The number of motorists who secretly use their phones has fallen by 80 percent in the Australian state of New South Wales as smart cameras track down offenders.
Australia is the first country in the world to use artificial intelligence cameras to search for drivers who are on their mobile phones. So far they have caught thousands of offenders. The new system appears to have a deterrent effect and to reduce the number of violations.
New South Wales became the first state in Australia to use this technology for fines in March 2020. Since then, the cameras have monitored more than 130 million vehicles. In it, more than 270,000 drivers were caught using their phones.
During a 2019 study, the number of apping or calling drivers was 1 in 82. This has now fallen to 1 in 478.
‘We know that cameras aimed at the use of mobile phones work. The message that people are not allowed to use their phones illegally is coming in as we are seeing a clear decrease in the number of violations,” said Tara McCarthy, policy officer at Transport for New South Wales, the government body that manages the cameras.
Avoid a lot of misery
Research shows that the risk of accidents doubles when we don’t focus our eyes on the road for more than two seconds — the time it takes to read a message, McCarthy says.
Scientists at Monash University in Melbourne estimate based on a model that the cameras can prevent about 19 fatal and serious accidents a year in New South Wales.
New South Wales has been installing movable installations with cameras in secret locations since 2019. The state plans to have a total of 45 in use by mid-2022. Several other Australian states and sub-regions have also installed or plan to install cell phone detection cameras. The Netherlands also started using them in November 2020 as the first country in Europe. The police are currently running a one and a half year trial here to optimize the system.
The cameras take pictures of the front of every passing vehicle. Artificial intelligence analyzes those images to recognize drivers with a phone in their hand. Officials review the footage the system identifies as suspicious before handing out a penalty. That can result in a fine of 352 Australian dollars (about 225 euros), and penalty points on the driver’s license.
The technology was developed by Alexander Jannink, a Melbourne technician who lost a friend when he was hit on his bike by an appending motorist.
Other factors
Michael Regan, professor emeritus of transport innovation at the University of New South Wales, says it’s important news that the cameras prevent risky handling, although there are other factors at play in that decline. For example, more and more cars have a system that allows motorists to use their telephones by means of touchscreens and voice recognition.
Hands-free technology is better than fiddling with phones, but it can still be distracting, says Mark Stevenson, a professor of urban transport at the University of Melbourne. ‘People think that a hands-free phone call is the same as a conversation with a passenger. Yet it is different, because passengers often adjust the conversation to the situation on the road.’ For example, they can pause the conversation if the driver is at a difficult intersection.
A recent study in the United Kingdom showed that the response time of motorists when using a phone via voice recognition increased by 30 percent compared to driving without using a phone. For telephone use via a touchscreen this was 50 percent.
One way to make cars safer is to equip them with workload manager software which recognizes when the driver is in a stressful traffic situation. At these times, he delays messages and calls, Regan says. This software is already available in modern luxury cars.
Another option is to install cameras in the car that give a warning if they see that the driver has not focused on the road for more than a few seconds, Regan says. The European Union plans to make driver monitoring systems mandatory for new cars from 2022.