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New Service Maps Speed Traps By Cell Phone
esocid writes "In a modern equivalent of flashing your headlights to warn other motorists of police speed traps, you can now warn fellow drivers with a cell phone or personal digital assistant about speed traps, red-light cameras, and other threats to ticket-free driving. And as you approach a known threat, you'll get an audio alert on your mobile device. The developer of Trapster, Pete Tenereillo, said the system, which requires punching in a few keys such as '#1' to submit information to Trapster's database, should comply with laws banning talking on cell phones. The free service can automatically detect location using mobile devices' GPS capabilities or tap their Wi-Fi and get location from a database run by Skyhook Wireless. Police officials that Tenereillo has talked to haven't complained about the service because it inevitably encourages drivers to slow down."
A tax is something you have to pay. It is entirely possible to drive, for years, without getting a single ticket. I've done it.
It's only a tax on the poor of those particular people can't drive. If that's the case, then I don't mind. The system should discourage those who can't drive from driving.
Should it be based on your income? That's fine with me. But don't call it a tax.
Comment forecast: Bits of genius surrounded by a sea of mediocrity.
My satnav (Tomtom running on a Windows Mobile PDA) can be updated to include speed camera and other information from http://www.pocketgpsworld.com./
I think that's a lot safer because in this part of the world you can be penalised quite severely for touching your mobile phone while driving. Additionally the gps has a much more accurate idea of my position and is aware of my actual speed and the limit in force on my particular stretch of road.
The databases I use are - static speed cameras, regular locations of mobile speed cameras, average speed cameras, and stoplight cameras. Each type of threat is alerted by a different sound effect and a visual reminder of the speed limit.
I feel that using SMS is a solution to a problem which doesn't exist, especially since phones are increasingly coming with built-in gps receivers.
My father who is a retired police officer was talking about driving 5 miles under the speed limit to mess with people, a lot of people will not pass a cop.
500 dollar reward for tip(s) leading to the arrest of the person(s) who stole my sig.
As an aside, when I submitted this the trapster website was pretty slow, and I'm pretty surprised it's holding up so far. Way to go.
Absolute power corrupts absolutely. indymedia
For example, note this article from Car and Driver magazine that outlines how fatalities remained static and even went down in some states after the national speed limit was lifted in 1995 and states began raising speed limits, yet authorities claimed they had gone up by not including all of the data. From the article: According to the Cato study, in the states in which the IIHS says that highway deaths increased after the speed limits went up, the overall deaths were un-changed. Therefore, on the roads that were not affected by the increased speed limits, the number of traffic fatalities must have decreased by a similar amount.
This is exactly what one would expect, because the highways with the higher speed limits attract drivers from slower roads. More drivers on the highways mean more accidents and fatalities on the highways, but fewer drivers and fatalities on other roads. Charles Lave, an economics professor at the University of California-Irvine, examined this phenomenon in a study in 1989. He also found that raising highway speed limits allowed police to spend less of their time writing speeding tickets and more time apprehending drunk drivers and patrolling dangerous roads.
The STI is the only detector that is completely undetectable. The V1 has minimal leakage, but it can be detected around 300-800 feet away depending on the version by the Specter III/IV/IV+ RDD. Almost all detectors are immune to the outdated VG-2 Interceptor (They either shut off when they detect it or have shifter the LO frequency to avoid detection)
Yes, the Specter is used in Virginia and DC. Rumor has it that Texas DPS uses it to time when to turn their radar on. They let all speeders go by, and when they detect a detector, they light you up and pull you over. Of course this tactic is not common, but it is very scary for speeders like myself.
RDD's are mainly used for Commercial Vehicle Enforcement (No big commercial trucks are allowed to use RD's)