The Role of News Media in Reducing Traffic Accidents

Traffic accidents represent a major problem worldwide. Public and private entities launch communication campaigns in order to educate the population about this problem. The aim of this study is to analyze the evolution of the presence of road safety in the Spanish media and its influence on the reduction of road accidents. A content analysis of six major Spanish newspapers between 2000 and 2008 (an important period in the reduction of the accident rate in Spain) was carried out in which the presence of news related to traffic accidents and the intensity of them were quantified using a set of criteria designed for this study. Furthermore, the correlation between the accident rates and the presence and intensity of news in the same time frame was measured. There has been an evident increase in the news related to traffic accidents during the analyzed period, both in terms of the presence of such news in general and in terms of intensity. The correlation analysis also shows a strong relationship between the increase in news presence and intensity and a sharp fall in accident rates in Spain. Although correlation analysis is not enough to establish a causal relationship between the variables studied here, the findings suggest that informative campaigns had a positive effect on encouraging pro-social behavior, were successful in disseminating related information, and, therefore, contributed significantly to lowering accident rates, although that was not the only reason.