The Australian state of New South Wales is deploying a new AI-based camera system to crack down on drivers who use mobile phones while driving. In a press release last week, the state’s transport department said that following a long-running pilot over the past several months, the program officially started on December 1 and, will progressively expand to perform an estimated 135 million vehicle checks each year by 2023, with errant drivers facing heavy penalties.
The Executive Director of Transport for NSW’s Centre for Road Safety, Bernard Carlon, said that many such cameras have already been operational across the state over the past several months as part of pilot that has already checked 8.5 million vehicles and detected more than 100,000 drivers using a phone illegally.
Given the state of traffic on Indian roads, the use of such technology may prevent hundreds of accidents and save thousands of lives, so it will be interesting to see if transport departments around the country will also look to introduce similar mobile phone detecting systems to cut down on distracted driving going forward.
