Speed cameras have certainly gone some way to improving road safety and reducing the number of deaths on the road. However, in countries such as Britain, some people feel that the installation of speed cameras has gone too far and now drivers are receiving too many fines. One way to get round this is to use a speed camera detector. However, if you can’t afford one or they are not legal in your country, then did you know you can turn your phone into a speed trap detector?
FoxyTag is a free, legal and collaborative system to alert drivers to speed radars. It works because users post virtual tags close to radars in order to warn other drivers. These users will then be alerted by their phone when they are within 15 seconds of a radar with a red dot locating the radar also appearing on your screen. By confirming the presence of radars, you also create trust links with other users and thus get more reliable information. In other words, the more you participate, the more the information you get is reliable.
Some may question the ethics of FoxyTag although the developers claim that it simply ‘allows the driver to concentrate on the road instead of having his or her eyes fixed on the speedometer’. They also make the point that drivers often brake suddenly when they see a radar and FoxyTag reduces this risk by giving drivers more warning. Obviously, the downside at the moment is that there aren’t many users using it so the map of known radars is rather small.
