Using GPS to Avoid Speed Traps

Terry Olaes

Terry Olaes

I Used to be the [H] News Guy
Joined
Nov 27, 2006
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A Washington DC-area entrepreneur is marketing a GPS application that alerts motorists to speed traps and red-light cameras. This app, and others like it, are used to circumvent legislation that prohibits the use of radar detectors. Interesting.

Police departments across the country are not opposed to GPS systems like Mr. Scott's because they provide public information available on police Web sites. "[GPS systems] are perfectly acceptable," said Lucille Baur, a spokeswoman for the Montgomery County Police Department. "We have no desire to hide the location of these cameras."
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There is an app for the iPhone, Black Berry and Nokia capable gps phones out now, its free on the app store called Trapster. Check their site out at www.trapster.com, i have it installed and its pretty cool.

Cheers,
CZ
 
Well. Hopefully they don't use the system they have over in the UK. They have Cameras tracking license plates between two distances. I you go a certain distance too fast you are tagged with a ticket. There's no radar. So they have GPS systems that warn you of areas and if you're going too fast between the two points.
 
part of me likes the idea that if all cars are monitored for speed at all times, i could finally set my cruise on the interstate and actually leave it there for hours. the other most of me hates the idea that im always being watched.
 
I have Navigon iGo GPS software installed in place of the Destinator software on my Pharos/Omnitech GPS and I can simply pull any red light camera database online and use it to give me notifications; there's really nothing new here, definately no need to spend 50-140 dollars!
This guy invented something that's been around for quite a while now.
 
Does this tell you the actual locations of police cars, or does it use a database for people to report known trap zones?
 
@DukenukemX the article mentions a database

anyone else notice this little gem?
"Sometimes I'm driving, in outer space somewhere, and that alert just brings me back to Earth."
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:D
 
I had this on my CarPC and my BlackBerry. it would say "Known speed trap", "Speed camera ahead" or "Traffic camera ahead". On the Blackberry you could report speed/camera traps and it would go into a database. And it's free.

On my trip down from Chicago to Houston I had the music off and was just cruising down the highway at 2am. Then I get this loud ass "KNOWN SPEED TRAP!!". Scared the piss outta me.
 
Pretty nice feature. Good to take some precaution when in a hurry, making the risk of getting fined smaller. :d
 
About 10 years behind the uk. There was a product called road angel or something similar that had all the speed camera locations and let you know when you were approaching. They dis-appeared years ago as this was all integrated into sat nav's.

All sat nav's have speed camera's as an optional extra for more £££. However the most accurate database is maintained by what was originally a group of annoyed drivers who started recording and distributing them for free (just added them as points of interest - works with all sat nav's). More recently they started charging for updates, although it's still very cheap, and if you contribute by adding camera's to the database it's still free.
 
How exactly is this new? A mate of mine who runs the Modaco Smart Phone site has been writing apps like this for about 5 years.

In fact the company we both used to work for spent millions of pounds with IBM coming up with a GPS tracking system for insurance that took years and the hardware cost a fortune. He went away and wrote a simple app using a smartphone and a £60 GPS receiver over a weekend that did the same thing!

From that he built the GPS speedcamera app.

As said above......many years too late for this to be news.
 
It might not be news, but it should be posted anyways. Spread the word. If people aren't out there reporting speed traps and the like, using this will do you no good.
 
If they are not trying to hide the location of these traps, as the quote from the police department says, then what seems to be the problem with owning a radar/laser detector?
 
D-OveRMinD said:
If they are not trying to hide the location of these traps, as the quote from the police department says, then what seems to be the problem with owning a radar/laser detector?
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I guess because there is no use for them other than to help you break the law. At least, I can't think of any other uses.
 
There will be average speed calculation between cameras soon anyways.
they started doing it in the UK
 
we need that, because if anyone is familiar with maryland and specifically montgomery county they know how fucked up their cops are. crime is low in montgomery county compared to the rest of maryland so the cops pull people over for the slights violation of the speed limit. ive read official police stats and most speeders pulled over in montgomery county are going 1-4 miles over and still get a ticket for it
 
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