- It sounds interesting. Working in the law enforcement field, I would excersise caution in placing any trust in the validity of the information provided. As far as speed traps are concerned they can and are set up at will and can't be updated to any system in a timely manor.
I will have to check out the list. Stay safe.03-23-08 01:18 AMLike 0 - 03-25-08 07:10 AMLike 0
- It sounds interesting. Working in the law enforcement field, I would excersise caution in placing any trust in the validity of the information provided. As far as speed traps are concerned they can and are set up at will and can't be updated to any system in a timely manor.
I will have to check out the list. Stay safe.
As far as the validity of the information, Trapster Trusted Groups solves this. You basically set up a group of friends, family, co-workers, etc. who you trust. That completely circumvents any prankster type activity.
This is basically a higher-tech form of what many such groups already do with text messaging from their cars. The reason Trusted Groups work - you only need a handful of people, even in a large, very populated city, for at least one of them to spot the current enforcement points.
The public Trapster system also has confidence algorithms, where users rate individual traps and other users ... and intentionally inputting false information is a violation of the terms of use, but that has still (of course) happened from time to time.07-27-08 07:51 AMLike 0 - I too use it but started to use it more rarely. It works great though. It does alert me of any speed traps and such. For the best functionality, you should leave it running in the background, which I only did a few times.
If you use it on your daily routes, you already know where the traps are. It works great when you're going to places you've never been, provided there are Berry users with Trapster.07-27-08 09:21 AMLike 0 - Phil - in areas like that it's a self fullfilling prophesy. If you want to prove to yourself that the system does not work for you - go in the middle of nowhere and verify that no-one else is entering traps! :-)
Seriously - to get the system to work in your area, get some friends to use it with you (like one or two). Many choose to do this completely in private, via Trapster(R) Trusted Groups, but you can do it on the public system too if you want.
As far as marking red light cams and usual hiding spots, many do that, and those are the ones that show on the map, but like you say - if you already know them everyone else in the town probably does too. But at least around here the "usual hiding spots" are all over the place, and 99.9% of the time the police are not at any given one. The material value of the system is in the broadcast of actual, current, laser/radar/visual enforcement sightings.07-27-08 09:22 AMLike 0 -
The location services API is blocked to 3rd party (non paid) apps on most US carrier flip phones too - BlackBerry, Windows Mobile, Symbian, Palm, and iPhone are open.
That's why we have voice reporting and route/area/time based text message alerts (that way it works on any phone from any carrier).07-27-08 09:28 AMLike 0 -
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