving is Drunk Driving).

CONCLUSION

The main finding from my Fellowship is that traditional approaches to communication are becoming redundant. Road safety authorities are encouraged to go to the link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rjKBsfk_O8c and watch the YouTube presentation ‘Did You Know’ and reflect to on to what extent they are abreast of these opportunities and, in light of these data, how effective are existing communication strategies in this environment? The YouTube presentation is thought provoking and suggests opportunities for addressing many of the difficulties experienced with traditional news media.

The YouTube presentation contains some startling data: There are over 70 million blogs and counting 1,000,000 (million) posts each day to these blogs The blogosphere is over 60 times bigger than it was 3 years ago 81% of students (in the US) have email accounts 75% of students (in the US)have IM (instant messaging) accounts YouTube serves 100 million videos per day MySpace users call up an average of 31.5 billion unique page views per month There are 2.7 billion searches performed by Google each month The number of text messages sent everyday exceeds the population of the planet.

As the presentation notes “We live in exponential times”. Where this Fellowship began, with a concern about how the news media covers road crashes, whilst still a salient issue – particularly for older audiences that actually read newspapers, this focus has been overshadowed by the need to consider and embrace new forms of communication – especially for younger audiences. As the example of the abandonment of proposed passenger restrictions for novice drivers in Ontario illustrates, young people are adept at utilising these technologies in a very powerful way.

My concern is that those charged with communicating complex information to the community, road safety authorities in this case, are rooted in the past and failing to adapt fast enough to these new technologies.

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A caveat: these are big issues and my observations are necessarily broad. There is no such thing as ‘the news media’ but rather countless transactions everyday between journalists, readers and information sources. Some newspapers are serving their readers well and I would put the Honolulu Advertiser in this category. That paper not only publishes road safety ‘think pieces’ but, as explained by staff writer Katie Urbaszewski, but routinely requires journalists to film road safety press conferences conducted by the police department and puts these presentations on their website for their readers to view first hand. The Victoria Police is another example of an agency that appears to be embracing new communication technologies. But these two examples, from my research and travels seem to be the exception rather than the norm. To serve the community, all road safety ‘actors’, as the French put it, need to consistently do a lot better.

As Hatley (2006) notes, reporters believe that telling the story through the experience of a single individual increases readership or viewers by drawing people into the story. Local news especially operates on the concept that audience members must be able to relate the story to their own lives. They believe the audience is looking for a “what's in it for me” story with personal relevance. She cautions that public health experts must understand how journalists operate and use it to their advantage. Journalists are not likely to abandon the sort of episodic framing outlined in the section on Road Crash News Content because that is the type of frame that generates personal relevance in audiences.

One positive finding to emerge from Hatley’s study is that thematic loss frames significantly increased societal attribution of responsibility. In other words, framing contextual information about the underlying causes of and solutions to health problems in terms of loss, is the most effective way to communicate responsibility attribution to audience members. Hatley notes the media have often been criticised for giving more attention to negative stories indicating the presence of risks than to positive ones indicating the absences of risks. Using a loss frame will appeal to the news media and possibly make it easier for public health experts to get the media to use thematic framing in their stories.

Because research shows stories containing a threat message are more effective when a hope message is included, public health experts could provide journalists with thematic loss information in order to explain road trauma risks as well as an individual story of hope to attract audience members. Many journalists are uncomfortable with the idea of advocating certain behaviors or ways of thinking because they believe it is their duty to inform the public and not influence behavior.

Towards Vision Zero

Abandoning the word accident is more than a pedantic preference.

One of the 2006 Churchill Fellows, Mr. Rifat Shoukrallah, used his Fellowship to examine road safety policies, particularly engineering measures implemented as a result of these policies and their effectiveness in Sweden, Norway, Denmark, UK and Japan.

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Mr. Shoukrallah commented on the move by a number of countries to embrace a philosophy called Vision Zero. He notes:

In October 1997, the Road Traffic Safety Bill was passed in the Swedish parliament. The Bill is based on Vision Zero which aims that ‘eventually no one will be killed or seriously injured within the road transport system’5. Zero is not a target to be achieved by a certain date. It is, however, a change from an emphasis on current problems and possible ways of reducing these to being guided by what the optimum state of the road transport system should be.

The vision is based on: Ethics (every human being is unique and irreplaceable) and Science (human physical and mental capabilities are known and should form the basis for road design. Knowledge of our limited ability and tolerance in a crash should be premises for chosen solutions and measures). Vision Zero also changes the emphasis in responsibility for road safety from the road user only to a shared responsibility by all those who have an effect on, or participate in, road traffic (politicians, designers, planners, road managers, vehicle manufacturers, transport companies, the police and road users).

Consistent with moves in a number of overseas countries, most notably Sweden, the road safety paradigm in Australia needs to move away from the “road crash as accident” paradigm towards a one that adopts a zero tolerance towards fatal road crashes. The encouragement of a more appropriate reporting style will facilitate such a change.

Where to from here?

There is some guidance available from another area of public health. Researchers found that media portrayals of mental illness and suicide perpetuated a number of community myths about these problems. The Mindframe Media and Mental Health Project aims to build a collaborative relationship with the Australian media and mental health systems to enable a more accurate and sensitive portrayal of suicide and mental health issues. Key activities undertaken by the Project include:

the development of a resource kit for use by media professionals including the companion website; and

delivery of face-to-face briefings with a diverse range of media organisations providing opportunity for discussion on issues to consider when reporting.

The print and web based resources are designed to help media professionals continue to report suicide and mental illness responsibly and accurately (see http://www.mindframe-media.info/site/index.cfm?display=85542).

Police, road safety authorities and the media could work together in a similar fashion to develop media resources to assist journalists in their reporting of road crashes. Consideration could be given to the development of guidelines that would assist both police and the media. The current National Road Safety Action Plan 2007 and 2008 provides a good foundation for such work. The Australasian College of Road Safety is well placed to coordinate the development of guidelines and to post these and other resources on our website.

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RECOMMENDATIONS

The following recommendations are grouped under institutional responsibilities.

Road Safety Authorities Abandon the use of the term “accident” and adopt crash related terminology in all

forms of communication Consider enhancing web-based communication tools to communicate directly

with target audiences Consider allocating a percentage of road safety advertising budgets to new media

forms such as FaceBook, YouTube and Twitter Consider the constraints faced by the media and place greater emphasis on

providing material in more easily accessible forms Consider refocusing public communication efforts into explaining context as

opposed to exhortations to obey certain rules Place greater emphasis on the “safe systems” approach The news media be recognized as an important stakeholder when developing road

safety action plans Professional road safety associations, such as the Australasian College of Road

Safety, consider forming a working party to consider how best to provide guidance to the news media to encourage better reporting outcomes.

Media Professionals Abandon the use of the term “accident” and adopt crash related terminology in

road safety related stories Check in-house style guides to ensure that guidance is provided on the use of

crash related terminology Ask road safety spokespersons for context Seek to be recognized as a key stakeholder in relation to the communication of

major pieces of road safety policy such as aspirational targets and plans Be aware of the possibility that some road crash stories, such as those associated

with holiday road tolls, have become a convention that is easy to write but have little substance

Accept the challenge of informing the public on road safety issues such as the fact that road safety applies to every day of the year – not just holiday times

Emergency Response Personnel Abandon the use of the term “accident” and adopt crash related terminology for

communication activities, reports and organizational naming conventions Attempt to reduce the “road crash as horror frame” by providing contextual

statements to the media

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IMPLEMENTATION

In the Introduction to this report it was noted that ‘… the report aims to stimulate discussion of the issues and for other parties to respond to the recommendations as they see fit’.

Having said that a number of activities have been undertaken to progress some of these issues, these include:

Publishing articles about the Fellowship in the mainstream news media; Publishing an article in the June edition of the Australian Police Journal; Publishing an article in the Journal of the Australasian College of Road Safety; Publishing a copy of this report on the website of the NRMA-ACT Road Safety

Trust; Providing copies of the Australian Police Journal article to Mr. Tom Vanderbilt, a

widely published author of the book Traffic: Why We Drive The Way We Do for inclusion on his Blog;

Inclusion of a range of materials relevant to this topic in resource materials for the Police and the Media Unit, in the Police Masters Program at Charles Sturt University;

Suggesting to the Chairperson of the Australasian College of Road Safety that he consider establishing a working group to look at providing guidance for journalists in their coverage of road crashes; and

Presenting the findings of the fellowship at a Road Safety Communication Seminar being hosted by the ACT Branch of the Australasian College of Road Safety later in the year.

These activities have started the ball rolling, there is much more that needs to be done.

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APPENDIX A

SEARCH OF NEWSPAPER ARCHIVES FOR KEY TERMS(Number of mentions for the period 1 July 08 – 1 July 09)

COUNTRY PAPER “Car accident” “Car crash” “Holiday road toll”

“Young drivers”

Australia The Australian 605 1044 70 539The Courier Mail 953 1638 81 556The Daily Telegraph

1133 1708 70 790

Sydney Morning Herald

102 65 1 21

Melbourne Herald Sun

1295 2003 96 759

Melbourne Age 121 73 5 18Adelaide Advertiser

998 1652 58 635

Australian Associated Press (AAP)

58 125 10 35

NEWS LtdNews.com.au

782 1255 50 470

France No meaningful results due to language differences

- - - -

Canada Canadian Press (numerous titles – similar to NEWS Ltd)

744* 1080* 1 179

Toronto Star 29 34 0 67National Post 41 70 0 3

United Kingdom

The Times 50ẽ 275 0 3

The Guardian 35 58 0 36Daily Star 22 116# 0 2Daily Mail 9 8 0 2Daily Express 20 110# 0 5

USA Washington PostUSA Today 40 77 0 9LA Times 187# 158# 0 1Honolulu Advertiser

27 48 0 2

Notes* Due to the limitations of this database, a monthly total was multiplied to get an approximate yearly

figure. A search of the entire period exceeded the number of results that could be shown on the screen (300)

# These figures are likely to be inflated by a number of sports stories that were for some reason included in the search results. It was not possible to eliminate these use tighter search criteria

ẽ This figure is an estimate as problems with the website meant that a calculation needed to be made on aggregated data back to 2005.

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APPENDIX B(Edited) Extract from FaceBook page

Young Drivers Against New Ontario Laws

Type: Student Groups - General

Description:

PASSENGER RESTRICTIONS ARE NO LONGER ON THE LEGISLATION, WE GOT THEM REMOVED.CHEERS.

Announced on November 16th, 2008, new laws will be introduced into the legislature regarding driving laws and teenagers under the age of 21. Anyone with any driving experience is familiar with the current graduated licensing system, and the restrictions they entail. G1 drivers need fully licensed driver with them, a zero blood alcohol level, etc. G2 drivers must have a blood alcohol level of zero, and in the first 6 months of their G2, they can only have one passenger after midnight. Speeding tickets apply as they would to any licensed driver (demerit points, fines, and whatnot). Annoying, but fair I suppose. Apparently though, these laws are not enough. What does this new legislation consist of? See the article below for the full story, but here's a general summary:

PASSENGER RESTRICTIONS ARE NO LONGER ON THE LEGISLATION, WE GOT THEM REMOVED.1. A new "zero-tolerance" policy will be instituted regarding speeding. This means that any driver under the age of 21 with a G1 or G2 will risk losing their license if they are caught speeding. No questions asked. Strict suspension policies also apply to G drivers.For speeding that causes demerit points, the following rules apply.- First instance - 30-day licence suspension;- Second instance - 90-day licence suspension;- Third instance - the driver must return to the start of the graduated licensing program (G1). Whether it be 10 km/h over the speed limit or 50 km/h, we can kiss our license goodbye.2. Same idea as above with the "zero-tolerance", but this one is in regards to drinking. NO ONE under the age of 21 will be allowed to drive with ANY amount of alcohol in their system. If they are found to have the slightest bit of alcohol in their blood, their license is pulled. Just like that. Gone. The G license no longer allows you to have a blood alcohol level of 0.05. Blood alcohol must be ZERO at all times, or you run the risk of losing your license.3. This one might be the worst. It involves G2 drivers. At NO point is ANY G2 driver allowed to have more than ONE passenger under the age of 19 in their car, in their first year of G2. At any time. One friend, max. This doesn't apply to family. Thinkin of packing a car full of friends like usual? Forget it. They'll take your license.----------------------------------------------------------------------Feeling ambitious? Feel free to send our MPP an email, voicing your opinion. Be respectful, or your email will be ignored. But stand strong on your point. NOTE: This is the address for the Stoney Creek MPP. PLEASE email your appropriate MPP for your area! Here's the list:http://www.ontla.on.ca/web/members/member_addresses.do?locale=en

HOW TO HELP & GET INVOLVEDSend McGuinty an email!https://www.premier.gov.on.ca/feedback/feedback.asphttp://www.petitiononline.com/ydont/petition.htmlONLINE PETITION.SIGN IT!JOIN THE PROTEST!!http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=35271482979#/event.php?eid=36910421655

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