Ways to stop road killers.
Imagine if your son, brother or best friend walked out the door today and you never saw them alive again. How would you feel?
Imagine the next time you see them they are on a slab in a mortuary and you are having to identify them.
Imagine how this feels to you when you see that they died of horrific head injuries sustained in the crash and it’s difficult to recognise them.
Imagine saying to your wife they probably shouldn’t view the body for this reason.
Imagine when you hear that he was an innocent passenger in a car driven by a P-plater under the influence of alcohol who was doing ‘burnouts’ late at night with five passengers onboard, four unrestrained.”
Think about that.
That is my daily nightmare because what I have described happened to my 17 year old son Barney. This is a snippet of what it feels like to lose someone to the insidious act of driving while under the influence of alcohol. Unfortunately, this story is not uncommon. Drunk driving, drug driving, speeding, fatigue and inappropriate use of mobile phones are killing our children. Apparently, the driver will be behind the wheel again in but a few years.
As I search for meaning and purpose there are some simple things that need to change to prevent what happened to my son happening to anyone else. Sure there is much more to be done in driver awareness and education. Certainly more in terms of accountability. Of that I have no doubt. I am no expert on technology around road safety. What I do know for certain is that technology capability exists right now that could have helped save Barney’s life. Here are five initiatives that come to mind.
Make Vehicle Black Box mandatory. Use existing technology to make Event Data Recorder, also known as a vehicle black box mandatory for all Provisional drivers or drivers under the age of 25 years as part of license regulations. This can be as simple as a black box or a mobile app operating on GPS. It could include dash cams. You’ve probably heard of an airplane’s ‘black box’ – a device that records information like speed and system status during a crash to help investigators determine what went wrong. This idea is similar – such a recorder would take a snapshot of speed, position, braking, and such at the time of a crash, but not necessarily track every moment of every car all the time. In the near future, data from the black box and dash cams could remove all and any reasonable doubt for crash investigators. Conceivably, people doing burnouts would see their car simply switch off or go into a safe mode. Potentially, any passengers unrestrained in seat belts would prevent the ignition working.
Create automated driver alerts. Create rules designed to facilitate and encourage driver accountability via telematic data from in-car systems. Learned driver behaviour is a serious issue and is often overlooked. Speeding, braking suddenly for example. Or even alerts if you have been driving for dangerously too long. Implementing alerts can help improve driver performance. Creating rules to monitor vehicle performance can help prevent the likelihood of accidents. Automated alerts to emergency services in the event of an accident could rapidly improve response times and save lives too. Social media alerts for parents and drivers so that they are aware of their driving behaviours to encourage better driving could be a positive aspect to this. Good drivers can publish their data online, possibly even be rewarded with cudos. Importantly, this initiative also calls for the mandatory do not disturb and disablement of text message and social media alerts when driving. Smartphones are problems today, but perhaps smartphone telematic apps can enable them to help reduce driving risk.
Alcohol interlock installation Facilitation Program. Install alcohol and drug breathalysers in all cars driven by provisional licence holders and all drivers convicted of DUI. An alcohol interlock is a breathalyser between a car’s start button and its ignition system. In other words, you’d have to blow into a little thing in your car, and if the booze on your breath rated over the legal limit to drive, it wouldn’t let you start the engine. In most states in Australia Alcohol interlock programs only apply to serious and repeat offenders. This technology exists today - the costs that perhaps inhibited universal adoption no longer apply. Or simply put if it saves lives it has to be worth it.
Install Intelligent Speed Control Systems in all new cars purchased. What the European Commission calls “Intelligent Speed Assistance” and a lot of news outlets seem to be calling “Speed Limiting” has been most plainly defined as a system designed to prevent vehicles from breaking the speed limit, and it would do so by knowing the car’s position via GPS and knowing what the limit was by recognition cameras. The system can be overridden temporarily, for example, to pass a bus, and most importantly, that the whole system could be turned off by a switch. Optional systems like this are already baked into the interface of some luxury cars. Speed limiting technology looks set to become mandatory for all vehicles sold in Europe from 2022, after new rules were provisionally agreed by the EU. The Department for Transport said the system would also apply in the UK, despite Brexit. Whilst this is one of the few things Europeans can agree on why don’t we take the lead?.
Promote Black Box insurance. Also known as Telematics Insurance, this is an auto insurance program that offers premiums based on current driving behaviour as opposed to historical performance. Black box insurance aims to match motorists with personalised premiums according to their driving performance. How can we encourage more insurance companies to offer lower premiums consistent with safe driving. Or effectively penalise consistently bad drivers with higher premiums.
Here are some of the advantages and disadvantages of black box insurance according to leading insurance comparison site Comparethemarket.com.au.
Advantages
May result in lower premiums for competent driving
Can help locate your car if it’s stolen
Can be used to settle an incident dispute
Improve your driving with the data
Disadvantages
Not widely available in Australia. Generally, only available with comprehensive car insurance
You may have to pay a one-off installation fee
You may also pay a fee if you want to transfer the black box to another car, repair the device, or remove it altogether
Black Box insurance appears to be a great solution for safe drivers and young drivers looking for a low cost premium, unfortunately it is limited in Australia. Perhaps there is an opportunity for large insurance companies to make a difference here through collaboration. To work out a way to reduce the barriers to adopting this concept and refreshing the value proposition. Most notably also with telematic data privacy and telematic technology solution providers. I suspect parents of young drivers would support this too for the obvious safety aspects.
There is no doubt that new in-car technology could save lives, there is a good case for Black Box technology to be fitted in all cars and most importantly used in real time not post event and for live tracking insurance purposes. When it comes to intelligent speed adaptation, the case is perhaps less clear. The best speed limiter is the driver's right foot. The problem is that they have been around for years and don’t work when connected to an intoxicated brain. The good thing is that there’s now technology for that too.
The Australian Government has committed $2b in the 2020 budget to road safety. Whilst this is very good news there is much ground to make up and comes too late for some. I advocate that we must work together with a fresh approach to the culture of and the attitude to road safety to anchor effective change in the community, corporations and government.
I have a vision to accelerate the successful adoption of digital technology that can prevent human error on Australian roads through accountable implementation, education and awareness. The premise being on activating new solutions that are available now. After all, what is that famous definition of insanity that Einstein is purported to have said - “doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.”
Accelerating the road to safety will entail rapid collaboration, innovation and investment on future solutions so that we establish a lead in this space. Road safety innovation, traffic efficiency and return on investment for corporations need not be mutually exclusive. There are opportunities for new jobs too.
For me this cannot come soon enough - it's time for action and accountability. I am recruiting individuals, government representatives and corporations to help drive collaboration around this initiative.
In Summary, 5 ideas to rapidly improve road safety:
Make Vehicle Black Box mandatory.
Create Automated Driver Alerts.
Alcohol Interlock Installation Facilitation Program.
Install Intelligent Speed Control Systems in all new cars.
Promote Black Box insurance.
