Fatality Free Friday 2024

Today is Fatality Free Friday. Acusensus would like to use this day to highlight our mission of ‘Changing behaviours, saving lives,’ to remind everyone of the importance of keeping our roads safe every day and the behavioural changes we could all make to ensure we all get home safe.

Fatality Free Friday is a day when we commit to ensuring no deaths or serious injuries occur on our roads. If we are capable of doing this for a single day, why can’t we continue to apply this sentiment on our every day lives?

The common causes behind road traffic crashes are preventable due to their habitual nature. These causes are known as the fatal five behaviours, which include speeding, impaired driving (drugs and/or alcohol), failure to wear a seatbelt, driver fatigue and distracted driving. The World Health Organisation (WHO) believes these behaviours lead to 1.19 million deaths annually across the globe. A bit closer to home, 1,273 lives were lost on Australian roads in 2023.

No one should be killed or injured on our roads because another motorist was distracted by their mobile device, in a hurry, impaired or tired. Road deaths are preventable and all lives lost on our roads are tragic.

A proven way to prevent road trauma is enforcement. Acusensus has deployed its enforcement technology in over 10 countries worldwide, leading to changes in distracted driving, speeding and seatbelt behaviours. Acusensus believes we must continue to deploy, refine and improve our enforcement technology, which leads to the development of the Multi-function Enforcement Solution, which currently addresses three of the fatal five behaviours. The artificial intelligence system can detect mobile point-to-point (average) speed, spot speed, seatbelt non-compliance and distracted driving.

Research and development endeavours are in progress to add impaired and fatigued driving detection to Multi-function, which is a world-first initiative that will allow the system to eventually address all fatal five contributors to road trauma. This ambitious project will allow Multi-function to address every significant behavioural cause behind road safety incidents. A tool that addresses the fatal five will be economically beneficial as it will be a single asset that detects multiple dangerous driver behaviours simultaneously. This can produce real change and save lives that should not end prematurely across the road network.