Those of you in the UK will be all to familiar with the number of speed (sorry safety) cameras springing up everywhere. You're probably also aware of products such as Road Angel which make use of GPS and a database of camera and accident blackspot locations to warn of excessive speed on approach.

These commercial products are pretty expensive (£300 - £500), have an annual subscription cost for database updates and look pretty tacky perched on the dashboard. So how about the diy option?

I just came across this site: http://www.pocketgps.co.uk/uksafetycameras.php which would seem to sort out the camera database problem.

Take an empeg, a gps receiver, gpsd and perhaps a custom bit of development and the whole thing could be integrated into the empeg, for just the cost of a GPS unit.

I really fancy having a crack at this as a project, but could do with a few pointers to start with. I seem to recall many moons ago some activity around the gps application, with a view to split it into a separatefrontend/backend. Did this ever occur?

I'm thinking of a custom app that would bind to hijack, have its own database of danger locations (not too worried about direction of travel at the moment), and listen quietly in the background to data from a backend gps process.

As we approach a camera location, it could check current vehicle speed using GPS and display a suitable graphic onscreen and play a suitable sound sample as appropriate.

Any audio/visual feedback could get more insistent as we approach the camera, and then hush once we're past it. Adding a "hush" button would be handy for false alarms.

Of course, it would be really nice to know the speed limit for the camera too, but that's missing from the current database. Maybe there's another source of road speed limit data?

Another nice feature would be an overspeed warning - this could be set to warn of going over 40mph through the current dreary m25 roadworks for example.

I'm hoping that some of this functionality already exists in other empeg projects - perhaps it could all be done within gpsd?

Any thoughts?

Cheers,

Andrew.

Here's another source of data with far more detail including direction & speed limits, but not in a single database file unfortunately:

http://www.speedcamerasuk.com/locationsdatabase.htm

Wouldn't it just be easier to drive the speed limit

> Wouldn't it just be easier to drive the speed limit

Depends on the person. For some people, the answer is probably no.

Wouldn't it just be easier to drive the speed limit

I resolved more than ten years ago to drive within the speed limit and religiously try to do so.
However, along with the overpopulation of speed cameras, it seems to me, comes the overpopulation of irrational and overbearing speed restrictions: The road from Leeds to Wetherby goes 30, 40, 50, back to 30 etc., so many times that it is difficult to remember what restriction you are currently in. This can only be designed as a method for police revenue collection, as it's only other purpose is to increase frustration rather than to increase safety.
For this reason, I sympathise with anyone who feels the need to decrease their vulnerability against running up points.

I agree, they did a spot on Top Gear last series which pointed out the top 10(?) most dangerous roads in britain didn't have speed cameras. Surely they'd be priority 1? I firmly believe speed cameras are a revenue generating exercise as motorists are usually law abiding citizens who will pay fines to avoid further trouble as opposed to your average mugger who probably wouldn't be able to pay a fine of any amount.

Back on topic, nothing is impossible on the empeg, maybe I can free some time up and have a look.

I agree, they did a spot on Top Gear last series which pointed out the top 10(?) most dangerous roads in britain didn't have speed cameras. Surely they'd be priority 1?

Ah, but are those the 10 most dangerous roads precisely because all the other potentially-dangerous roads have speed cameras?

Peter

...precisely because all the other potentially-dangerous...

They could be, but it doesn't matter. Plenty of other roads -- which would never have made it into the list of "Britain's Most Dangerous Roads" -- have needless speed cameras on them.

Plenty of other roads -- which would never have made it into the list of "Britain's Most Dangerous Roads" -- have needless speed cameras on them.

Well, true. I was just saying that the "most-dangerous roads" thing wasn't necessarily a good argument.

Peter

boxer, is it me or are there all of a sudden 100's of speed camera all over Leeds??? There are 7 now between Kirstall Abbey and the Airport, all up Otley Road and they are all over Pudsey. They seem to be apearing overnight!!!

What the hell is going on???

I for one would love a feature like this on my empeg.

Cheers

Cris.

I dunno what you Englishmen are complaining about. When I spent a couple of days in and around London, I was amazed to see how obvious the speed cameras were, and even more interestingly, how they all had clear signs warning you that a speed camera was coming up. Wussies. Here in the US, you're lucky if you even see the cop with the laser gun when he nails you.

Wussies? They're not all obvious sadly. Most cameras are now supposed to be displayed in a prominent position and painted in bright colours but this certainly isn't always the case.

I know of several cameras placed directly behind road signs or large trees so that they're not visible until the last minute. Motorists unaware of these cameras then slam on the brakes creating a potential hazard.

Anyway, the debate over speeding is bound to rage on for quite some time. Back OT, I've found a few more sites with suitable databases of camera locations. There are also individual sites for each of the major police forces.

PDA based speed camera warning - might be useful to reverse engineer the file format, and use the database on the empeg (£50 p/y subscription):
http://www.trafcam.com/

Another text based gatso database, although with some OS references:
http://www.ukgatsos.com/

A DB from the association of british drivers, although it is no longer being kept upto date.
http://www.abd.org.uk/cameras/map.htm

Lots of other links on that site too, including this one:
http://www.speedcam.co.uk/index2.htm

Oh, and here's a link to backup the "speed cameras not on dangerous roads" argument:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/2206467.stm

Anyone have a current link to download gpsapp?

When I spent a couple of days in and around London, I was amazed to see how obvious the speed cameras were, and even more interestingly, how they all had clear signs warning you that a speed camera was coming up.

Unfortunately outside of London it is a little different. Cameras are often hiden behind signs and trees.

Also we have roads that have camera warning signs every half a mile but no cameras.

Here in the US, you're lucky if you even see the cop with the laser gun when he nails you.

We have plenty of cops with laser guns here as well, it isn't all cameras.

I fairly religiously stick to 20, 30 and 40 limits, but I don't think cameras are the way to enforce them. Other limits I use as a guidance for my judgement. That doesn't mean I am always speeding though, you will regularly find me 20 or 30 mph under the limit if conditions dictate, when all the unthinking "I will drive at the speed limit, all the time" idiots are slavishly watching their speedos.

But what about those dead-obvious stripes on the road?

I'd just make some really long black marks before the stripes.

But what about those dead-obvious stripes on the road?

They aren't all obvious, in fact some are non-existant.

The problem with speed cameras is that they don't take into account the fact that speed doesn't kill - it's inappropriate speed that kills.

Doing 90 on a clear motorway at 3:00 in the morning shouldn't carry the same penalty as doing 50 outside a school IMHO

It's all just revenue generation anyway. The government just hates the motorist and persecutes them at every opportunity

And don't get me started on the pointlessness of the M4 bus lane.

I'm not sure about the camera's, but speeding tickets as revenue boosters is a subject that's quite an issue in Oklahoma. Very small towns were raising a great deal of money by ticketing motorists in interesting situations. Oklahoma isn't as sparse in population as Montana however most of the poplulation is concentrated in two major areas. So most of these small towns were ticketing folks in the middle of nowhere, generally where the speed was not causing any real problem. The state legislature recently passed a bill greatly increasing the requirements placed on local jurisdictions concerning speed postings and other warnings. They also placed a percentage cap on the amount of revenue a town could raise through ticket revenues.

Don't forget New Rome, Ohio.

Don't seem to have increased on my side of town, don't get me started on guided bus lanes taking up half the usable space, carrying half a dozen people past queues of traffic. Nor the "park and ride" at the top of Harrogate road, which the council says is a great success, but is mysteriously empty during school holidays, as its only purpose is as an overflow car park for the school next door!

And don't get me started on the pointlessness of the M4 bus lane.

I'm sure that our American cousins would appreciate a good Christmas cracker joke should you care to elucidate! As a northerner, my knowledge of this idiocy is anecdotal.

But what about those dead-obvious stripes on the road?

I've been thinking about hanging a piece of black carpet from the back of my car, with the same graduation lines, only spaced differently. Thus, I can go past a speed camera at 90mph, but when they look at the film, it'll only appear that I was doing 25mph .

Oh, and they often have the lines painted on the road where there's no camera, as well.

The new cameras also photograph the driver, we're told, to avoid "passing off", so be sure to wear your groucho eyebrows, glasses, cigar etc.,

And all this is caused by a Dutch motor racing driver/enthusiast who wanted to improve the accuracy of competition results!

Sorry - they heard I was going to be in Pudsey a lot

The core idea of what you discuss here was put forward as a project a while ago in either the Ideas or the Projects forum. Supposedly if it got as far as beginning implementation, it would go into Projects. I am not sure if it got very far: for interest you might care to scan back through both forums. Since Mark Lord is into GeoCaching in a big way (hi, Mark!) and is also the author of the HiJack kernel, it might be worth getting his opinion.

Well, "world famous Rally and Race driver" might be more accurate .

Maurice Gatsonides, and he's Belgian as far as I know. He used to be a rally driver for Triumph in the 50's and 60's, and was present in the pits at the '55 Le Mans where about 80 spectators were killed in a pit lane crash.

His company is based here: it has a gold-plated speed camera on a gold-plated post outside his company building, and is one of the largest (and growing) export companies of NL. Company officers have bodyguards for protection after threats, and the compound is protected by a large chain fence.....

Trust me to know half a story!

Company officers have bodyguards for protection after threats, and the compound is protected by a large chain fence.....

Wow, sounds like the company to work for....