iPhone app monitors speed traps | Hacker News Reader

iPhone app monitors speed traps

washingtonexaminer.com

27 pointsviggity24 comments

ISTR that there was a supreme court case long ago, pertaining to CB radio, establishing that prohibiting these warnings is unconstitutional. My Google-fu is failing me, though. Anyone know the name of the case?

If it gets people to slow down, it improves safety. They should be praising this application if safety is what they're actually after. But they aren't, they're denouncing it because it is denying revenue.

All the research I've seen shows that it has nothing to do with safety and everything to do with revenue.

As far as I'm concerned, this guy is a modern day Paul Revere:

http://www.boingboing.net/2008/09/04/accused-tollevader-r.ht...

Some European countries who actually CARE about safety are REMOVING stop lights altogether:

http://www.csmonitor.com/2005/0127/p01s03-woeu.html

I'm tired of pencil pushing bureaucrats pretending they know a damn thing about safety.

Well, to make a non-revenue-based argument: It gets people to slow down only where there are cameras and allows them to speed everywhere else.

Without the technology that tells where the cameras are, people are uncertain whether speeding will yield a ticket and are less likely to speed. To get the same effect with camera-detection technology in place, you need to completely blanket the area with cameras.

> you need to completely blanket the area with cameras.

With every passing year, that's easier, cheaper, and less evitable. Hm. The spelling dictionary doesn't think 'evitable' is a word.

People might as well get used to the idea that there will always be a record of what they were doing in public. More cameras and more storage mean never having to delete anything.

The non-revenue arguments usually fall flat simply because you're already punished for speeding in most places (you get demeanour points until your license is removed, and having a mark on your license can exclude you from certain jobs, increase your insurance and other consequences) yet they apply an overly underecessive fine.

The simple fact of the matter is speeding is a crime, yet you don't get punished for it by the fine, you're essentially taxed for it.

Here in Ontario they've finally started stepping up the punishment for speeding. If you're going overly fast (I believe it's double the local speed limit for most places) your car is towed and you're taken in for street racing. Fines in school zones and construction areas are doubled, which is now putting more 'punishment' toward risky behaviour.

However, when you're handed a $100 speeding ticket in a $40,000 vehicle, it's never going to punish the person and the systems around the world have purposely ignored this. Their logic seems to be backed by revenue (if everyone speeds its another $100 x (n) million population) and not punishing criminal activity. However they ignore the fact that taking the persons $40,000 vehicle will likely get them the same amount of revenue and provide greater risk for the crime.

I know in the UK the cameras have not been used for safety. When I learnt to drive there was one near-hairpin corner that the legal speed limit on was 60mph despite being barely able to make it at 20mph, they eventually changed the section to 30mph (where it can be made). However last time I was in the UK the corner still didn't have a camera on it, but had a sign saying like '42 people died on this road last year'. Yet they have cameras littering roads that have never had a death on them. It's hard to argue it's not for revenue when they've all but avoided any attempt to use cameras for actual safety (at least in the region I grew up in).

Well.

Speed in itself does not often pose a safety problem, although there are stretches of road where driving above a particular limit endangers you (e.g., you take a curve too fast and don't make it) or others (pedestrians crossing a street).

More commonly, speed differential is the problem, and rough uniformity of speed is the solution. This is because significant differences between the speeds of different vehicles leads to decreased time to react, and increases the chances that someone won't be able to react quickly enough.

And that's a problem which cuts both ways: it can be brought on by vehicles travelling significantly faster than most other traffic, but it can just as equally be caused by vehicles travelling significantly slower. This is why many freeways have two "speed limits", with one being a maximum and the other a minimum. So long as traffic is moving at a roughly uniform speed, drivers will have enough time to react to events around them.

And, really, ticketing significant variations from the normal flowing speed of traffic is the best way to enforce speeding as a safety measure.

(and don't get me started on red-light cameras, which have been shown to increase the rate of accidents at intersections)

In my experience driving in the U.S., very few drivers maintain a safe stopping distance between them and the next car at high speeds (80+ mph.) As a result, I'd suspect that traveling at high speeds with other drivers would be less safe on average.

Raw speed can certainly pose a safety problem! Your vision distance is a constant. Therefore, the faster you are going, the less time you have to react to sudden obstacles (e.g., deer, lane closing, merging vehicle, debris in the roadway, etc.).

Actually it's neither the speed nor the speed differential.

It's the reaction time of the driver vs. the timing of the events that require that reaction. 30 kmh in a school zone is reasonable because kids can be awfully quick; while 50 kmh on 4 lane street with huge empty lawns on either side is not. For the same reason, a half-blind partly senile grandmother doing 50 kmh is not the same as 30 year old going with the same speed.

Ideally the speed limits should be set on per-driver basis, and perhaps considering the technical characteristics of the car. This is, of course, absolutely impractical and so they set it to the lowest value that is safe for everyone. Including the older people, and these are exactly whom the 50 kmh limit is set for.

PS. 50 kmh is 30 mph

I'm not in North America, but here in South America, they are definitely after revenue. I'm usually very respectful when it comes to speed limits. The only speeding ticket I got was driving by a big avenue. Basically, there's an elementary school near this avenue so logically there's a lower limit in that area. I went over the limit by 17 KM/H on a friday night (clearly no children could be around). Next block I get pulled over and get a very juicy ticket, they were obviously fishing.

I'm not familiar with the application, but from the article it's implied that it can be used to avoid sobriety check points. I don't see how this helps improve safety at all.

I don't think it aims to. Checkpoints also cause congestion. I don't suggest driving under the influence, or using the app to avoid checkpoints while under the influence, but using the information to save yourself time is a perfectly reasonable application.

I think that he should be more worried about people using their phones while they're driving, not the application itself.

In her jurisdiction, it is illegal to use the phone while driving without a hands free device.

since this is user generated, how long before the cops start putting up a whole bunch of fake reports.

I don't see a phantomalert iphone app in the app store.

Do his police use radios?

My opinion is that radar detectors and these apps encourage driver to break the law if there's no law enforcement around.

Speed limit should be respected no matter what.

Yes it improves safety of areas with speed traps but it makes it more dangerous for other areas since drivers think they can speed up without getting caught.

> Speed limit should be respected no matter what.

Nice cost/benefit analysis there!

According to the a 2005 report[1] from the UK department of transport, only 3% of road accidents in the UK were attributed to drivers exceeding the speed limit. If road safety is your concern, perhaps we should address more common causes of accidents, instead of focusing entirely on vehicle speed.

[1] http://www.dft.gov.uk/adobepdf/162469/221412/221549/227755/c...

you might want to read it again; either you made a typo or you aren't linking to what you think you are.

According to the linked source, exceeding the speed limit (as distinct from driving too fast for weather conditions or other 'injudicious actions') accounted for 12% of fatal accidents, 7% of serious accidents,and 4% of minor accidents, or 5% overall. Going too fast for [road] conditions accounted for approximately half as much again.

Pardon my pedantry, but I was a bit irritated to find you assertions flatly contradicted by your source.

And besides that, the severity of accidents increases with the speed of the vehicle(s) regardless of the cause of the accidents.

My apologies, the figure I was looking at was for cars only. "Exceeding speed limit was attributed to 3 per cent of cars involved in accidents."

I didn't include going too fast for road conditions, because speed traps don't typically test for that.

Fair enough. I do like the NL idea of removing all the road furniture except direction signs.

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