While some cynics believe the purpose of speed cameras is to generate revenue for the government most people agree that they aim to make the roads safer by helping to reduce traffic speeds.
The NZ Police website explains that speed cameras "increase drivers’ perceived risk of being caught and encourage them to travel below the speed limit. Small reductions in speed greatly reduce the likelihood of a crash and increase the chances of surviving crashes that do occur."
www.police.govt.nz/advice/driving-and-road-safety/speed-limits-cameras-and-enforcement/speed-cameras Savvy drivers can of course familiarise themselves with camera locations and can monitor their driving to ensure they at least don't speed around camera areas. If speed is such a significant factor in accidents is there scope to make use of current in-car technology so that motorists could be monitored for speed at any time? Senior executives at the Ford Motor Company think so.
"Modern automobiles are logging tremendous amounts of information every single second they’re being put to use, and a senior executive at the Ford Motor Company says car manufacturers have access to every last piece of it.
At the CES electronic trade show in Las Vegas this week, the global vice president for Ford’s marketing and sales division opened up about just exactly how much data is being collected by his company’s latest line of smart cars.
“We know everyone who breaks the law, we know when you're doing it. We have GPS in your car, so we know what you're doing,” Ford’s Jim Farley told a Vegas crowd on Wednesday, according to Business Insider reporter Jim Edwards.
“By the way, we don't supply that data to anyone," Farley assured attendees.
“Because of the GPS units installed in Ford vehicles, Ford knows when its drivers are speeding, and where they are while they're doing it,” Edwards wrote. Should the company choose to share that information with law enforcement, though, then it could create an environment where surveillance extends off the computer and onto the road.
As many as 96 percent of the cars mass-produced in 2013 included event data recorders, RT reported last year, similar to the black boxes that log information inside airplanes.
“These cars are equipped with computers that collect massive amounts of data,” Khaliah Barnes of the Electronic Privacy Information Center told the New York Times then. “Without protections, it can lead to all kinds of abuse,” she said.
According to Business Insider, Farley said this information is being recorded in cars by Ford so that data aggregators and analysts may someday later be able to use it in real time to help solve problems, such as traffic congestion.”
rt.com/usa/ford-vp-auto-surveillance-382/ Could GPS units in cars therefore replace speed cameras? Clearly this implementation would only work if all cars had built in GPS, so we may be a few years away from that, but in principle if we are totally committed to road safety should all drivers be willing for in-car data to be available to scrutinise speed?
What do you think?
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