Have you noticed a new-look speed camera popping up around the UAE more and more over the past year? Well, we knew these cameras could monitor tailgating, but the police have announced that they’re now also able to catch people who text while they drive, red handed.

This is good news, as people texting or using their phones while driving is a problem that has reached epidemic levels on the UAE’s highways. Just how regularly this offense will be fined hasn’t yet been announced.

“Drivers think that the cameras we have installed recently target only speedsters but they actually can detect more than a speed offense in both directions,” Dubai police chief Colonel Saif Al Mazroui told Emarat Al Youm.

The new Dubai speed cameras, dubbed Al Burj (The Tower) and officially called Vitronic, each have eight lenses and can detect speed, seat belt and mobile phone offenses, as well as illegal overtaking, driving on hard shoulders and driving at a dangerously close distance behind other vehicles.

*MORE: Epic video shows why you should never commit a crime in Abu Dhabi*

According to the manufacturer, Vitronic, they can also detect “heavy goods vehicles that drive outside designated times or use lanes reserved for passenger cars as well as a range of other violations”.

“Al Burj radars have caught 48,882 violators since the beginning of this year for different cases including 21,374 for driving on the shoulder; 20,780 jumping the red light and 6,512 heavy trucks failing to stick to their lanes,” explained Al Mazroui yesterday.

There have been 52 of the new cameras installed on Sheikh Zayed Rd, while 31 have been put at junctions around the city. The focus is on SZR due to its high traffic flow and accident rate.

So, put down your phone people: we have straight, well-built highways, accidents shouldn’t happen on them.