New traffic signs may catch you looking at your phone

Traffic Lab is a Seattle Times project that digs into the region’s transportation issues to explore the policies and politics that determine how we get around and how billions of dollars in public money are spent.

If you use your phone while driving, don’t buckle your seat belt or speed, just know this: King County’s road signs may be watching.

Technically, they may be sensing, sending infrared signals into your car to detect the unsafe behavior and then issuing a stern warning.

It’s part of a new pilot rolling out in King County, using four “SmartSigns” rotating to 12 different locations. Each sign promises to detect such unsafe behavior and adapt to target specific drivers.

Phone’s out? “Phone down.”

Speeding? “Slow down.”

The experiment is from the King County Target Zero Traffic Safety Coalition, one of a number of local coalitions tasked with carrying out the Washington Traffic Safety Commission’s goal of reducing deaths on the road.

Drivers may see the signs through July. The first four locations are in Pacific, on Milwaukee Boulevard; Issaquah, on Front Street; and Seattle, on Airport Way and in White Center.

An estimated 813 people died on Washington’s roads last year, up 11% from the year before, even as the rest of the country collectively saw a more than 3% decrease, according to data from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. Of those, 121 deaths involved distracted driving, according to the Washington Department of Transportation.

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“We hope this campaign reminds everyone that we’re all in this together,” said Sara Wood, King County’s Target Zero Manager, King County.

Technology has become an increasingly favored tool for combating speeding and reckless driving. The Washington Legislature has expanded local cities’ authority to use traffic cameras in and around school zones, bus lanes, intersections and other areas deemed uniquely unsafe. Seattle recently agreed to roll out cameras to catch people drag racing.  

The interest in technology comes both as more people die on the roads and as enforcement remains down since 2020. In 2023, police in Washington filed 344,000 traffic related charges compared to 524,000 in 2019.

Surveillance concerns remain real, which is why traffic cameras are strictly limited in what information they can provide. Sometimes, however, that can lead to frustrating results, as when a nearby camera on the lower West Seattle bridge could not be used in the hunt for a driver who killed a bicyclist and drove off. The alleged driver was eventually arrested.

King County’s new SmartSigns do not have cameras and the county coalition promises no personal information can be gleaned from the radarlike technology they use. There is no enforcement component, so drivers won’t be ticketed, simply warned.

“Alternatively, if the sign detects that drivers are focused, buckled-up, and not speeding, it will flash a smiley-face emoticon to reward them and reinforce their safe driving practices,” a news release from the traffic safety coalition says.