Washington, D.C. isn’t mad, it’s just disappointed with drivers who are frequent speeders and stop sign-rollers, and it will start letting them know that later this month. The District is launching a pilot program that will send personalized text messages to people it thinks are at risk of being involved in a serious crash in an effort to prevent the accident altogether.
The project is being led by the D.C. Department of Transportation and The Lab @DC, as part of the District’s Vision Zero. The initiative seeks to eliminate all traffic deaths in the city, and the latest measure being enacted in its name lands somewhere between prosecuting future crimes and new age parenting.
The District is using information gathered from its Automated Traffic Enforcement (ATE) system to build a statistical model that predicts a driver’s likelihood of being involved in a crash. It says that the system takes photos of a driver’s license plate when they run red lights, roll through stop signs, or speed.
Read: Pedestrian Fatalities Hit 40-Year High, Even As Motorists Become Safer
Research suggests that drivers with multiple violations are responsible for a disproportionate number of crashes on the road. So, by taking the data gathered by the ATE system (among other data), it can determine which drivers are at a heightened risk of causing an accident.
That’s the theory anyway, and as part of this pilot project, it will send tailored text messages to 100,000 D.C.-area drivers who have two or more citations in the last 18 months, reports The Washington Post.
To be clear, the messages aren’t a citation or a punishment, really, they simply include copies of previous citations and list the financial, environmental, and personal benefits of obeying traffic laws.
“Someone in your household is driving dangerously,” one example of the mailer seen by WaPo said. “Your vehicle has a history of speeding and/or running red lights and this is placing the drivers and passengers of your vehicle at a high risk of getting into a crash.”
The district is still in the process of sending out mailers to drivers, so it remains unclear if it will work. Over the coming months, it will see if the behavior of drivers who received the mailers changes, and that will help it determine the efficacy of the idea.
Although the price of the project has not been revealed, representatives said that it costs less than traditional policing tactics, which could make it an attractive idea for cities around the country. And they’ll likely be watching, because the District is unaware of any other jurisdictions trying this out.
With fatalities among American motorists and pedestrians historically high, looking for new ways to improve safety on the nation’s is an important mission, even if some of the tactics are a little bit creepy.
