Traffic surveillance for driver distraction.
Distracted driving is dangerous.
According to Greg Murphy, racing great and road safety advisor to the Prihimana and Waka Kotahi, rates of distracted driving delinquency are rapidly rising.
Greg, who has a lifetime's 'on the road' experience, questions the delay between trialling and formally implementing the traffic surveillance systems which Waka kotahi are trialling. He reckons immediately notify and fine drivers neglecting to observe safety standards. It seems the trial and the law are not yet in sync.
Waka Kotahi are doing a sixth months trial of their surveillance of drivers who may be caught using cell phones and if they are driving with one hand, this could be the case. Or not. It's those bloody automatics!
If you are using a stick and shifting gears quite often, which one does in the city or actually any place with a gradient or where there is road works, traffic lights etc, then you will, by default, only have one hand on the wheel!
Speed cameras, traffic surveillance, now a misogynistic surveillance infrastructure:
The surveillance continues, as always, the operation of the systems plus analysis of the data obtained, still well and truly in the hands of operators with ill defined loyalties- do you trust the algorithm? The surveillance will also see whether people are wearing their seat belts. and there was some consternation over men getting caught driving their mistresses around! Naturally the tone of the news piece was.."ok fellas we're on your side -driving your side piece to dinner or whatever you do -that's not our business ok- your missus got her hands full taking the kids to school in that old alpha you bought her off Trademe- trust us brother, she'll never know -haha "
Check out the interviewer's alarmed expression @3.52 : https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/new-zealand/2022/05/greg-murphy-calls-for-immediate-fines-as-cameras-start-taking-photos-of-auckland-motorists-using-mobile-phones.html
Of course not, the dude from Waka Kotahi, nzta, Kane Patena said: "We are very concerned that we protect people's privacy through the course of this trial". Any data not showing an infringement will be automatically erased after "about 14 minutes"
Privacy hmm.... personally, I find this "six months trial" alarming in that a lot of data could "leak", for example the obvious registration plates, accessories and parts, the famed catalytic convertor, the rare and invaluable, the performance car etc, which all go missing or are more usually counterfeited, which makes the time of theft a far harder thing to pinpoint.
Our VTNZ was privatised in 1999 and is now controlled by Dekra Se as a majority shareholder since 2013- https://vtnz.co.nz/about-us/our-history/. Dekra is a German company specialising in testing, certification, vehicle appraisal, etc: https://www.dekra.com/en/dekra-used-car-seal/
Interesting to note that since 2015,VTNZ operates the driver testing for driver licenses, so they pretty much have a monopoly on servicing the industry both at the inspection and safety levels and the used vehicle market.
Distracted driving is dangerous to the max and, according to Greg, is on the cusp of dangerously rising to way above the current estimated cause 8% of the horrendous and unnecessary deaths we are seeing on our roads. Looking inside a modern car's dashboard it is easy to understand that distraction. As well as possibly being tempted to answer the phone, the driver is bedazzled by an array of l.e.d.s in painful need of attention. Considering the boring nature of driving an automatic, and most late model cars are automatic, it is hardly surprising that the values of classic and near classic cars are skyrocketing and the counterfeiting opportunists will be doing very nicely, thank you. Scotty Kilmer says the best anti-theft device is a stick shift- haha. Boring driving environments are soporific at best, so add the distractions of the bleeps, winks, bells and whistles of a modern dash to the moronicism of an automatic and it's no wonder drivers get a meta-rash!
