can drive alongside a vehicle and
film inappropriate behavior,”
explains John Walford, commercial
vehicle incident prevention team
leader, Highways England.
“Historically, cab drivers have
been out of the line of sight of most
police patrols, but the elevated
position of these tractor units
means you can see into other high,
commercial vehicles.”
Speed-delimited to keep
pace with offending vehicles
up to 70mph, the Supercabs
operate with police
following behind ready
to stop vehicles. They
have captured some
jaw-dropping behavior,
including one driver making
a mobile phone card
payment while driving and another
actually attempting to cook food at
the wheel of a moving truck.
“Through their profile,
they really do change driver
behavior,” says Walford. “People
have been very supportive, which
generates enthusiasm within the
police force.”
“We’re not pretending it’s a
state-of-the-art solution,” Walford
concedes. “We would prefer it if
we could move to more sophisticated
technology, because obviously
this is resource-intensive for
the police.”
1,062
The instances of illegal
mobile phone use among
truck drivers, recorded in
one year in the UK by
But that’s
not to say
more advanced
technological
solutions aren’t
becoming available. Also
in the UK, Norfolk Police
have piloted a system which detects
phone signals from cars, triggering a
roadside pictogram display of a phone
with a line through it. But this is
purely aimed at promoting compliance
and there remain significant obstacles
to using such a system for enforcement:
for one, there is currently no way of
distinguishing between driver and
passenger phone use.
“The challenge is seeing inside the
vehicle using a process which, if
questioned, can be shown to be
accurate,” says Walford. “The cabs
provide a video image which is hard
three ‘Supercabs’
to argue against, so people generally
admit the offence.” Highways
England now plans to use all three
cabs in concert along the M1 corridor
and combine their use with other
distraction-focused interventions,
such as checks on drivers’ hours.
The science of distraction
“Distraction is essentially a sub-form
of inattention where the attention
required for safe driving is
misdirected elsewhere,” explains
Dr Neale Kinnear, head of behavioral
science at TRL (the UK’s Transport
Research Laboratory). “A driver has
to constantly appraise their
environment, responding to the
demands of the driving task. On an
empty highway with not much
demand, arousal levels are low and
you may think it’s OK to take on
another task, raising demand into an
area which feels more engaging.”
Above: An actual
incident of mobile
phone use detected
using an Acusensus
camera
Right: Highways
England’s Supercabs
are catching out
truck drivers
If distraction coincides with an
unexpected event, then it is more
likely to turn into a critical event, usually
with a crash as its outcome
Dr Neale Kinnear, head of behavioral science, TRL
Distraction Detection |
Traffic Technology International July/August 2019
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