The founder of road safety enforcement company Acusensus says his company’s technology has saved hundreds of families and friends from going through the grief of losing a loved one through road crashes.
Alex Jannick (pictured), who was inspired to create the AI-based camera technology to spot people using their mobile phones at the wheel when his best friend was killed by a distracted driver while cycling in a bike lane, told the Highways Voices podcast from Intertraffic 2026 that statistics prove the equipment makes a huge difference to road safety.
“The very first programme that we deployed was in New South Wales, Australia, at the end of 2019 to deter drivers using their mobile phones,” he said in the interview. “When we started, about one in 100 drivers was found using a phone at any point when they passed the camera. Now that’s down to one in 1200 and in the first two years of that programme, road fatalities reduced by over 20%, and we’ve seen that in every programme we’ve deployed.
“We’ve had the programme in Devon and Cornwall, which has seen some really significant changes in driver behaviour and reductions in KSIs. Over in the United States, we have the programme in Minnesota, where they have a particular corridor, highway seven, that has significant road fatalities. The year before we had our enforcement programme with the local police, there five people died on that stretch and that corridor. Last year, zero people died. And so it just shows how effective it is.”
The Heads-Up technology also spots people not wearing their seatbelts in-vehicle, and has delivered improvements to road safety by encouraging compliance with seatbelts. Acusensus is about to start a major survey of driver behaviour in Scotland.
Poignantly, Mr Jannick reflects on the value of the technology in averting tragedy that would otherwise happen: “It’s when you go through that trauma of losing somebody really close to you, it has such a ripple effect on the community,” he says at the end of the interview. “My friend James, he was in the prime of his life, an incredibly talented individual. He was run into from behind. He was riding in a bike lane in a place where you should never be at any risk whatsoever, just because the driver was using a phone, and we know, and I know, that there are now hundreds of families that actually did not experience that because of the enforcement programmes that have been rolled out with this technology.”
The Acusensus Heads-Up system uses two cameras to take high-speed front-facing and overhead images of vehicles, with AI applied to detect any potential seatbelt or mobile phone offences. The images are then verified by at least two human reviewers to determine whether an offence has taken place; and if one is identified, the driver will either be sent a warning letter or a notice of intended prosecution, depending on the severity. The company has already delivered the technology to 19 police force regions in trials and operational projects across the UK.
You can hear the full interview on the 13 March Highways Voices podcast from Intertraffic Amsterdam 2026, available around 4pm UK time. These podcasts are brought to you thanks to the support of SWARCO, Westcotec, AGD Systems and TRL.
(Picture – Highways News)
