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Comment by yetihehe | Hacker News Reader

Google maps on android can work offline too.

Here maps was way better than Google (at least in the EU) since it always had offline navigation and would notify you of breaking the speed limit and the presence of speed-cams.

While Google does not notify of breaking the speed limit, they do have speed limits, red light cameras, user-reported speed traps, debris on road, etc.

Depends on country. In Poland yanosik has a little better routing and MUCH better speed-traps notifications, but no offline maps. There was auto-mapa here which had even better routing and was fully offline, but was not free, it's almost dying now.

I still don't understand why showing police cars or speed-cams on a map/GPS map is allowed or even legal.

I didn't show police cars. It just showed fixed speed cams which is legal in the EU as even the radio stations announce the location of currently active speed cams via traffic information.

That is a matter pf national law, not EU law. In Germany for example the radio announcements are legal but devices and navigation systems that warn of them are not.

It's legal in some of the EU - to the best of my knowledge, it's illegal in Germany to have apps tell you about speed cameras/etc (you can have the app, you just can't use that bit of it).

I don't understand why showing speed-cams would be illegal. In Poland all speed-traps are clearly marked with a sign at least 100m before, so that when someone overspeeds, he doesn't suddenly break when he sees speed trap (which caused more accidents than overspeeding).

Take the reverse, when people know there are no speed cams they are free to speed as they want, which I'm sure is how a lot of people interpret this.

Some people do, but you can easily put speed cameras where there are some accidents. It's more honest that way in my opinion. I've driven in Germany and their cameras don't make me go much slower, just annoy:

- A series of 80-60 speed changes on straight road, then just when you are annoyed and don't slow, there is a speed trap.

- Badly marked school zone, I was doing 40km/h already, then a black painted camera hidden in bushes caught me.

We have those in Poland too, that's how I got my first speeding ticket. three lanes each way 80, 80 80, crossing with 60 and camera (there wasn't even any pedestrian crossing there too.

What happen, at least in Italy, is that are speed cam warnings everywhere, but of course only a tiny percentage at any time will have an actual speed camera.

It kind of works as deterrent, although I expect that the effect wears off after a while.

The British Automobile Association (AA) used to have a network of operatives on bikes (cycle scouts) who would salute members displaying the AA badge if they were approaching a police speed check.

This warning activity was tested in court and found to be illegal, as interference with the police undertaking their duties. Their response to the judgement was to switch the warning method to NOT saluting members if they're approaching a speed trap because apparently they couldn't be found culpable for inaction. So they would only salute members if the coast was clear. A bit like a warrant canary.

In Poland people used to blink their high beams when there was speed check ahead, it's sometimes still practiced (illegal then and now, but not because you warn of police, it's classified as "misuse of lights").

Because the purpose of police cars and and speed cameras, is ostensibly to make you slow down to the speed limit. Marking these on your map, makes you slow down.

This probably varies country by country, depending on whether it's a money-making exercise (where the police try to hide) or safety (where cameras are painted bright yellow and the police are clearly visible)

...this also varies by country: in some countries, the speed limit itself, not the camera, is there for your safety - I mean, how many cameras should they install?! In others, they exaggerate the speed limit, e.g. 50 km/h on a straight road outside of built-up areas, hoping that drivers will at least slow down to 80 km/h (looking at you, Italy!).

I guess the future of speed traps is "section control", e.g. install cameras at beginning and end of a speed-restricted stretch, and if the time you needed is significantly below the expected one with legal speed, you get a ticket.

Anywhere with electronic tolls already has this. It would be trivial for politicians to hit everyone with a speeding ticket on a tolled highway if average speed between two tolls is more than legal limit.

But it would be political suicide.

> I guess the future of speed traps is "section control", e.g. install cameras at beginning and end of a speed-restricted stretch, and if the time you needed is significantly below the expected one with legal speed, you get a ticket.

This has been common in Western Europe for decades now.

In most countries things are legal by default unless specifically prohibited.

Why would it not be?

Maybe an OpenStreetMap-based application works well for you. Organic Maps, OsmAnd and Magic Earth have offline car navigation and (I think) warnings for speed traps.

How are the directions on organic maps and magic earth? I tried OsmAnd and it's directions were awful for me.

The first time I used it, was for a drive that Google tells me is 2 hour/100 mile. It initially gave me a route that was 1:58 and 120 miles. I personally don't think driving an extra 20 miles is worth saving 2 minutes so I switched it to most efficient route which worked for that drive.

The next time I used it though was for a drive that should've been 30 minutes/30 miles. It gave me a route that was an hour long on back roads that saved me like a mile of driving. This time, saving a mile of driving isn't worth adding 30 minutes of time for me so I just gave up.

There really needs to be a mode that finds a compromise between route time, route distance, and route complexity instead of just optimizing for one and ignoring the others.

I really like the way Magic Earth routes me. The ETA is usually spot on and from what I see the routes are sensible. I’m using it in Europe.

Thanks, I just downloaded it and tried it out with the two previously mentioned routes and it gave reasonable results for both of them. It's also nice that it gives you alternative route options in case you don't like what they chose for you.

I also went ahead and downloaded organic maps just to see how it does in comparison. It also did well on the previously mentioned routes but doesn't give you alternative route options which makes me nervous about it giving a questionable route in other cases. It also takes several seconds to find the route (OsmAnd also took a while iirc) while Magic Earth was nearly instant to give directions. I do like the UI a bit better than Magic Earth (I can't find a way on magic earth to just give me a top down map view that keeps north at the top of the screen which is driving me crazy) but will probably use Magic Earth since it's seems really great in every other way.

- If I'm correct, OrganicMaps (and OsmAnd) calculate the route exclusively on your phone, without calling an external server, that's the reason they are slower than MagicEarth.

- MagicEarth has a 2D view, it's in the Settings. Navigation is always track-up if I'm correct, not north-up.

Oh I miss here maps. It was great when traveling. Would download the map for the country before flying and didn’t need to buy data and could still search for addresses.

Why are you guys talking like here maps has disappeared? It has not gone anywhere and works fine.

"works fine".

Since the rewrite, it's missing features and is rather ... bleh.

When I moved from Lumia to iPhone > Android. Here maps was different. It didn’t feel the same as on the Lumia. So I just flick between Google maps and Apple Maps now. But miss the here maps from Lumia days.

OrganicMaps works well. I travel to Andorra frequently, and because they are not in the EU it’s not free to roam there. Organic maps allows you download the entire country at a time and navigation and searching all work without data. I use it quite a bit in the mountains even in countries I have data in. Since it’s just OSM data it has a decent selection of hiking trails and whatnot, too.

I was pleasantly surprised how polished it is (on iOS at least). I had only ever tried OSM AND before it and this is leagues ahead in terms of usability. It’s more or less as good as Google Maps or Apple Maps, short of real time traffic updates. It’s navigation routing is not quite as advanced either, but it does the trick in a pinch (I don’t use it much in the car but more for searching and hiking trails)

Until their rewrite. Now it's ... bleh.

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