Mass Media Programs in Reporting Road Safety in Tanzania

Road mobility is a primary requirement for human life that has become a universal calamity as an ever-rising cause of death and disability worldwide. Mass media mostly radios and journalists can play a key role to raise knowledge on road safety. Road safety mass media campaigns play an important role in improving road safety by promoting safe behaviours. In particular, they can publicize preventive messages and promote safe behaviours through radio programs which riches mass, increase people's awareness and understanding of the seriousness of the problem and advocate for safer roads and systems. Unfortunately, it happens often that journalists write on traffic and safety related issues only when they have to report on a crash. In these cases, reporters tend to have little time to explore a variety of angles for their stories or to understand why accidents happen or why some of them are fatal or what the consequences are for the families, communities and society at large. The result is that most traffic-related news limit to the What, Who, Where, When and Why and to inform readers about what happened. Yet, it is by analyzing the causes and consequences of road accidents, by shifting from traffic-related stories to road safety pieces that journalists can contribute most effectively to change.

In Tanzania as well the record of road accidents was very high last 10 years ago although it has started to decrease in 2017 due to new policies introduced Tanzania Police Force under new administration of newly elected president and the way traffic police department has started to do their work practically by measuring whether a driver was drunk or not, putting a technological tools that monitor the speed of cars especially passenger buses which travel to different region, enforce the laws and bylaws. The so-called the introduction of BODABODA has also increased the number of accidents and deaths. In other hand media in Tanzania have tried to produce a television and radio programs to create awareness and educate people, for example, TBC has introduced a radio program called SAFIRI SALAMA to educate the society about road safety issues since 2008.

Still, there is a challenge because the majority of media in Tanzania do not have radio or television programs that provide education on road safety and extensively organize the workshops for road safety despite the high number of deaths as a result of road accidents. In this scenario, media owners and the government could put emphasis on having many different programs regarding road accidents and safety.