
Australia uses new technology to catch drivers on phones - ColinWright
https://ktar.com/story/2754759/australia-uses-new-technology-to-catch-drivers-on-phones/
======
Sendotsh
Good. People in Australia don't take driving seriously. I spend a lot of time
on the road, and have lived all over Australia, and the one defining thing
I've found in common all over the country is that people are WAY too casual
about driving.

Sydney and Melbourne being the worst by far, with it being so bad it has
become entertainment[0]

On any given commute you'll see dozens of people playing with their phone
while doing 110km/h down the freeway, doing make-up, eating cereal out of
bowl, reading, blowing red lights (not "late orange" but "it already went red
and now the other direction who got a green have to hit the brakes to not get
t-boned", ignoring lane lines, ignoring indicators, and/or ignoring the
existence of any/every rule or nearby vehicle.

It's like a national sport. How much of a dickhead can you be in your car then
get violently angry if anyone dares even tap their horn at you to remind you
the light has been green for 30 seconds now and you're still flicking through
Facebook.

[0][https://www.youtube.com/user/DashCamOwnersAustral](https://www.youtube.com/user/DashCamOwnersAustral)

~~~
tiew9Vii
Completely agree.

I can’t figure it out though, they have some strict standards getting a
license, red p’s for 12-24 months + 120 logbook hours, then green p’s where
they are restricted to dangerous below highway speeds so have drivers
aggressively overtaking them. Despite this, standards seem far lower than
Europe.

The horn thing is really annoying, often the person being beeped can’t move
forward anyway due to traffic across a junction and people are just being
impatient but sometimes it’s the other way and people are just day dreaming at
junctions when the light changeover is quick so you ha e to go.

It seems car first. Cross a road in Europe a car a few hundred meters down the
road will back off the accelerator slightly when they see you and let you
cross. Australia they see a pedestrian and will speed up as it’s their road
and the light is green, they’ll speed up to the point they are deliberately
trying to hit you.

Speed limits are annoying here. For such a big country it’s really difficult
to travel big distance like you can in Europe or the US. Most people on the
highway drive 100km/h as lots of police and the limit is 110. Also everyone
will do 100km/h in the outside lane, inside lane doesn’t exist for most people
as that’s where the p players are doing 90 and they are afraid of overtaking.
It’s also odd as when you pass someone going well below the limit, a minute
later they’ll aggressively speed up, fly past, then 5 minutes later they are
slowed down and you are overtaking them again when you have kept a constant
speed.

I’ve found driving in Northern Africa and Asia far less frustrating than
Australia and those countries are bit of a free for all, especially Ho Chi
Minh. It’s easier in those countries as no one follows any rules and you know
that, AU being 50/50 you just have no idea what drivers are going to do and
makes it harder to judge.

~~~
drivingeve
The difference between European and Australian drivers is not that Australians
have to do 120 hours of supervised driving, but that the supervisor for the
hours of driving in Australia is usually the parents of the learner. So any
bad habbits from parents are taught between generations.

Compare that to the European system where you are requiredto hire a
professional driving instructor to teach you (at great expense I might add)
for the entire time you are learning.

And because of that, the culture in Australia seems to be that driving is a
right where as Europeans seem to treat it as more of a privilege.

~~~
jimmux
I got my license in Canberra, where I had the option to skip the driving test
by doing enough hours with a qualified driving instructor. It was a big
contrast to my previous struggles to get supervised drives with friends and
family.

I had picked up a habit of going much too fast around every corner, because
the owner of the car I was practicing in insisted that it must be done that
way. She did it because that's what her brother taught her. The real
instructor got rid of that bad habit very quickly.

It's a bit more expensive, but honestly it's so much quicker to get good and
less stressful that I recommend it to anyone who has the option.

People lie in the log book, too. So I don't believe many actually do the 120
hours they claim.

~~~
TheCalicoCat
I got my license the same way and 100% agree. It's a shame that Canberra is
planning to move to the logbook system next year. I only know of one person
from NSW who actually did the full 120 hours, and that was only because they
took several road trips to other cities.

------
javagram
Great. We need this in every US city ASAP.

Walk around in a downtown area and it’s blatantly visible how many drivers use
their phones while driving , often performing illegal maneuvers due to their
distraction.

~~~
homonculus1
We don't need police-connected camera networks running machine learning in
_any_ US city.

~~~
megablast
Yes, we do. Every single car should be tracked. 40,000 people are killed every
year due to car drivers, we should start taking this seriously.

~~~
Franciscouzo
That just sounds like a band-aid solution, what is needed are walkable cities,
and decent public transportation.

~~~
megaremote
That just sounds like a huge change that will take a long time and a lot of
money to do.

~~~
uoaei
With all the discussion on HN about "technical debt" I wonder why the same
sort of strategies to avoid technical debt aren't applied outside the domain
of software engineering.

Sure, it's effort now to do the smarter-but-harder thing, but the payoff will
be huge in a few decades. Sure beats having a police state that is
precipitated by goody-two-shoes demanding video surveillance of nearly all
public roads in the USA.

~~~
badwolf
Probably because leaders have to get elected, and "we're going to work through
this backlog" is far less exciting in general to "new features!"

------
y4mi
So they're ramping up the detection of people using their phones while waiting
for the traffic light to turn green?

Doesn't really sound like this is actually about safety.

I doubt these cameras can capture the photo do a decent quality on that angle
for anything but standing or very slow moving cars

But I guess we can hope it will stop some people, even if there will be a lot
of people caught that weren't really endangering anyone

~~~
javagram
People using their phones while waiting for the light is absolutely a safety
issue.

They aren’t paying attention and when the light turns green they may either
hit a pedestrian as they hurry to move , or not notice the green and be rear
ended by a driver who expects them to begin moving.

~~~
yonaguska
To second your point- I'd hazard that people using phones at lights are also
using them in between lights. I filter at lights despite it being illegal
where I live- because I've already been rear ended twice by people on phones.
And by filtering I get a great view on people using their phones. They are
nine times out of ten using their phones leading up to the light, during the
light and during takeoff. I've also noticed that when they notice movement in
their peripheral, they start driving forward even when the light is red. I
filter much slower now so as to keep people from blindly thinking the light is
green and shooting out into traffic or into a pedestrian.

~~~
WalterBright
In the last year I've begun pausing slightly before pulling into an
intersection when the light just turned green. I don't care to be t-boned by
someone failing to get through before it turned red.

I've also started glancing left & right going through the green even if it's
been green a while.

Once the traffic in front of me stopped suddenly, I stopped, and the truck
behind me didn't and totaled my car, nearly killing me. Since then I glance in
the rearview mirror when I have to stop hard, which paid off one day when I
figured the guy behind me wasn't going to stop in time, I pulled off onto the
shoulder, and he hit the car in front of me.

~~~
RandallBrown
Isn't this just how everyone should be driving all the time?

This is what I was taught when I learned to drive 20 years ago, and texting
wasn't really a thing back then.

~~~
WalterBright
> Isn't this just how everyone should be driving all the time?

Perhaps, but I too frequently encounter the notion that having the legal right
of way means one doesn't have to look. I've especially encountered this with
bicyclists. Sometimes they'll tell me that it's ok because if someone hits
them, they'll get a huge lawsuit judgement. I counter with what good is that
if you're dead or crippled?

Some people I just don't understand.

------
tenebrisalietum
The only technology needed to solve bad/dangerous driving is a cheap camera
phone.

Allow people to turn in video of people violating traffic laws in public
places for money. Receive more money if it leads to prosecution/fine.

Rewards split amongst all who submit videos.

Big bonus if person is DUI/OUI/OWI prosecuted.

If it's too much to have just anyone do this, then have some sort of minimal-
requirements program where you sign up, pay $X, get registered and a permit,
and do it.

This can help homeless people.

~~~
xur17
You could sit at intersections and make bank recording videos of people
driving through. _So_ many people are holding their phone in the hand and
interacting with it.

------
anotherevan
On a related note, Dash Cam Owners Australia[1] just put up their monthly
video of collected accidents and near misses.

I watch these with my kids, who recently started driving, as it is a good
lesson in why you drive defensively and not be too arrogant about your own
abilities and reaction times - because you have to take into account the
abilities, reaction times, and occasionally the boneheaded idiocy of any other
driver in your immediate vicinity.

“If it weren’t for physics and law enforcement, I’d be unstoppable.”

[1]
[https://www.youtube.com/user/DashCamOwnersAustral/videos](https://www.youtube.com/user/DashCamOwnersAustral/videos)

------
ryandrake
They don’t need new technology, just a bus. Sit a few officers in it where
their vantage point is about a meter over the top of cars, drive around the
highway a bit, and mail merge a bunch of citations.

I was bored on a 2 hour bus ride the other day and easily spotted hundreds of
drivers fooling around in their phones while driving at highway speed. Mostly
texting. Insanity!

~~~
smileysteve
Stop, why!

Aiming to catch people on their phones is a perversion of the laws because we
have made it too easy to get away with driving while distracted.

It used to be that distracted driving was subjective; but with dash cams on
police cars, why can't police crack down on actual distracted indications
objectively. All of us anecdotally can guess that someone not moving on green,
going slow in the left lane, crossing multiple lanes at the last minute is on
their cell phone; So let's start enforcing a law that applies more broadly
(eating, intoxicated, cell phone, distracted by passengers, rubber necking)
and start seriously enforcing it.

If we seriously enforced distracted and reckless behavior, maybe cities
wouldn't even have to worry about congestion taxes.

~~~
AcerbicZero
The root of the problem is bad driving. You can be stone sober, fully rested
and have your phone locked in the trunk of your car, but none of that matters
if you lack the skills needed to operate a vehicle at speed. Drivers education
is woefully inadequate and the only driving laws I see enforced are the ones
which have a clear easy to obtain financial incentive attached for the police.

~~~
jbarberu
I think the lack of decent public transport in many places contribute to this.
When I've lived in cities with good public transport I would usually take the
bus, especially if I wasn't feeling in a good mental state to drive (tired,
stressed, other). In Orlando that's not an option, here I can chose to stay
home or drive.

~~~
AcerbicZero
That is a very valid point. Even the best city I've lived in as far as public
transit goes had issues such as stopping service around midnight, even on
weekends. If the goal was to reduce drinking driving and/or driving tired
you'd think they'd keep those going, but instead they just bring out the DUI
checkpoints.

~~~
jbarberu
Where I grew up the last bus would leave downtown around 4am and the trams
stopped for an hour between 6-7am on Sat-Sun (after basically all the bars and
clubs had closed). That aspect was pretty good. Most other aspects of Swedish
drinking culture is not great...

------
throwaway5752
Has anyone bought a new car recently? Many essentially have a center mounted
full size tablet. Yes, police phone usage. But car newer car interfaces cause
a lot of distraction on their own.

~~~
switch007
No. The horrific interfaces being one of the reasons :P I've suffered with
various hire vehicles though.

Some are literally tablets I think (or very good imitations?) - the interfce
had pull-down menus, swipe left/right app screens/desktops.

------
Phillipharryt
What's ridiculous is you can't turn in any footage you take yourself. As a
cyclist with a camera on my bicycle I have hundreds of drivers on their phone,
yet the police has nowhere for me to turn this in.

~~~
FlagsAreFun
This is simply not true. You can report any incidents via Crime Stoppers here:
[https://www.crimestoppers.com.au/give-information#block-
view...](https://www.crimestoppers.com.au/give-information#block-views-block-
report-crime-block-1). Each jurisdiction's specific reporting forms are
different, but you can usually upload small files as attachments.

If you do want the footage to be useful though, you'll have to be willing to
put enough personal information in so the police can use you as a witness in
court. Your witness account is the primary evidence and the footage the
supporting evidence.

~~~
Phillipharryt
Yeah so if I want to give up a lot of personal information, then give up my
time appearing in court, and have the guilty party know who I am, then yes,
there is a way to report it. But if I don't want that massive impact on my
life just to share my clear video and photo evidence, then I can't do
anything. But you can report littering easily. No reason I shouldn't be able
to do the same for people on their phone. They've made it prohibitively
difficult to share my evidence, so I think I'm fine saying there's no way for
me to just turn in my footage.

------
lsllc
About time. I'm not worried about terrorists, not worried about mass
shootings, I'm not worried about meteors or sharks. I'm worried about other
drivers using their phone while driving -- that's __the __existential threat
right now by far, and they 're everywhere!

------
gruez
>But it is illegal to touch a phone while driving except to pass it to a
passenger. The ban even applies to drivers who are stationary at red lights or
stuck in traffic jams.

This sounds like a hassle for anyone trying to use gps on their phones. Also,
doesn't this essentially outlaw rideshare drivers? How can you accept rides or
confirm a pickup if you can't touch the phone? I never saw any driver use
voice commands for uber.

~~~
jjulius
>This sounds like a hassle for anyone trying to use gps on their phones.

What hassle? Futzing with your GPS app while driving is just as dangerous as
texting. Set your destination before you drive and pull over if you need to
adjust it, just as you should if you need to text.

>How can you accept rides or confirm a pickup...

Pull over.

~~~
quotemstr
Do you yourself drive? It's easy to make these demands when you're not
affected by the resulting inefficiency.

~~~
jjulius
I drive 2+ hours round-trip for work every weekday, and my work often has me
visiting client sites during the week. I find nothing difficult about setting
my destination via GPS before I begin my drive, and I find that my attention
to what's going on around me is significantly diminished should I attempt to
modify my route while driving. An inconvenience of, say, 5-10 minutes to find
a place to pull over and input new coordinates is absolutely worth it to
prevent an expensive collision or running into, say, a motorcyclist I haven't
seen because I'm staring at my phone.

I cannot believe people are arguing for "efficiency" over traffic safety.

~~~
quotemstr
> absolutely worth it

Can you demonstrate, using numbers, that the tradeoff is positive?

> I cannot believe people are arguing for "efficiency" over traffic safety.

People prioritize efficiency over safety all the time. It's a good thing. So
do you, if you support non-zero speed limits. The current animus against cell
phone use while driving is the result of a moral panic, not a rational cost-
benefit tradeoff.

> If I pull over to a safe place to use my phone, nobody is harmed.

Untrue. The act of pulling is _itself_ is a complex maneuver that practically
invites accidents. Most accidents occur at low speed, and often, when you pull
over, you pull over into an area where pedestrians are active. It might be the
case that pulling over instead of using a phone at a red light results in
_more_ people being injured or killed.

[https://www.recyclingtoday.com/article/lytx-fleet-
accidents-...](https://www.recyclingtoday.com/article/lytx-fleet-accidents-
low-speed)

> My wife was rear-ended while waiting

Anecdotal personal misfortune is not an argument for society-wide policy.

~~~
jjulius
>Can you demonstrate, using numbers, that the tradeoff is positive?

Are you kidding? If I pull over to a safe place to use my phone, nobody is
harmed. If I'm driving and take my attention off of the road and over to my
phone, and I smack into a motorcyclist because I didn't see them, I could
_kill them_.

>The current animus against cell phone use while driving is the result of a
moral panic, not a rational cost-benefit tradeoff.

Moral panic? My wife was rear-ended while waiting to turn because the driver
of the car that hit her was on their cellphone and didn't see her - they
admitted as much. She's still suffering from pain from that accident and the
car she was driving was totaled. How is _not getting into an accident_ "not a
rational cost-benefit tradeoff"?

~~~
hug
There are 268 million vehicles in the United States. If we assume that each
vehicle makes two trips per day on average, and than the number of minutes of
inconvenience taken up by pulling over to operate a phone is 5, that’d be 2.68
billion minutes of inconvenience per day alone!

We can be generous and put the intrinsic value of a human life at the average
lifespan in the US of 78 years, or 41 million minutes. That means you’d be
inconveniencing people at the rate of 65 human lives _per day_ by implementing
your law.

Why do you hate human life so much? Think of the children. Hail Satan, etc.

~~~
Marsymars
> If we assume that each vehicle makes two trips per day on average, and than
> the number of minutes of inconvenience taken up by pulling over to operate a
> phone is 5,

Once you need to pull over to check your phone you realize that you can just
wait until your destination. I never touch my phone while driving, but I'd
estimate the time I spend pulled over to use my phone to be more in the area
of 5 minutes per couple thousand km.

~~~
hug
But how will tech companies extract value from you if you don't pick up your
phone even when driving?

------
ticmasta
One thing that is unclear is that the two _independent_ images, one showing an
individual using a phone where they may be personally identifiable and a
second showing the car's license plate. So they fine the registered owner of
the car for the driver being distracted? What if I'm in a car share? Do they
subpoena the companies records or just fine them and have it passed on a la
rental cars and speeding tickets?

I think distracted driving is a real problem but just like photo radar this
punishment weeks after the fact when you get a fine in the mail will have very
little impact on the underlying behavior. It's like watching your kids do
something unacceptable and then grounding them a week a later as punishment.
If they wanted to really change behavior they need to get in the faces of
drivers like drinking and driving check-stops; pull them over, ask them if
their using their phones, warn them of the danger (they could check for
impaired driving at the same time). The problem is cops on the ground costs
money; this makes money.

~~~
carterehsmith
>> So they fine the registered owner of the car for the driver being
distracted?

Yes, I think that makes sense.

If the car owner is a car share company, they will know who the car was shared
to, at the time, and then they will send the ticket to that person.

And if the car owner just borrowed the car to a spouse/child/friend/whoever,
they can pass the ticket to the borrower.

------
brokenmachine
As an Australian, I'm happy they're doing something about stopping
stupid/distracted drivers.

I'm also very nervous because I'm 100% sure this will end up being abused or
"enhanced" in some scary way in the future, or used as an argument for more
government AI cameras to police other transgressions.

------
bogomipz
The new New South Wales Roads Minister Andrew Constance emphatically states:

“>There is no doubt drink-driving as far as I’m concerned is on a par with
mobile phone use, and that’s why we want everyone to be aware that you’re
going to get busted doing this anytime, anywhere,” Constance told Australian
Broadcasting Corp."

But the further down we read:

>"Photos that show suspected illegal behavior are referred for verification by
human eyes before an infringement notice is sent to the vehicle’s registered
owner along with a 344 Australian dollar ($232) fine."

I'm guessing the penalty for being caught driving under the influence in
Australia is far greater than $344 AUD. Why wouldn't they price the infraction
for driving while texting similarly then?

~~~
jdnenej
They don't need to increase the price, just make it a 6 month loss of licence
for the first time, 1 year for the second and 5 for the 3rd. 4th offence
should probably be life time loss of license.

~~~
bogomipz
Sorry yes that it what I meant by price, the total penalty.

------
andrewstuart
No fancy technology is needed.

All they need is inspectors on motorbikes riding between cars that are stopped
at traffic lights.

Large number of people are using their phones when waiting at the lights.

A motorbike inspector riding between cars would make an infinite number of
catches.

~~~
NikolaNovak
But; are those really the people you WANT to catch as a matter of priority?
What is our goal - sheer income, or safety? :-/

In my mind, I'd rather people check their phone at a stopped traffic light,
going 0kph; then while driving at 100kph or turning etc...

Ultimately tickets should have a purpose - prevent the most atrocious
behaviour we see.

There's a poorly marked off-ramp from a major freeway in Toronto; and after
off-ramp it's still a divided highway that basically looks like freeway. Cops
are constantly staking out this exit because they know they'll get tickets -
but what are you teaching? Most of these people were honestly trying to do the
relatively right thing. There's no lesson or behaviour modification, just
income. (if you want to modify behaviour at that particular offramp, add
signing and/or lights etc).

Understanding that it's against the law in most places (because technically
you are "operating a motor vehicle", I honestly don't have a problem with
people glancing at their phone on a red traffic light. Others, I suppose, may
vehemently disagree.

------
anewguy9000
what a waste of money. studies show its not the lack of a free hand that
causes accidents, but lack of attention. and hands free is legal. also day by
day more cars will have phone paired with the infotainment system

------
zmmmmm
My prediction is that this initiative will kill people by encouraging phone
apps to build in complex voice interaction features that are almost as
dangerous but undetectable and therefore will be used indiscriminately by
drivers. To those arguing this is a good thing in a black and white manner,
please have a think about whether the convenience of that simplistic approach
is worth the lives of the people who may die through unintended consequences.

------
dsfyu404ed
Kinda funny how HN is normally anti-surveillance and against automated law
enforcement unless you frame it as something pro-social.

At the end of the day this is still a camera network capable of being
repurposed for more sinister means of revenue generation at the whim of the
government.

If you really want to stop this behavior post a cop on the corner. His
presence will prevent people from all sorts of other minor traffic violations
too.

~~~
quotemstr
It's simpler than that: a lot of HN posters are just anti-car, and anything
that makes driving less convenient is a good thing in their eyes.

~~~
maximente
motor vehicle accidents/deaths are a public health crisis in the US: 30K
deaths/yr, $300mil direct medical costs/yr (more indirect obv.)

if you are between 18-34 in the US your highest probability of death was/is
motor vehicle accident

i'm guessing most people here are anti bodily harm/death/opportunity loss due
to stupidity/impatience more than anything else

------
nemdub
China has been doing this for years! How can they say they are first in the
world?

This is an article from 2016:
[http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2016-08/08/content_263919...](http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2016-08/08/content_26391919.htm)

------
aussieguy1234
Australian drivers aren't the best, but they're better behaved than drivers in
SE Asia. I've driven in Australia and the Philippines. In the Philippines,
road rules aren't enforced. In Australia they are, but people don't always
follow the rules anyway.

------
fooblitzky
Excellent. I hope the technology also works for truck drivers.

------
andrewstuart
I turned on the iPhone "do not disturb while driving" functionality which is
awesome.

It helps me not fiddle with the phone whilst in the car.

------
mikhailfranco
The technology is from Acusensus:

[https://www.acusensus.com/](https://www.acusensus.com/)

------
Guthur
And yet in the same state, NSW, they could do nothing when my car was stolen
and recorded speeding on the motorway. And took nearly a year to apprehend a
suspect in the shooting of a fast food restaurant worker when it was caught on
multiple cameras.

I'm not saying that people should be free to use phones but it's increasingly
obvious to me that the police's main objective is to keep mostly lawful people
in line, pursuing criminal activity is a secondary concern.

------
GrumpyNl
In Holland they just put a few people on a bus and they look in the cars on
the highway, very high score results.

------
shoshino
In London the rules are really stupid. Using smart-devices while driving is
allowed as long as the device is mounted. Woe betide anyone caught with a
phone to their ear.

~~~
johnisgood
Yeah, if the reason is attention (and safety), then it does not matter whether
it is mounted or not. Your attention is still elsewhere.

------
donatj
Unpopular opinion, but vehicle deaths are at basically the lowest they’ve been
since the introduction of the car. I honestly believe phone use while driving
hasn’t had a major effect on safety overall. The statistics certainly don’t
indicate it.

[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motor_vehicle_fatality_rate_...](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motor_vehicle_fatality_rate_in_U.S._by_year#/media/File%3AUS_traffic_deaths_per_VMT%2C_VMT%2C_per_capita%2C_and_total_annual_deaths.png)

