A short video of Tel Aviv traffic violations set to peppy music has made countless U-turns on social media since being released on August 31. The YouTube clip confirms what everyone already knows – that Israeli driving is a mess.
The one-minute video is a scary mash-up of near misses and collisions. It shows cars overtaking on the right, a bus nearly flattening a cyclist, cars deliberately driving through red lights, motorcyclists disregarding pedestrian crossings, and six accidents.
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Tel Aviv is famously known as the Non-Stop City, so Nexar aptly titled its video clip Tel Aviv – The City That Never Stops (on Red).
The Nexar app team announced its intention to change dangerous driving when it first launched back in May at the Code Conference in Los Angeles.
The new video clip is the company’s call for more drivers to take part in its beta dashboard camera (dash-cam) network.
“We think we’ll be able to make it safer for you on the road, help you make the right decisions while driving, and most importantly, change driving culture for the better. And we want to do it first here, in Israel. Being part of this network of drivers that help capture more driving data is just the start of making our roads safer for all of us, our families and friends, ” writes founder and CEO Eran Shir on the company’s blog.
Data on road accidents is not always accurate because many are never reported.
“What are the signs of a dangerous driving situation? Which drivers are the most dangerous on a daily basis? Which intersections are most prone to red light running and why? We don’t know these answers today. But we can change this by collecting data, crunching it, and turning it into actionable, immediate warnings we can give to drivers to prevent accidents, ” writes Shir.
The two guys behind Nexar – Shir and co-founder Bruno Fernandez-Ruiz – are veteran serial entrepreneurs. They say that as fathers “of early teenagers that will be taking their first driving lesson in no time, we were self-interested in applying our experience and knowledge to one of the greatest burdens of our society: road casualties.”
Nexar says its software platform for connected driving mixed with crowdsourced feedback will make it easier to prevent car accidents and “help us all drive better.” Nexar’s dash-cam app (iOS only) collects data on your drive as well as cars around you, alerting users in real time to dangerous junctions with limited visibility, poor road conditions and dangerous drivers in the vicinity.
The first beta testers included just 20 drivers in Tel Aviv. They collected 60, 000 kilometers of driving, 3, 000 total hours, and 11 hours of “incident” footage in one month and reported hundreds of dangerous traffic violations.
The company is now trying to expand its network of drivers to further “learn about the road and avoid its dangers.”
