[Infowarrior] - DC Police Chief Says It's 'Cowardly' To Monitor Speed Traps With Your iPhone

[Richard Forno]

(If the local jurisdictions around here didn't rely on these things  
FOR REVENUE they'd not be so popular.  Yet they continue to  
proliferate and their dubious employments continue  --rf)

Police chief denounces 'cowardly' iPhone users monitoring speed traps
By: Hayley Peterson
Examiner Staff
July 7, 2009
http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/local/Devices-that-warn-drivers-of-speed_-red-light-cameras-draw-police-ire-7930619-50074717.html
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 i-Phones 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 [the cameras] 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 [after] 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."