A global, as well as, a local mobile app offer useful services to motorists.
Remember those radar trackers that were so popular in the mid-to-late nineties? The kind you would plug into your car cigarette lighter and which would beep uncontrollably if Sersant du Toit was sitting behind the bush on the N1 to Bloem?
Thankfully, the world has moved on. There are similar (illegal) devices on the market, but technology - specifically mobile tech - offers new services for motorists who are trying to avoid traffic jams (and so-called "smile zones").
Speedtraps.co.za, a long-running and popular website, offers a list of speedtraps by region. Usefully, it has also published a list of hijack and smash and grab hotspots. The problem is that the content is static (even historical) and often outdated.
Enter trapster.com - billed as a "speed trap sharing system". What an amazing implementation! This global website is built on top of Google Maps, and allows users to simply submit
Trapster also has a number of applications for mobile phones, including the Apple iPhone, any BlackBerry, phones using the Windows Mobile or Google Android operating systems, Nokias as well as other devices like Garmin and TomTom.
It uses what it terms "virtual radar technology", and simply mount your phone in your car and launch the Trapster map application while driving. It provides (spoken) audio warnings if you're near a hotspot, and if you see a speed camera or road block, you simply click your phone as you're passing by.
There are different types of hotspots highlighted on Trapster: "Police often hide here", "Red light camera", "Speed camera" and "Mobile speed camera". These are rated at various confidence levels as well (Green, yellow, red, grey) based on the number of users that report a given trap.
The Trapster system also "learns" the credibility of users over time. With 3.3m users and 1.2m traps reported globally, this resource is already popular.
There are a few hundred "hotspots" in Johannesburg alone, with a fairly large amount in other metropolitan areas and major routes in South Africa.
This type of location-based technology is not limited to avoiding speed cameras.
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http://www.moneyweb.co.za/mw/view/mw/en/page292671?oid=339542&sn=2009+Detail&pid=287226
