Police chief denounces 'cowardly' iPhone users monitoring speed traps

[rcrush]

http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/local/Devices-that-warn-drivers-of-speed_-red-light-cameras-draw-police-ire-7930619-50074717.html


Police chief denounces 'cowardly' iPhone users monitoring speed traps

By: Hayley Peterson

Examiner Staff

July 7, 2009

Area drivers looking to outwit police speed traps and traffic cameras are using an iPhone application and other global positioning system devices that pinpoint the location of the cameras.

That has irked D.C. police chief Cathy Lanier, who promised her officers would pick up their game to counteract the devices, which can also help drivers dodge sobriety checkpoints.

"I think that's the whole point of this program," she told The Examiner. "It's designed to circumvent law enforcement -- law enforcement that is designed specifically to save lives."

The new technology streams to iPhones and global positioning system devices, sounding off an alarm as drivers approach speed or red-light cameras.

Lanier said the technology is a "cowardly tactic" and "people who overly rely on those and break the law anyway are going to get caught" in one way or another.

The greater D.C. area has 290 red-light and speed cameras -- comprising nearly 10 percent of all traffic cameras in the U.S., according to estimates by a camera-tracking database called the POI Factory.

Lanier said the cameras have decreased traffic deaths. Red-light and speed cameras have been a hot topic in Montgomery County since Maryland Gov. Martin O'Malley signed a bill in May allowing local governments to place speed cameras in school and highway construction zones.

Montgomery County police did not respond to calls and e-mails for this story.

Ralph Ganoe of Silver Spring said he uses detection software from a Washington-based company, PhantomAlert, to avoid speed traps and crowded intersections.

"Well, my pocket has money in it," Ganoe quipped, when asked about the software's impact on his driving record. "Everybody's got a heavy foot. ... Now I don't have to worry about where are at."

PhantomAlert mimics radar detectors — which are outlawed in D.C. and Virginia — by alerting drivers of nearby enforcement "points of interest" via global positioning system devices. PhantomAlert keeps up to date on traffic enforcement through its users, who contribute information online.

Founder and CEO of PhantomAlert Joe Scott claimed nine out of 10 police departments across the country support his software.

"If police come against us, it's going to make them look like they are only revenue" from the camera-generated citations, he said.

Photo radar tickets generated nearly $1 billion in revenues for D.C. during fiscal years 2005 to 2008.

In the current fiscal year, Montgomery County expects to make $29 million from its red light and speed cameras. Lanier said efforts to outlaw the software would be too difficult.

She said, "with the Internet and all the new technology, it's almost impossible to stop the flow of information."


FYI the Iphone app is called TRAPSTER www.trapster.com

[TexasObserver]

1. Cowardly is the word that describes how they deal with police abuse and corruption

[Touchdown]

2. Speed Traps aren't called "Operation Revenue" for nothing.

$1 billion in 3 years and it's about safety. Right!:eyes:

[lunatica]

3. Meantime car accidents and resulting deaths have gone way down

Poor cops!

[Xithras]

21. Exactly. An app is released that causes people to slow down and obey the law, and it's "cowardly"

Wow. Just wow.

[NightWatcher]

4. "cowardly" kinda like hiding behind bushes in the median of the interstate

or using aircraft to catch speeders, or cameras that they've hidden around town???

Cowardly, kinda like that?

[RamboLiberal]

5. Message to police chief Cathy Lanier

HA HA!

Screw your traps and cameras!

[Silent3]

6. Even if you don't like this software, how is it "cowardly"?

"Cowardly" seems to have become a generic insult, devoid of meaning.

Bill Maher took a lot of heat when he argued that the 9/11 terrorists weren't cowards, but he was right. Evil, depraved, and selfish (if they thought what they did was buying them eternal paradise, it was selfish to trade the lives of others for their imagined eternal gain) might be good words, but not cowardly.

As for avoiding speed traps, I don't have a radar detector or use this software, even though I have an iPhone. I sometimes go a little fast, mainly just a matter of going with the flow which itself is usually a little fast. I'd have a lot more respect for speed laws if speed in and of itself were the biggest safety problem. It's not. It's almost always a matter of speed combined with other factors like drinking or bad weather.

What I really wish cops would enforce is safe following distance -- start nabbing the legions of tailgaters out there. But that's too much work, easier to point a radar gun or let an automatic camera do the work of enforcing compliance with laws regarding a lesser danger. I can't help but think of a lot of speeding enforcement as "revenue enhancement", not something done for my safety.

[damntexdem]

7. "Cowardly"? Whatever else he wants to say about it, how is it cowardly?

The only way that I can figure that it would be seen as cowardly is if the police chief really did see it as a competition where the "opposition" is taking the coward's way out -- but that point of view is not really compatible with a major concern that it circumvents efforts to save lives. Had he called it "dastardly" or something like that, there could be an argument. But calling it "cowardly" undermines the rest of what he says and makes it appear that "public safety" concerns are only a facade.

[PM Martin]

8. "Cowardly": the manner in which cops use tasers

to assault innocent people.

"Cowardly": speed traps designed first and foremost to enhance revenue.

"Cowardly": the manner in which police departments tend to investigate themselves and find nothing wrong.

If the "Trapster" software causes people to slow down and obey traffic laws, the police should be more than content with this seeing that the roads have been made safer. But why are they not content still? One reason and one reason only:

"Photo radar tickets generated nearly $1 billion in revenues for D.C. during fiscal years 2005 to 2008"
It seems the only thing the bureaucrats are worried about is getting money from any source.
It is all about collecting MONEY, even if there is a mark on one's driving record. Now that is
cowardly and lazy (on the cops behalf of course).

Law "Enforcement": The Parasite Class of Society!

[burning rain]

9. It's about the money, not saving lives.

As they pretty much admit by referencing the $29 million. Fines are a regressive and disreputable way for governments to bring in revenues. On this one, I say screw the coppers.

[DemReadingDU]

20. Policing for Profit

check my post below, #19.

[NeedleCast]

10. Awesome. I'm picking up my Iphone today!

[BlooInBloo]

12. Checking Android market now for the google phone...

[rcrush]

14. The website has the android web app

www.trapster.com

[BlooInBloo]

15. Yeppers - got it.

[BlooInBloo]

11. FUCK YOU cops.

[lpbk2713]

13. Bullshit! Traffic law enforcement is no longer about saving lives.

It's about revenue, pure an simple. Tell it to someone who buys in to that line of bullshit Chief.

[DemReadingDU]

19. Policing for Profit (PFP)

It started a few months ago with a new police chief in our village. (The former chief had recently died). Anyway there is this small hill where the limit is 55 mph, and at the bottom there is a speed limit of 35 mph going into a turn.

So the chief is moving in the turn beginning to go up the hill and catches spouse going down the hill doing 47 mph. The chief gives spouse the ticket because chief says spouse was in the 35 mph zone. The ticket is $160. wow!

Spouse is convinced, since the chief was moving, not sitting waiting for speeders, that there is no way chief's radar could have caught him in the 35 mph zone. Spouse has taken road measurements, hired an attorney, and is pouring thru the citations for speeding violations in the village for the past year.

It is quite plain that these speeding tickets began with the current chief. Appx 75% are for speeding 47 mph in the 35mph zone. Classic speed trap, 'policing for profit'.

We've even found that New Rome, Ohio, not too far from us, used speed traps to generate hundreds of thousands of additional revenue, and eventual resignation of their police chief.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Rome,_Ohio

It's one thing to catch people obviously violating speed, but it's another thing to catch them via a speed trap.

This ticket probably will end up costing more than the fine, but if spouse can get the village's speed traps eliminated, that would be worthwhile.


Edit: We've lived in this village for over 20 years. Spouse has not had any tickets for 25 years. This chief not only 'catching' hundreds of our villagers, but he is also rude and arrogant.

[LastLiberal in PalmSprings]

16. In a related story: "Military called 'cowardly' for using electronic surveillance equipment"

"Surgery patients called 'cowardly' for insisting on anesthesia"
"Football players called 'cowardly' for using helmets"
"Republicans called 'cowardly' for ... well, just about anything."

[Odin2005]

17. Fuck you, you Fascist fuckers!

Fascists hate freedom of information.

[pinniped]

18. Cool. I'm downloading it for my Garmin nuvi 760.

http://trapster.com/

Thanks chief!

[unc70]

22. Remember DC cell phone laws- handsfree phone only, no electronic device use except GPS

The GPS exception is what probably keeps this software legal.

Cell phone is discouraged and is illegal unless used with a handsfree option.
I believe the fine is $100.

[JerseygirlCT]

25. Do they actually stop people for that?

Around here, where it's also illegal, people yak with the phone to their ear with impunity, it seems.

[RB TexLa]

23. All they have to do is put up cameras everywhere then the devices will go off all the time

and people will not break the law. That is what they want for people to stop at red lights and drive below the speed limit, right? They don't want that, they want people to break traffic laws to obtain revenue.

I would love to hear city police departments whine when a state tries to set a minimum fine for all traffic tickets at $5,000. If you want to stop speeding or running red lights make the fine $5,000, it would stop.

[JerseygirlCT]

24. If they'd spend more time actually watching traffic and dealing

with the dangerous folks (guy who cut me off this morning - I'm talking to you), and less in traps, I'm betting the roads would be a great deal safer.