Road Safety Commission releases shock images of WA drivers while pleading for safer driving over Easter

A baby sits unrestrained on a driver’s lap, with the driver having one hand around the child and the other on the steering wheel. A woman sits in the driver’s seat with a mobile phone resting on her leg as a toddler plays on her passenger’s knee without a seatbelt. Another driver holds his Kindle in one hand near his waist as he steers a car with his other hand, while another driver cradles a laptop. These are just four of the shocking examples of bad behaviour behind the wheel caught on new safety cameras since they were rolled out on WA roads in January. Road Safety Commissioner Adrian Warner on Wednesday described the offending as “truly disturbing and upsetting”. More than 60,000 drivers were caught in illegal acts such as not wearing a seatbelt, using a mobile phone, or driving with unrestrained children and babies on four mobile safety cameras and one fixed camera on the Kwinana Freeway. Of those detections, 20,000 people were caught not wearing seatbelts correctly, 6000 had no seatbelt on at all and — alarmingly — 22,000 had their phone in their hands. Another 12,000 people were caught with their phones resting on their body, which is a fineable offence. It is illegal while driving to touch a mobile phone to take a call or end a call unless the phone is secured in a mount. “We’ve caught 60,000 people using just a few cameras in a few months, so if we were monitoring every road, those numbers would be, frankly, staggering,” Mr Warner said. “Some of the images show the disturbing and quite extraordinary lengths that some people are going to to try and beat the system. “Quite frankly what we’re seeing has been truly disturbing and upsetting — children and babies unrestrained in the front seat, people bypassing seatbelt alarms by jerry-rigging the driver’s buckle-latch, use of laptops while driving at high speeds.” Mr Warner said the images “that really shocked me, and quite frankly, disturbed me — which I’ve had a really visceral reaction (to) — relate to children”. He said drivers were 27 times more likely to die in crashes when they do not wear a seatbelt. The risk for unrestrained children is even higher. “In terms of seatbelts, we’ve seen a driver take the passenger-seat’s seatbelt and clip it into his buckle, presumably in a modern car to stop the car beeping at him, or allowing him to drive — ridiculous,” he said. Police and Road Safety Minister Reece Whitby said some of the images were “quite terrifying” and served an important reminder that the “slightest bit of inattention” could result in a fatal crash. He said some drivers were caught doing multiple things wrong at once. “Some were detected on a freeway where the speed limit is 100km/h, but I also want to make the point to everyone that it’s not the extreme behavior that will kill you alone, just the slightest bit of inattention (can be fatal),” he said. “It’s not OK. You are being detected now (with the cameras) and it could be just as deadly as one of those extreme actions involving having a child on your lap or a laptop.” Despite the large number of offences, none of the drivers have been fined because they were caught during a three-month grace period. After previously planning to lift the grace period in April, it is now poised to end about September. It is understood the extension is a result of the ongoing transfer of the infringement system from WA Police to the Department of Transport. Minister Whitby said with “any new systems, you always have bugs you need to iron out”. “We want to get this right, we want to make sure that when we start issuing infringements, it has to be absolutely running smoothly . . . it’s been pushed back a little later in the year, but I think we need to get it right, because this is important to do so,” he said. “These activities are still illegal right now. Just because you might have been captured by the new technology, given a warning, doesn’t mean this is not illegal. “If you are captured by other means, if police see you, or the conventional cameras capture you, you will be fined.” He warned drivers needed to “change their behaviour now” before the fines come into effect. “These cameras will catch you, they obviously are elevated so things that you thought you could get away with, things that you thought couldn’t be seen, are now being detected,” Mr Whitby said. “I want to give people a chance to change their ways. My advice to everyone is to change your behavior now, before it hits you hard in the hip pocket, because this is an enormous number (of detections).” Two more mobile safety cameras — taking the total to six — .arrived in WA on Wednesday before they’re deployed to the Albany region over the next few months. With thousands expected to hit the road over the next few days for the Easter weekend, Mr Warner urged road users not to rush to their destination. Double demerits will come into effect on Thursday morning until 11.59pm on Monday. “What we are seeing is evidence that together as a society, we need to take ownership of road safety every time we get behind the wheel,” Mr Warner said. “If you think this message doesn’t apply to you, please think again, the power to reduce the road toll lies in all our hands. “This mentality some drivers have, that a little bit of speeding is OK, is wrong. This Easter I want more people driving at or under the speed limit more often.” Five people died during the Easter weekend last year.