The tasks they perform, moreover, at the end of the masts, day and night, fore and aft, both stationary and moving, even distinguish vehicles… Ah, they know that, they do it with zeal! However, over twenty years of research and development, they have not fundamentally changed one iota. It’s a bit as if during all these years the baby was taught to speak “areu-areu” and “da-da-da” perfectly and in twelve languages, but not to walk!

However, on paper, there are many offenses that deserve to be tracked and punished: using a phone while driving, of course; no belt, obviously; and a whole bunch of priority rules (stop, course) and traffic rules (turn signals, interstation, overtaking on the right)… For this – and in the absence of a real traffic police, which we will not have – it is necessary. finally make radars more “intelligent”. Technically, nothing is insurmountable, if you listen to the manufacturers of control systems, who have been working on crime detection algorithms for a long time. But then why are their devices no longer “multi-hit”, as we were told eight years ago (when we talked about tower radars)? Their answer? “Because there is no demand from the state authorities! So why should we approve ultra-sophisticated devices if there is no market behind it?” Mercantile logic, which is understood by private companies…

Less audible, however, is the lack of political will to change the “tasks” of radars. Oh, to keep an eye on ZFE*, noise, sharing lanes and all, there are people! But there is no one to report really dangerous offenses. But personally, if tomorrow Road Safety introduces automated (and reliable) monitoring of phones behind the wheel, I applaud with both hands! In the meantime, I keep them behind the wheel, watching my speedometer to make sure I’m keeping to the speed limit… And I watch around me all these more or less accident-prone behaviors and misbehaviors that remain in the vast majority, unpunished .

* Low emission zones.

Photo author: Istockphotos

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