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Mobile phone at the wheel: New device to transfer distracted drivers - test starts in June

2022-05-29T17:49:40.031Z


Mobile phone at the wheel: New device to transfer distracted drivers - test starts in June Created: 05/29/2022, 19:46 By: Bettina Menzel Mobile phone at the wheel: Not only telephoning while driving is a distraction. If you look at your smartphone for just one second at 100 kilometers per hour, you are flying 30 meters “blind” (symbol image). © Frank Hoermann/SVEN SIMON/ Imago According to the


Mobile phone at the wheel: New device to transfer distracted drivers - test starts in June

Created: 05/29/2022, 19:46

By: Bettina Menzel

Mobile phone at the wheel: Not only telephoning while driving is a distraction.

If you look at your smartphone for just one second at 100 kilometers per hour, you are flying 30 meters “blind” (symbol image).

© Frank Hoermann/SVEN SIMON/ Imago

According to the road traffic regulations, using a mobile phone while driving is prohibited - but many drivers do not let this deter them.

A new device should catch them in the act.

Mainz – How often the mobile phone at the wheel was the reason for an accident cannot be exactly documented in figures.

Because often in a collision, suspicion is obvious, but the evidence is difficult.

This could change now.

A pilot project with a new camera system is starting in Rhineland-Palatinate.

It should recognize cell phone use while driving.

Mobile phone at the wheel: One second of distraction corresponds to flying blind for dozens of meters

Around every second motorist is said to have used their mobile phone while driving.

This is the result of a Forsa survey commissioned by the testing company Dekra from September 2017.

In a specially conducted traffic monitoring, it was also found that around seven percent of all road users are distracted by their smartphones.

For this, Dekra had observed 15,000 cars in town and on the highway.

About every tenth traffic fatality could be related to distraction at the wheel, as Dekra calculates, citing studies from the USA and Germany.

The violation is also not cheap: in Germany, using a mobile phone while driving is punished with a fine of 100 euros and a point in Flensburg.

If damage to property is the result of cell phone use, it costs 200 euros, two points and a month's driving ban.

The fines are no accident.

If you look at your smartphone for three seconds at 50 kilometers per hour, you will cover a distance of more than 40 meters in this time.

At a speed of 100 kilometers per hour, it is already 60 meters flying blind with just two seconds of distraction.

Drivers who are distracted are often unable to react in good time to obstacles or changes in traffic.

Mobile phone at the wheel: This is how the police want to transfer drivers in the future

The “Monocam” in action: A pilot project for monitoring mobile phones while driving, which is unique in Germany, is scheduled to begin in Rhineland-Palatinate in June.

© IMAGO/ Einsatz-Report24/Fabian Geier IMAGO

Now the police want to remedy the situation with a new device.

If you pick up your cell phone or tablet while driving, you could be caught with the new camera system in the future.

The Dutch police developed the system called Monocam together with the University of Utrecht and are already using 20 devices, as police officer Marcel Masselink from the Netherlands reported.

One of the systems costs around 20,000 euros.

The system consists of a laptop and a camera.

These film oncoming traffic and are linked to an undercover police car.

The camera triggers the live stream when it detects a driver's hand position.

Trained police officers then assess the violation immediately on site - and thus convict the mobile phone user of the act.

If an image is not clear enough to stand up in court, it will be deleted.

The aim of the project is to prevent accidents and to further reduce the number of road deaths and injuries, said the interior minister of Rhineland-Palatinate, Roger Lewentz (SPD).

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Cell phone at the wheel pilot project: Monocam will first be tested in Mainz and Trier

The pilot project for monitoring distraction violations through cell phone use, which is unique in Germany, is scheduled to begin in June in the federal state.

Lewentz announced this last week in Mainz.

The monocam should therefore initially be tested for three months at the police headquarters in Trier and then for three months at the police headquarters in Mainz.

The results would then be made available to the conference of interior ministers.

However, the Monocam experts do not estimate the number of violations quite as high as the DEKRA traffic observation: About half to one percent of all drivers would be convicted, according to the police officer Masselink involved in the project.

However, when the system was tested on May 19 on the busy Autobahn 60 near Mainz, the police caught around 20 car and truck drivers per hour despite a large sign.

(bm with material from dpa)

Source: merkur

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