New iPhone Apps Help Drivers Beat Speed Traps

Ponca City, We love you writes "Two mobile applications, NMobile and Trapster, are providing drivers with up-to-date maps of speed-enforcement zones with live police traps, speed cameras or red-light cameras. Each application pulls up a map pinpointing the locations of speed traps within driving distance and an audio alert will sound as vehicles approach an area tagged as harboring a speed trap. Both applications rely on the wisdom of the crowds for their data with users reporting camera-rigged stop lights and areas heavily populated with radar-toting police officers via the iPhone or their web-based application, creating the ultimate speed trap repository available to you when you need it most — while you're driving. To thwart false alarms and eliminate inaccuracies, Trapster enlists its community of nearly 200,000 members to rank speed traps on their accuracy. NMobile founder Shannon Atkinson declined to provide detailed data, though he did estimate that 'well over 1,000' users had downloaded the application since it became available last week. The company insists they've received only positive feedback from law enforcement officials and police officers regarding their products. 'If the application gets people to slow down, I think it's generally considered to be a good thing,' said Atkinson."

Re:More driver distraction

[MilesTails]

Like the streets aren't dangerous enough without every iPhone user fiddling with their toy trying to "beat the system" while piloting a two ton juggernaut on public streets.

Yeah because speech alerts are really distracting. Did you even read the articles?

Re:Too Many Traps

[Anonymous Coward]

You joke, but many Southern (USA) small towns are full of things like this. The speed limit may be 70 on a highway, but as it enters one of these towns it will drop suddenly to 30 or 35, often around a curve with little warning.

The small-town cops collect money from travelers but don't ticket locals. It really is a sort of highway robbery.

Re:Integrate with in-car navigation?

[jeremyp]

That would be a fantastic idea wouldn't it.

That must be why my sat nav has had such a database of speed cameras in it for the last two years.

Corrected title

[quattr0]

New Apps Help Drivers Beat Speed Traps for Blackberry, iPhone and Nokia N95

There you have it. Even in alphabemodel orders.

Re:Too Many Traps

[Ethanol-fueled]

Agreed, it's how the smaller towns make their money. Good luck fighting the tickets in their court!

In my city, a big one in Southern California, I've seen plenty of "speed traps" but I've never see one twice in the same place.

As far as cameras are concerned, they're almost always at intersections and people shouldn't be speeding through those anyway! By the way driving while viewing a cell phone is illegal here even though everybody still does it.

Re:Integrate with in-car navigation?

[mobby_6kl]

I was going to post exactly the same thing. The only reason this is on slashdot is that the IPHONE is involved, and so the story is automatically valid news and not a slashvertisement.

My two year old Garmin also does pretty much exactly what the OP's describing, it will show an icon and play a sound when you're approaching a speed trap. Of course, since it doesn't have any wireless capability, the listed speed traps are mostly stationary speed cameras. I'd imagine newer models would be able to update the database often enough to catch all the cops hiding behind the bushes.

Re:More driver distraction

[coolsnowmen]

But this has nothing to do with planning a trip. GPS puts you on a map without you telling it ahead of time. When you are close to a reported speed trap, it tells you. That is no different than any other auditory clue. There is no control needed.

Not completely new

[Anonymous Coward]

Both of those apps aren't NEW as stated in the the title. Trapster has been out for almost 2 months, although NMobile is only 1.5 weeks old.

Re:Crazy Idea

[Nyeerrmm]

Unfortunately, there are situations when its not really about that... its small towns that have sudden speed drops and try to take advantage of it. Take the speed trap town I hit a couple of nights ago. The speed limit dropped from 70 to 55, I saw the sign as I was about to pass it (it was night, I didn't have my high-beams on), and began to slow down just as I passed into the zone. I didn't see the cop until I was in the middle of the town, at the proper speed limit (I think it was 35), when he turned on his lights and I noticed the car that had pulled out behind me was a cop.

He ticketed me for 15 over without any questions, no acknowledgement of the fact that I was in the process of obeying the limit, just didn't feel like slamming on the brakes, hurting my car and ruining my gas mileage. The fact that the 1-5mph over fine is $165, should be more than clear that this is not about public safety, but about trying to extract money from the people driving through. They finally put in a nicer convenience store that I was planning to stop at, not going to now... however, I think the $200 they made off the ticket is more than any loss of business the town as a whole will lose now. Also, though I don't recall exactly how the signs were arranged, I wouldn't be surprised if they set up the speed limit signs so that they were hard to see.

So yes, sometimes it is an issue of people needing to slow down, however, it isn't always... it's small towns using one of their biggest resources, the highways that go through them, to generate revenue at the expense of those traveling through.

Re:And, they're stupid.

[Anonymous Coward]

You mean the Mean Value Theorem, not DeMoivre's Theorem.

Re:Integrate with in-car navigation?

[jo_ham]

The Tom Tom One here in the UK already does this. It's not a new idea by any stretch of the imagination, but it's the first time it's been done on a phone I guess.

While the primary function of the Tom Tom is as a navigation system, it has optional extras that you can sign up for, like real-time traffic alerts that it picks up (via info texted to your phone) that allows it to automatically pick a route around blocked roads etc, and it also has a list of known speed traps that it can warn you about, including up-to-date lists that you can download over the net and upload to it via USB.

This information is public in sweden

[Anonymous Coward]

Here is a site that lists all speed cameras in Sweden, you can look at a map or download a excel spreadsheet with coordinates for the cameras.

http://www.vv.se/templates/page3wide____16018.aspx

This is the site of the Swedish road administration. Not a community driven site.

Same with manual speeding controls, they are announced before on the swedish police own website. Of course most people don't know about it or even if they do, probably don't check it regularly. I certainly don't.

http://www.polisen.se/inter/nodeid=31072&pageversion=1.jsp

Won't work

[tkrotchko]

Speed cameras will gladly ticket all the drivers, and you won't realize until too late.

Re:Too Many Traps

[canadian_right]

Our highways have signs warning of up coming speed changes. It is unsafe to suddenly change speed on a highway. Isn't there a similar requirement on USA highways?

Re:And, they're stupid.

[iangoldby]

That article from the BBC is from 2005 - three years ago when the cameras were still quite new.

Here's an article from the Times: Drivers will have no escape from new speed cameras [timesonline.co.uk]. It's not the one from the BBC from a few months ago that I was looking for, but it makes the point. One penalty per 10000 drivers is near 100 per cent compliance in my book.

Here's another article: Speed Really Does Kill [timesonline.co.uk]. As the article acknowledges, people don't like the evidence, but

On a section of the M1 with a contraflow system in place casualty numbers fell by half when a simple pairing of average speed cameras - the precursor to the new system - was installed.

In Nottingham, average speed cameras appear to have delivered a 53 per cent long-term reduction in deaths and serious injuries on one stretch of dual carriageway, and a 75 per cent casualty reduction on another. Data from similar projects in Northampton and South Yorkshire are even more impressive.

But for those still unconvinced, there is some consolation. Where average speed cameras have been tried, compliance is so high that the revenue to local authorities from fines is virtually nil.