Driving with phones targeted in new camera trial, catching almost one in 20 Adelaide drivers

THINKING of sneaking a look at your phone on the road? Don’t. This camera can sneak a look at you. It’s already caught 200 offending Adelaide drivers in its first day.

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CLOSE to one in 20 Adelaide drivers were caught illegally using their phones in a private trial of cameras designed specifically to pick up the offence.

The company behind it, One Task, says it demonstrated the scale of offending and proved the technology could nab as many drivers in a single location in an hour as police catch across the state in a day. And on the busiest roads even more would be caught.

SA Best says official government-backed trials of the cameras should be an urgent priority, while the Liberals and the RAA also back further investigation. But the State Government says it has no plans to introduce them.

The trial last November, focused on motorists going through the Bakewell Underpass 60km/h zone on Henley Beach Rd, caught 201 of 4571 drivers, or 4.4 per cent, using their phones in less than eight hours.

Almost all were either holding their phones or had them in their laps.

The rate of about 25 an hour in one spot was similar to SA Police’s statewide daily detection rate.

At the rate caught on the underpass, a single camera could generate $36 million in fines each year in daylight hours alone.

One Task project manager Alex McCredie said: “It’s behaviour that’s not going to be changed through advertising campaigns. You need technology to catch these people.”

Motor Accident Commission figures show “distraction and inattention” are factors in more than a third of road fatalities and half of serious injury crashes, but Mr McCredie said drivers still did not think phone use was dangerous like speeding.

“People are more than happy to have both hands off the wheel in a 100km/h zone (in interstate trials), which is nuts,” he said.

Alex McCredie tests the high-speed camera in Melbourne. Picture: Mark Stewart

The cameras capture video from which stills of both numberplates and the driver are taken. Trials in Adelaide and interstate have used cameras clamped to bridges, but they can also be set up on the roadside on telescopic poles, or mounted on vehicles roaming through traffic.

The Bakewell Underpass results, comparable with offending rates from interstate trials, were shared with both the SA Transport Department and SA Police, which Mr McCredie said had prepared a briefing paper.

SA Best Leader Nick Xenophon said the cameras should be “urgently trialled and evaluated”.

“These cameras could have a very serious deterrent effect and if it’s going to save people being injured or killed, we need to look at this seriously,” he said.

“People might find these cameras an intrusion, but not as much as if you are rear-ended by a car that’s distracted by mobile phone use.”

Opposition transport spokesman David Pisoni said: “If there’s technology able to make the roads safer then I think it’s certainly worth considering.”

RAA spokesman Charles Mountain said official trials should be done to determine whether the community could have “confidence in the reliability of the data captured”.

Superintendent Robert Gray, who heads SA Police’s traffic support branch, said police “continue to monitor developments in this space”, but had “no comment to make in relation to any internal briefing paper, or recommendations contained within”.

Road Safety Minister Chris Picton said Labor was focused on “targeted road safety enforcement and education and communication campaigns”.