Cameras That Catch You Using Your Phone While Driving Are Coming to Victorian Roads

It's about to get a whole lot harder for any Victorian driver to get away with using their mobile phone while driving — and it's thanks to new state-of-the art safety cameras being installed to detect the illegal behaviour.

This Wednesday, July 29, the Victorian Government is launching a three-month trial of the phone detection cameras and then, if the trial is successful, hopes to roll them out across the state.

So, how will they work? Well, the cameras will take high-resolution images of the front seat of the car, and those images can then be viewed in real time to detect folks using their phones while they're behind the wheel. The cameras can apparently operate in all conditions, day and night, and regardless of the weather.

The new technology will be tested across several metro and regional locations, according to the government, and will be managed by Acusensus — the same Australian company that helped launch the world-first cameras in NSW.

During Sydney's six-month trial of the cameras in early 2019 — before they were rolled out permanently in late 2019 — the cameras spied more than 100,000 drivers illegally using their phones.

A photo taken during the NSW camera trial

The Victorian Government will not be handing out any fines during the trial and says it will delete all photos captured, except for "a limited number of de-identified images".

From 2017–2018, 30,000 Victorians were fined for illegally using their phones while driving. According to research conducted by Monash University, a mobile phone camera program — such as this one being trialled — could prevent 95 casualty crashes per year.

Victoria's three-month trial of safety cameras starts on Wednesday, July 29. To find out more, head to the Victorian Government website.