Topic > Mass Media Programs to Report Road Safety in Tanzania

Road mobility is a primary requirement for human life which has become a universal calamity as an ever-increasing cause of death and disability across the world. The mass media, especially radio and journalists, can play a key role in increasing knowledge about road safety. Road safety media campaigns play an important role in improving road safety by promoting safe behaviour. In particular, they can spread preventive messages and promote safe behavior through radio programs that enrich the masses, increase people's awareness and understanding of the severity of the problem and support safer roads and systems. Unfortunately, it often happens that journalists only write about traffic and safety issues when they have to report on an accident. In these cases, journalists 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 families, communities and society in general. The result is that most traffic-related news stories limit themselves to what, who, where, when and why and inform readers what happened. However, it is precisely by analyzing the causes and consequences of road accidents, moving from traffic-related stories to those on road safety that journalists can most effectively contribute to change. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get Original EssayEven in Tanzania the record of road accidents was very high in the last 10 years ago, although it started to decrease in 2017 due to the new policies introduced Tanzania Police Force under the new administration of the newly elected president and the way in which the traffic police department started doing its job by practically measuring whether a driver was drunk or not by inserting technological tools that monitor the speed of cars, especially passenger buses traveling to different destinations. region, enforce the laws and statutes. The so-called introduction of BODABODA has also increased the number of accidents and deaths. On the other hand, the media in Tanzania has tried to produce 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. However , a challenge exists because most media in Tanzania do not have radio or television programs that provide road safety education and widely organize road safety seminars despite the high number of deaths due to road accidents. In this scenario, media owners and government could put emphasis on having many different programs regarding road accidents and safety.