Reporters Target A New Global Crisis: Dangerous Roads

Our roads are killing us. More than 1.24 million people die and between 20 and 50 million are injured each year in traffic-related incidents.

To help improve coverage of this global public health crisis in 2015, the International Center for Journalists (ICFJ) with the support of the World Health Organization (WHO) named 25 journalists as Road Safety Journalism Fellows. The Fellows, representing 25 countries, attended the 2nd Global High-Level Conference on Road Safety hosted by the government of Brazil and co-sponsored by WHO. The conference, held in Brasilia, Brazil, brought the Fellows together to share knowledge and spur action on best practices to report traffic-related fatalities and injuries and improve safety on the roads for all who use them.

Since then, they have returned to their home countries and produced 100 stories, from road traffic-related fatalities to systemic actions taken by governments to prevent further casualties.

ICFJ also hosted a webinar on tips for journalists covering road safety. The session took place ahead of last year’s conference.

Click here for more tips on reporting road safety or to read more on the ICFJ-WHO Road Safety Webinar.

The hope is that with greater attention paid to this global health crisis, there will be fewer casualties and better policies in the future.

Main image CC-licensed by Flickr via b k.