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."

Comments

Why complain?

[Anonymous Coward]

I would think a police official would find it easier to just have police drive past points hitting #1, saving money on police traps and increasing coverage?

Re:Why complain?

[dfghjk]

That assumes the goal of police traps is slowing traffic down. It is not.

If getting drivers to slow down was the point...

[TubeSteak]

The police wouldn't be setting up speed traps.
A patrol car in the median is more than enough to slow down all but the stupid or inattentive.

False Positives?

[HighWizard]

I'm guessing this would allow me to make people slow down on my street by simply making them "think" there is a speed trap there. Not a terrible idea, if enough people use it. Though how many false positives will it take before confidence in the system is shot?

Another way to avoid tickets

[Nos.]

Or you know, you could obey the speed limit, stop at red lights, etc. Seems to keep quite a few of us from getting tickets.

Re:Another way to avoid tickets

[techpawn]

i know people are going to say "well when it turns yellow you stop - no problem" but the yellow is so short that it is an issue..

Maybe it was the way I was taught to drive... but...

If it's green when you see it, assume it will turn yellow at any time: prepare to stop.
If it's yellow when you see it, assume it will turn red: you should be stopping
If it is red when you see it, assume the idiots coming the other way will run the yellow or red. Wait a second after it turns green then Go.
Stopping is not a problem if you assume everyone else is going to be more stupid than you are. It's driving again...

Re:Another way to avoid tickets

[Ioldanach]

If it's green when you see it, assume it will turn yellow at any time: prepare to stop.

That's good advice, but if you're watching the light and traffic, it can still take anywhere from 1/4 to 3/4 seconds to observe that the light has changed and depress the brake pedal. At 35mph, you're traveling at 51 feet per second and will need 101 feet to safely stop, or 130 feet if you're a truck. That means that if the yellow light is less than two seconds and you're 100 feet away, you can't safely stop without entering the intersection, and you can't enter the intersection before the light is red. Hopefully, the cameras will at least let you go if you enter the intersection on the yellow and leave on the red, otherwise you need to add the full length of the intersection to the calculation, and that can easily be 50 feet, or another full second.

Therefore, if you come back and record the light's transitions and discover that the light provides less than two seconds of stopping time you have an affirmative defense in that it is physically impossible with standard automotive equipment for a vehicle to stop in the time allotted. You might reasonably argue for 3 seconds, since stopping distance is increased in foul weather to about 150 feet and setting the time less than that is unsafe (though if weather is that foul, the driver should be reducing their speed so that they can stop in 100 feet anyways). Also, a setting of 2 seconds requires that the driver be able to identify their range to the intersection as greater or less than 101-102 feet, which is an unreasonably small target to estimate on the fly. A setting of 3 seconds in fair weather allows the driver to estimate their distance as greater or less than a 101-153 foot space, which is reasonably manageable.

OT: laws banning non-hands-free cells

[davidwr]

I don't know about you but it takes more mental effort to carry on a conversation than to dial a phone or hold it up to my ear. The latter two are practically robotic to me by now.

Rather than banning certain activities like shaving, talking on a cell, fiddling with the radio, or tending to unruly children, train new drivers on how to drive with common every-day distractions, train them to use common sense in minimizing distractions in unfamiliar environments, and if they get in a wreck and a distraction is one of the factors, let that affect who is deemed "at fault."

That's exactly what a selfish driver would say.

[spun]

Guess what? I have never been in an accident and never been ticketed in 18 years of driving. I always signal, never drive more than 5 miles over the speed limit, always let people in when they signal, maintain a safe following distance, and generally don't act like an ass on the road.

Am I better than other drivers? Perhaps, it depends on what you mean by better. What I am is a safe and courteous driver.

Re:That's a violation

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, a lot of people probably won't realize that by allowing "Trapster" to track their movements and feed data back to them based on location, they will be giving up a big part of their own privacy and helping to create a database that will no doubt be subpoenaed from time to time -- if not outright plundered through misuse of the so-called Patriot Act.

In addition, with speeders allowing their locations to be tracked, that database also documents their speeding. A juicy target if the speeder is involved in a collision and the victim(s) want another way to establish reckless driving.

Or, it's just a useful target anyway to document and prosecute speeders. Most subscribers will no doubt be speeders, so as the police state becomes stronger, look for your now well-documented past to come back to haunt you.

And what happens to all of that data if there is a security breach at the company and someone exfiltrates all of the records. Most probably wouldn't care, but the higher your profile, the more you could expect to see your actions published in the open for all to see.

No thanks. I'll just keep my radar detector.

Re:If getting drivers to slow down was the point..

[Anonymous Coward]

Your father is an asshole.