Two new apps can avoid speed traps or police checkpoints
Making a grocery list? There’s an app for that. Can’t decide where to eat? There’s an app for that too. Avoid police speed traps and DUI checkpoints? There’s even an app for that — at least for the time being.
Trapster and PhantomAlert, the two most popular applications of their kind, alert users to dangerous intersections, red-light cameras, potential speed traps and nearby DUI checkpoints.
But not everyone thinks the apps are a good thing. A group of senators recently requested that the apps be taken down.
The two apps have more than 11 million users combined across the United States and work on most major GPS devices and nearly all smart phones.
Senators take a stand
In March, four U.S. senators sent a letter to Apple, Google and Research In Motion — the company that develops the BlackBerry product line — urging them to remove any apps from their online application stores that could help drunk drivers evade the law.
In the letter, senators Harry Reid (D-Nev.), Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.), Frank Lautenberg (D-N.J.) and Tom Udall (D-N.M.) wrote:
“We appreciate the technology that has allowed millions of Americans to have information at their fingertips, but giving drunk drivers a free tool to evade checkpoints, putting innocent families and children at risk, is a matter of public concern.”
Trapster’s website disagrees with the senators, describing their app as a high-tech version of flashing your headlights to alert drivers of potential road hazards.
Repeated attempts to contact the apps’ creators were unsuccessful.
Police have mixed opinions
Winter Springs Police Chief Kevin Brunelle said he's in favor of the apps, because they'll make speeders warier of driving fast in his city.
"I'd love to put an app out to let you know where police officers are at any given moment," Brunelle said. "People come into Winter Springs, and because of our reputation for heavy enforcement, they slow down. That's why we haven't had any speed related traffic fatalities in 15 years."
Winter Park Police Chief Brett Railey thinks there are some beneficial uses in some of the apps, but doesn’t fully support them. Railey thinks that the apps’ alerts help police enforce speed limits, saying “the purpose is to slow people down.”
But he does not support what the apps do in reference to DUI checkpoints because they can assist the driver in avoiding being stopped for a criminal violation, thus putting the public at risk.
“In a DUI, a person makes a conscious decision to drink and get behind the wheel,” Railey said.
Lt. Mike Beavers, a spokesman for the Oviedo Police Department, says that the apps are not illegal and that they go along the same lines as people flashing headlights to warn others or using radar detectors.
Sgt. Barbara Jones of the Orlando Police Department also likened the apps to radar detectors and reiterated that they are not against the law.
“We are still going to do our job and are still going to make the streets safer,” she said.
Court of public opinion
Soul Brother Kevin, host of the popular nighttime radio show SBK Live on Real Radio 104.1, uses Trapster every day on his route to and from work.
He described the app as consistent and accurate, but says he doesn’t use it to get around the law. He typically uses Trapster to alert him to traffic congestion and road construction.
“You can assume people are using it to get around the law,” he said. “But the more information about the road you have, the better you can plan your route.”
But Beavers still questions them on a personal level, as his son was killed by a drunk driver more than a year ago. He thinks that anyone using the apps is trying to avoid police detection.
“Anything that would potentially keep drunk drivers on the street should be considered criminal,” he said. “I wouldn’t support anything that aids them.”
But when it comes to making drivers pay attention to their speed and getting them to slow down and drive safer, Brunelle said the apps could be very useful.
"It’s making you pay attention and that’s what I want you to do in the first place," Brunelle said. "I hope everybody downloads that app."