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Queensland wraps up connected vehicle road safety pilot

By General Posts

by Aimee Chanthadavong from https://www.zdnet.com

The Queensland government said during the nine-month pilot drivers were alerted about on-road hazards, including red lights, pedestrians, and cyclists.

A pilot involved with testing technology that alerted drivers about upcoming on-road hazards, including red lights, pedestrians, and bike riders in Queensland’s Ipswich has now wrapped up after nine months.

As part of the Ipswich Connected Vehicle Pilot (ICVP), 350 participants had their cars retrofitted with cooperative intelligent transport systems (C-ITS) technology, including an antenna mounted on a roof-rack, in-vehicle communications box placed under the driver’s seat, and a display on the dashboard that signalled safety warnings to the driver.

The equipment enabled each vehicle’s position, speed, and other data, to be shared, while it also received data from traffic signals and traffic management systems related to traffic lights, speed limits, road works, and road hazards.

The pilot covered 300 square kilometres within the Ipswich local government area, and included 30 traffic signals fitted with roadside communication devices. These devices, plus those that were installed in participant vehicles, had access to cloud-based data sharing systems throughout the pilot area.

The ICVP was delivered by Queensland’s Department of Transport and Main Roads, in partnership with Motor Accident Insurance Commission of Queensland, Telstra, Queensland University of Technology’s Centre for Accident Research and Road Safety Queensland, iMOVE Australia, Ipswich City Council, and the Department of Infrastructure, Transport, Cities and Regional Development.

“The connected technology tested allows vehicles to talk with other vehicles, roadside infrastructure, and transport management systems,” Member for Ipswich Jennifer Howard said.

“Messages received are combined with the vehicle’s data and used to generate driver warnings such as red lights, road works, road hazards, congestion, and pedestrians.”

The pilot was launched under the Queensland government’s broader Cooperative and Automated Vehicle Initiative (CAVI) that aims to reduce serious road injuries and death tolls to zero.

Other initiatives being delivered under CAVI include a pilot that involves testing a small number of vehicles with cooperative and automated technologies, and a project looking at how new technology applications can benefit vulnerable road user safety including pedestrians, motorcycle riders, and bicycle riders.

The state government expects the QUT to deliver a final pilot safety evaluation report about the trial in early 2022.

The Queensland government had signalled plans to conduct trials using intelligent vehicles back in 2016.

Other trials are being carried out across the country to improve overall road safety include one that was announced earlier this week by the Transport for NSW. It said was using AI to develop predictive algorithms to help national, state, local governments manage their road safety performance.

Up until now, assessing the standards of roads have relied on collecting video survey footage and manual recording methods. But the initiative aims to develop a faster and more automated method to extract raw road data.

Meanwhile, a six-month trial that used lidar sensors at a busy intersection in Victoria showed the technology has the potential to warn road users in real time about upcoming hazards.

The AU$2 million trial, carried out by the Victorian government, involved the installation of lidar sensors at an intersection in Yarraville, which monitored the movement of road users including pedestrians, cyclists, cars, and trucks to identity potential hazards. The sensors were able to detect potential hazards within 0.2 seconds, the state government said.

The trial also investigated ways how lidar sensors could be provide hazard warnings to connected vehicles.

K-9 division of DWR gets help from Christian Motorcyclists Association

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by Elle Cabrera from https://www.thespectrum.com

K-9 division of DWR gets help from Christian Motorcyclists Association for dog vests

The St. George chapter of the Christian Motorcyclists Association hosted a motorcycle ride and fundraiser Saturday for K-9 vests.

The CMA-Truth messengers are a group of motorcyclists who travel all over Utah to bless motorcycles and participate in fundraising to help the community. They partnered with the Vietnam Veterans of St. George and Zion Harley Davidson to host this event, which raised more than $1,500 for protective K-9 vests for the Division of Natural Resources and Wildlife.

“We want to support law enforcement in any way we can. We go around to local police departments, the St. George Police department, blessing their motorcycles and their staff,” said Steven Gaither, president of the CMA chapter in St. George. Gaither is also retired from law enforcement.

The fundraiser had food provided by the Veterans and K-9 demonstrations done by the DNR. They brought both tracking and defense dogs to showcase the need for protective vests.

“All of our dogs to tracking, they all do article search and detection work. So, wildlife detection is our specialty in the detection field,” Conservation officer and Lead K-9 trainer Josh Carver said.

These officers specialize in looking for bear poachers and searching for people out in the wild. Often, these dogs will track remains and possibly the poachers themselves which means they’re searching for someone who is potentially armed. These vests can make the difference between life and death for these dogs.

“Tracking is another thing we take pride in. That’s something that we either do for search and rescue, which we love to help when we can, but we do a lot of tracking bad guys-fugitives, trespasser, you name it,” Carver said.

Tracking is a large part of what the DNR does with the K-9 unit. The dogs are picked as early as eight weeks old and their training begins shortly after. Utah K-9s are certified in two states and require 400 hours of work.

To get involved with the CMA visit http://cmaswr2.org/UT/TRUTHMESSENGERS/default.aspx.

To learn more about the DWR K-9 unit visit https://wildlife.utah.gov/news/officers-on-patrol.html.

The Slow March toward Forced Temperance: NMA Weekly E-Newsletter #571

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It’s been seven years since we wrote about the Driver Alcohol Detection System and Safety (DADSS) program–A Frog in the Pot, E-newsletter #187–and efforts to make ignition interlock devices standard equipment in all vehicles. Proponents of forcing all drivers to pass alcohol detection testing before being able to operate their cars are nothing if not determined.

The Reduce Impaired Driving for Everyone (RIDE) Act of 2019, per U.S. Senate Bill 2604, and its counterpart House Bill 3159, keeps their hopes alive by requiring all new vehicles to have alcohol detection systems within four years.

We recognize the politically incorrect timing of addressing the issue of impaired driving during the holiday season, and restate that the NMA does not support, encourage, or condone drunk driving. Impaired drivers who put themselves and others at risk do not belong on the road. But we also do not support zero-tolerance concepts that subject the vast majority of non-imbibing motorists to intrusive testing every time they get behind the wheel.

The unreliability of detection technology is a major cause of concern. False positives are commonplace. Imagine a DADSS device that requires the driver to submit a breath sample to start a car, and to also give regular-interval samples while the vehicle is in motion, forcing shutdown at inopportune times and possibly under unsafe conditions. And if those “rolling samples” require active involvement by all drivers, distracted driving will become an even more widespread road safety concern.

SB 2604, sponsored by Senators Tom Udall (D-NM) and Rick Scott (R-FL), currently sits with the Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee. The House bill, 3159, is sponsored by six Republican congressmen and women and is being considered by the Subcommittee on Highways and Transit Committee. Consider reaching out to members of both committees, particularly those who represent you directly. Ask them questions like:

  1. What is the false-positive rate of DADSS, and how will that be taken into account?
  2. How will DADSS distinguish driver vs. passenger BAC levels?
  3. Will DADSS include external reporting capabilities, e.g., be tied to V2X (“vehicle to everything”) connectivity? If so,
    1. Will the system report every episode of an intervention, false positive or not, to an authority for possible assignment of a penalty? What privacy safeguards will be put into place?
    2. How will the system determine who was operating the car at the time of the “incident?” Will the vehicle owner automatically be assigned blame?
  4. How much will the DADSS technology add to the cost of a new vehicle? Will that cost be borne by the consumer, and will there be an ongoing cost to the car owner to process DADSS data?

At the least, our elected officials should have satisfactory answers before supporting legislation that would subject all drivers to an unprecedented level of personal intrusion and regulation.

Join the NMA Today https://www.motorists.org/join/