Next time you get caught doing 35 in a 30 zone you might be wishing you had the help of one of the most innovative iPhone applications we've yet seen.
Trapster is a free application that can be downloaded from the App Store to turn your handset into a speed trap detector that's far more efficient than any dashboard radar.
GPS awareness
The software uses the phone's GPS chip to pinpoint its location and compares that against a map of roads that is dotted with the locations of speed traps.
When it determines that the phone – and, presumably, the vehicle it's in – is heading for danger it sounds an audible alarm warning that it's time to slow down.
Community driven
The key to Trapster's success is in the fact that the worldwide database of speed traps is user generated. Anyone can contribute the location of a trap through the website or directly through the application.
To avoid false positives, the community gets to vote on the quality of the information, meaning bad reports are quickly eliminated.
Other phones too
Although the program is available for Blackberries and Symbian phones, over half the users are on the iPhone.
So far, the company behind the software says it has almost 200,000 people in on the act of getting drivers to slow down – remember, it's about safety, not avoiding fines, we're told.
