British motorists have new camera detectors
26 November 2002: Motorists in Britain now have a combined GPS and radar system available to help them avoid being caught by one of the country's 2,000 speed cameras.
The Morpheous RoadPilot alerts drivers to speed camera sites as well as reminding them of speed limit in the vicinity and gives audio and visual warnings. It can also be used to plot journeys to provide business and private mileage logs for people who can claim travel expenses for their work.
The unit is is totally legal in Britain. The base unit costs £495, while a full RoadPilot+RADAR kit costs £795.
Road Pilot also gives the vehicle’s precise speed to an accuracy much greater than a standard speedometer, and users are also able to add their own 'speed hazard' spots or ‘way points’ in RoadPilot’s memory for future alerts, simply by touching an icon on the screen as the hazard is passed.
Among the features of RoadPilot is a Speed Sensitivity function, which mutes the audible alarm if the vehicle is not exceeding the speed limit when approaching a fixed speed camera location. The warnings are still displayed on the screen as normal. An approach above the speed limit will trigger the full audio and visual alarm.
Around 40 new fixed speed cameras are installed in the UK every week and over 9,000 speeding tickets are issued every day.
The database inside RoadPilot can be updated daily with the locations of new speed cameras and inactive devices, via a USB interface, to the user’s personal computer. which coonects through a desktop modem unit which dials up and connects automatically to the Morpheous central database.
Updates take just minutes and are charged at a national rate call.For users constantly on the move or without a PC, RoadPilot can also be updated by a desktop USB interface (connector) via a personal computer.
The system is not yet available for Ireland, according to a speokesman, but with the planned introduction of more speed cameras following the pilot studies in the Louth-Meath Garda Division area, it might well be coming here soon.