4th April 2006

Private companies are looking at ‘black boxes’ to monitor the behaviour of their drivers, but there are no plans to make the scheme compulsory, an official said last night.

The UK’s Daily Telegraph newspaper reported yesterday that up to 10,000 cars in the UAE will be fitted with the satellite trackers  - which can issue instant speeding fines - within weeks.

Ultimately all cars would have the system within three years, the paper claimed. But that’s not true, according to Colonel Ahmad Nasser Al Raisi, director of Information Technology at Abu Dhabi Police.

“It’s unreasonable to force the costly technology on people because it would put an immense amount of pressure on drivers,” he said.

The technology is more likely to be adopted by companies that operate fleets of vehicles – taxi or lorry operators for example – who want to ensure their drivers stick to the traffic rules.

David Hall, vice president of CERT, the company developing the technology, said a few hundred would be fitted to test vehicles within the next month. “We have agreed to supply four private companies in the UAE with 10,000 boxes to manage their own fleets within the next 12 months,” Hall said.

“At the moment, we have no contracts with anybody in the government,” Hall added. The ‘black boxes’ would use GPS satellites to monitor a car’s movements. It would be possible to tell when a driver breaks the speed limit, and even if he or she takes a corner too fast.

A verbal warning could be played over the car’s radio, and a fine could even be issued automatically. Earlier reports had suggested that the scheme could become compulsory, installed when drivers go to reregister their vehicles.

The UK government is understood to be interested in the technology, and Saudi Arabia is also said to be considering it. The UAE’s roads are the third most dangerous in the world, according to United Nations statistics, with more than 21 deaths per 100,000 people.

Almost one person died every day on Dubai’s roads in the first two months of this year, according to police figures.

Source :7 Days