An Indian techie has gone viral for turning his helmet into a traffic police device using artificial intelligence (AI) after being exasperated by the poor traffic discipline in Bengaluru.
Techie Pankaj Tanwar wrote in X, “I was tired of stupid people on road so I hacked my helmet into a traffic police device.” He explained that the device also captures pictures of the violators and sends them directly to the police along with the location and number plate.
He Wrote “Bengaluru people, so now ride safe or regret it,” while sharing an example showing a scooter rider without a helmet being immediately reported by the system.
After his post containing the details of his innovation went viral on X on Sunday, the official handle of Bengaluru City Police reached out to Tanwar on the platform via a direct message, “We have come across your recent post regarding the helmet-based traffic violation detection concept and found the idea innovative and interesting from a road safety perspective.”
This helmet is equipped with a Logitech webcam connected to a Raspberry Pi computer. It processes live video while the motorcycle is being ridden. AI models analyze the video frames and identify four main traffic violations: riding without a helmet, jumping over dividers, running a red light, and driving in the wrong direction. OCR (Optical Character Recognition) technology is used for license plate recognition.
