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Camera placed on M6 in Merseyside caught one seat belt or mobile phone offence every 90 seconds
30 January 2023
National Highways identified over 750 seat belt and mobile phone offences on a section of the M6 in Merseyside last month in December 2022.
This is the highest number of offences at any single site recorded so far during the government body’s pilot programme, tracking offences on the motorway network across the Midlands and Southwest.
The offences in Merseyside were recorded by a high-visibility camera placed in roadworks south of junction 23 of the M6 at Haydock, which used artificial intelligence (AI) to photograph the offences. The images were then sent to National Highways and the offence was verified by at least two people.
This camera alone caught one offence every 90 seconds – versus one every six seconds on average across all other sites.
In light of the success of the trial, it is possible that it could be expanded to monitor the entire UK motorway network.
National Highways manager for the data collection project Jamie Hassall said, “We wanted to find out whether driving through a substantial section of roadworks with barriers, a reduced speed limit and other traffic management would mean drivers and passengers modifying their behaviour.
“The findings are disappointing to say the least with drivers spotted using a mobile phone almost every five minutes and lots of drivers and passengers simply not bothering to belt up.”
Each year, failure to seatbelt is linked to 25-30 per cent of all road deaths in the UK and distracted drivers are responsible for over 100 road deaths and serious injuries.
Technical Director for AECOM, the engineering company which worked with National Highways on the pilot project, Dr Jamie Uff said, “We ran six short data collection sessions along the southbound M6 just outside National Highways’ regional operations centre at Newton-le-Willows and the numbers detected were far higher than expected.
“The numbers of people killed or seriously injured as a result of these behaviours remain high. The technology AECOM is deploying makes detection straightforward and is providing valuable insight to the police and policy makers on the current level of road user behaviour.
“Almost 60 percent of the mobile phone offences spotted were committed by car drivers, while seat belt offences were typically an issue associated with commercial vehicles, with 86 percent of the offences being committed by van or HGV occupants.”
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