The case in summary Tonje (24) has a notification service in the car that notifies of everything from speed checks to hit animals on the road The emergency police (UP) wants to ban notification of police controls Over 80,000 Norwegians have such notification systems in the car The company Safedrive offers notification and fine guarantee The Ministry of Transport will consider legislative changes Storting representative Dagfinn Olsen (Frp) believes bans are fundamentally wrong The summary is made by an AI service from OpenAi. The content has been reviewed by news’s journalists before publication. Many people have felt a lump in their throat when they meet a patrol from the emergency police (UP) with a laser meter along the road. However, some drivers have more control over the controls than others. They get that through companies that offer notifications in the car, about everything from speed checks to hit animals on the road. One of them is 25-year-old Tonje Bergersen in Vesterålen. – It has become very popular. Pretty much everyone I know has one like that in their car. Tonje Bergersen is interested in cars – and street cars. Here she stands in front of her brother’s self-built company car. Photo: Privat She has had such a notification service in the car for many years. But it is not the warning of speed controls that means the most to her. – The most important thing is that it reports if there are animals or obstacles in the roadway. Thanks in large part to the notification, I have never been involved in an accident, she says. She is clear that she would have had the system in the car, even if it did not warn of traffic controls. – Yes, without a doubt. 80 per cent of the times I have received a notification it concerns obstacles or animals in the roadway, she says. For Tonje Bergersen (24), it is most important to be notified of obstacles on the road, and not necessarily traffic controls. Photo: Privat UP: Will ban notification of police checks Such notification systems are today completely legal. But UP wants to put an end to that. At least to notify the police of checks. – The manual controls must be unpredictable. There, one should not know where or when we stand, precisely to achieve a preventive effect on the rest of the road network. That’s what UP chief Knut Smedsrud says. UP chief Knut Smedsrud wants an end to people being notified about police traffic checks. Photo: Siw Borgen / news – If you get to know where the police stand, there are many people who will adjust their driving accordingly. And it is perhaps precisely the group we are looking for that provides such equipment. – Do you stop many people who have such equipment in the car? – Yes, we do. Among those we stop, we have actually experienced that they say “Wait a minute, I have to notify about the inspection, otherwise I won’t get the fine refunded”. It shows a bit about the attitudes and what you achieve with such a system. Therefore, they will now get rid of such notifications. – We have taken an initiative with the Ministry of Transport to hopefully make this illegal, says Smedsrud. Safedrive: – Not an invitation to drive fast One of the very largest players in Norway, with over 80,000 users, is the company Safedrive in Namsos. For a measly NOK 2,000 – and a monthly subscription of NOK 200 – you get a small screen that attaches to the car. Here you can both notify, and be notified of, incidents in traffic. This includes both obstacles and animals in the roadway and controls in traffic – We know that some may be skeptical of us because we also notify controls and speed cameras. It is probably because some people believe that such warnings make it “safer” to drive over the speed limit. But our experience is the opposite, says general manager Magnus Wester of the company. Magnus Wester is general manager of the technology company Safedrive, which was previously called GPS notification. Photo: SafeDrive AS Wester says that over 80 per cent of the alerts deal with obstacles and animals on the road. He is also clear that blood alcohol checks should not generate alerts in the company’s system. – In cases where blood alcohol checks have been notified, this is as a result of misuse of the service – and a clear breach of our terms of use. But the company also offers a penalty guarantee. This means that the company covers speeding fines if the system has not notified of the check in advance. The company Safedrive offers a penalty guarantee if the speed control has not been notified. But that requires that the person who is stopped also notifies that there is control. Photo: Ole-Christian Olsen / news – We make no secret of the fact that some of those who buy Safedrive, for the first time, are concerned about notifications about speed control. That is why we give a penalty guarantee, he says and adds: – This is not an invitation to drive too fast. On the contrary. We are convinced that this attracts a type of customer that we would not otherwise get. Ministry: Will look at a change in the law State Secretary Tom Kalsås in the Ministry of Transport says they share UP’s concerns – and will look at the legislation. – Today there is only a ban on equipment that affects the police’s control system directly. More indirect notifications via mobile phone are currently not prohibited. A ban on systems that notify of police checks has previously been proposed. But both the Ministry of Justice and the Ministry of Transport have always said no. Tom Kalsås (Ap) is state secretary in the Ministry of Transport. They will now look at the possibilities of banning notification of police checks. Photo: Ingvald Nordmark Now the pipe has a different sound. – Our assessment has been that there has been no need for stricter regulations, but now we see that these services are spreading and that there may be a need to look at this again, he says and adds: – We take that seriously and will assess whether there is a need for tightening of the regulations to be able to crack down on this type of notification services. Frp on prohibition: – Fundamental error Storting representative Dagfinn Olsen (Frp) believes that the road to prohibition is not the right one to drive. – I think that would be fundamentally wrong. I think that there is no difference in them themselves going out in the newspaper and announcing a major inspection next week. He believes that the possibility of receiving notifications in the car about everything from animals to traffic controls has a preventive effect. – Last Saturday, I actually missed such a system that I could have pressed when I drove through a tunnel and was about to run down a person on a bicycle without lights. He believes that such a system should have been installed in all cars. – Whether traffic control, dead animals or cyclists without lights are notified – it doesn’t matter. Dagfinn Olsen (Frp) is a parliamentary representative from Nordland, and is critical of the proposal to limit services that warn of checks and obstacles in the road. Photo: Ola Helness / news – But the Road Traffic Center has a notification system for drivers… – Yes, but this is much easier than contacting the Road Traffic Centre. This is very simple. You press a button and you are alerted. – But doesn’t this system notify you of where the control is, so that you can slow down and drive fast before and after? – No, I don’t think you do. I don’t think people think that the police stand still in one place. You rarely win the lottery, and I think the chance of being caught is just as great whether you have it in your car or not.
ttn-69
UP will ban notification services of the Safedrive type in the car – news Nordland
