Tom Tom Speed Camera
Across most of the developed world, a reasonable proportion of rate limit-related law enforcement has moved out of human hands to the kingdom of machines. However, in which a human traffic policeman might provide you the benefit of the doubt if you don't slow down quickly enough when the limit falls onto a road, a camera will merely record you overstepped the mark, and that's it. Therefore a good knowledge of rate limits and where the automated systems employing them are located is vital for the modern motorist. This is really where TomTom's Speed Cameras comes in; it's pretty much all of the app does.
TomTom's Speed Cameras is an app for iOS only, such as the company's fully featured sat-nav program. It is even more restrictive, however, because a mobile data link is a must. So it only runs on the iPhone 3GS and over or one of those 3G iPads. It is not compatible with the iPod Touch or even wifi-only iPads. The program itself is free, but it's entirely useless by itself. You'll need to purchase a subscription, which costs #16.99 a calendar year, although a introductory offer of a single month for #1.49 is available.
Together with the program installed along with a subscription applied, the interface could not be easier. During routine driving, a stylised road graphic fills the screen, with a speed limit sign on the best along with your existing speed on the left. If you're within the limit, the rate shows in white, but if you exceed the limitation it affects to light reddish then a darker reddish. We noticed that Speed Cameras wasn't aware of the limit in some suburban side streets, except where this was reduced to 20mph. Best navigation hack However it needs to be rather evident the default rate is 30mph in residential neighbourhoods, and all major roads were detected correctly.
The main function of the app, of course, comes into play when you are approaching a speed camera. As you close to the camera, then a warning beeps and a space countdown starts at the bottom. Sometimes, cameras are detected that are not on your current path, but only around a nearby rotation, which can be a specially handy safeguard if you turn into a side street that also entails a decrease in speed limit.
A much more useful feature is how average speed zones are presented. Instead of just telling you to keep under the limit, Speed Cameras keeps track of your existing average inside the zone. So if you do end up accidentally going too fast at any point, you can peg your rate back to keep the typical lawful. For very long average zones, this will be very handy indeed.