Exclusive:AI-assisted cameras to detect 2 of the riskiest driver behaviours trialled in Scottish first

Police Scotland is expected to launch a pilot to crackdown on two of the biggest driving dangers within months following “positive feedback” from the technology’s use on major roads in England over the past three years.

Images captured by multiple cameras attached to a van are processed using AI to analyse whether a motorist could be using a phone or driving without a seat belt. Transport Secretary Fiona Hyslop told The Scotsman: “That deterrence aspect should ensure that people don’t do things that are clearly a risk to themselves and to other drivers.

“For mobile phones, the challenge is that quite often people are looking down at them rather than having them at their ear, so having the capability to identify that is going to be important. Subscribe to Alastair Dalton’s weekly Transport newsletter

“The fact that 18 per cent of people who die in cars aren’t wearing seatbelts is extremely alarming, so that’s another area that we will be having a focus on.

“The reason we want to introduce it here is because there has been positive feedback [from trials in England]. It’s something that’s quite new in terms of our armoury.”

The pilot follows a trial in England by Warwickshire Police and National Highways (NH), which runs motorways and other trunk roads south of the Border, from 2021.

The trial was extended to ten other police forces in February and will run until March next year “to inform a possible roll-out” across England.

Police Scotland trialled the use of a lorry cab in 2022 to enable officers to look into cars from above.

NH said drivers were four times more likely to be in a crash if they used their phone behind the wheel and twice as likely to die in a crash if they didn’t wear a seatbelt.

Drivers can be fined up to £500 for not wearing a seatbelt, in addition to penalty points, and up to £1,000 and six penalty points for using a mobile phone.

A total of 24 drivers using a phone were killed on Scotland’s roads between 2015 and 2020. A Transport Scotland spokesperson said: “Plans are being progressed to pilot live operation of new camera technology capable of detecting drivers who use a handheld device behind the wheel and those who do not wear a seatbelt on targeted roads in Scotland.”

Police Scotland head of road policing Chief Superintendent Hilary Sloan, said: “We have a positive duty to the public to use new technologies to keep people safe and improve road safety.”

Neil Greig, a Scotland-based policy adviser to the IAM RoadSmart motoring group, said: “It’s probably too early to say that AI cameras are making any difference down south, but they have the potential to get at those drivers who don’t wear seatbelts, who are over-represented in fatal crashes.”

News of the trial comes days after Ms Hyslop announced a new review of speed limits, which she said would be published within weeks. She said she was particularly concerned about an increase in deaths on non-trunk rural roads, which are the responsibility of councils.