KUALA LUMPUR – Journalists must ask critical questions when examining the cause of road tragedies and scrutinise the origin of crash data, beyond blaming road users, a transport expert said.
Asian Development Bank (ADB) senior transport specialist David Shelton said that the approach generally taken by police tends to assign blame when such incidents occur and miss the opportunity to offer life-saving solutions to the global road safety crisis.
“This approach assigns the majority of the causes of crashes to behavioural issues such as speeding, drink driving, and not using seatbelts.
“It excludes non-behavioural causes like road design quality and vehicle safety,” he said at a road safety reporting workshop held here recently.
The three-day training workshop for Asian journalists was part of the World Health Organisation (WHO) Road Safety Reporting Initiative organised with the Asia-Pacific Institute for Broadcasting Development, which aims to strengthen reporting on road safety and reduce deaths from crashes.
At the training, journalists told WHO that police reports have been their main, and often only, source of information when reporting on crashes.
“In many countries, most data comes from the police force. Yet their main concern is assigning blame for a past event rather than preventing future trauma.
“I’m not saying police are getting it wrong – executing the rule of law is important, but we often don’t get the full picture,” Shelton explained.
“This can however mean using incomplete data as police are interested in people’s behaviour, and who may have acted to cause a crash. When looking at the causes of crashes, it is key to ask where the data comes from, and the mindset of those pulling that data together.”
“I would urge you all to think carefully about this,” he told the 16 participants from Bangladesh, India, Malaysia, and Vietnam attending the workshop.
“For journalists, it is vital to remain critical when looking at any data on the causes of road crashes, and to dig deeper into the causes rarely recorded, such as failures in road and vehicle designs,” he added.
In Malaysia, road crash data is owned by the Bukit Aman Traffic Investigation and Enforcement Department, which has produced annual statistical reports on crashes nationwide over the years.
At the workshop, Malaysian journalists spoke of bureaucratic hurdles in requesting data from police.
“We are always interested in writing in-depth reports based on data and it is not easy getting it, not that simple. Most of the time, a request for official data to police must be supported with a letter and attached with a journalist’s identification card issued by the Information Department.
“Without the media ID card, the Bukit Aman secretariat will not entertain our request, since a media card is a prerequisite to qualify or be considered as a journalist,” said the journalist.
Even for data analysis by another government agency, formal requests have to be made, according to a workshop presented by the Malaysian Institute of Road Safety Research (Miros).
Miros and the Road Safety Division under the Road Transport Department are often required to source the statistics from the federal traffic police.
“Even high-ranking Transport Ministry officials in Putrajaya have to officially request the data from Bukit Aman,” said the researcher.
Better data
WHO director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus wrote in the recent United Nations’ book The Road Ahead – 26 Voices for Safe & Sustainable Mobility that to “save more lives, we need a shift from an approach that focuses on crashes, individual road users or interventions, and looks holistically at safe mobility systems”.
“We must work with all involved in designing and maintaining our roads, manufacturing our vehicles, and administering our safety systems. So when crashes do occur, solutions are sought throughout the entire system,” he added.
The UN estimates that about 1.35 million deaths are recorded annually worldwide, with 3,700 people killed daily on roads globally. At least nine in ten of these deaths occur in low- and middle-income countries.
“More than two (are killed) every minute – especially in low and middle-income countries. They (road crashes) are the biggest killer of children and young people globally and are set to cause around 13 million more deaths and 500 million more injuries over the next decade,” Ghebreyesus wrote.
According to the Royal Malaysian Police, 168,659 road deaths and more than a million injuries have been caused by road crashes in Malaysia since 1995. This is an average of 6,486 lives lost annually or 19 killed every day.
As of August 2021 in Malaysia, for every 100 road deaths, 70 were motorcycle users.
Good strategies need good data and evidence to underpin them, “but low and middle-income countries typically undercount the amount of road trauma that’s happening”, Shelton said.
“In some countries, it is estimated that up to 84% of casualties go unreported, making it nearly impossible to understand the scale of the problem, and hard to respond in a way that targets the true cause of crashes,” he added.
The Asia Pacific Road Safety Observatory (APRSO) hosted by ADB was set up to help tackle this problem.
The regional forum helps countries collect, manage, and analyse data on road crashes. It also shares research, evidence and technical material, helps countries monitor progress, and links to the Asian Transport Outlook Database.
Currently, APRSO covers 23 countries in the Asia Pacific region and is expected to increase its country membership to over 40 countries in the coming years.
“However, Malaysia isn’t part of APRSO at present,” Shelton told The Vibes. – The Vibes, January 15, 2023
