Public Policy Formation and Analysis Assignment

Public Policy Formation and Analysis - Assignment Example Cobb and Rocheford identified certain traits that make up the nature of a problem and of course these traits are incumbent on the solutions to such identified problems. We must also note that the traffic problems in Oman has a social, economical and political dimension. Severity: The severity of any identified road safety problem has to be taken into cognisance in other to ascertain how severe the said problem is. How serious a problem and its consequences are taken to be, is what determines the extent to which actions will be taken to resolve that particular problem. A good example is the constant road traffic accidents in Oman. The amount of lives that has been lost this few years has motivated the Government of Oman to take a firm stand in formulating Traffic policies to curb the incidence. Incidence: According to Cobb and Rocheford, (1993) a social problem's incidence is an important descriptive dimension that represents the overall scope of people affected as well as those group s disproportionately at risk (64) Those groups that are affected by this incidence in Oman are teenagers between the ages of 16-25. This is a volatile group of persons still full of l;ife and the excitement of motor cars, who do not necessarily consider the implications of traffic safety policies. Novelty: Simply refers to situations where a policy seems to have popular opinions from the public, which soon becomes obsolete as the public and the media becomes less enthusiastic about such policies overtime. This is a major problem in Oman as many road safety policies that seemed to excite the people have become distasteful and un effective today. This has not augured well for the Government of Oman. It is a major social and political barrier to policy formulation as regarding Road safety policies. Proximity: To judge an issue as having proximity is to insinuate that it brings your point close home or directly affects a person's interest. Now if such cases can be made successfully, mem bers of the general public will become more concerned and may go all the way to express this opinion politically which will aid in more positive policy formulation. Crises of the problem: This terminology is used to denote a situation where corrective action is long overdue and the problem still exist. Thus dire consequences are in occurrence due to such delay. The lack of adequate action by the Government of Oman to tackle the impeding road safety abuse and non-compliance has become a crises situation in the country. Question 2 Drunk driving: Many youths are addicted to alcoholic products and tend to ply the roads at very high state of drunkenness, most especially at nights. The statistics in the article by Shalama et al (179) shows that that results of drunk driving were between 3-982 and as of last year it was 4% alone. This is an aspect of individuals behaviour as it relates to accidents in Oman Lack of formal traffic education: This is a major social/cultural condition that mus t be checked in Oman. Teaching all road users in Oman how to observe road usage norms and regulations and lunching campaigns via the media on the importance of road safety applications is paramount if the Nation is to witness less accidents and more respect for traffic regulations. Traffic regulation enforcement organization and licencing: must be effective at all times within the country. They have a major responsibility to check the