Trapster

So, you’re driving down the road minding your own business when all of a sudden you see it. An unmarked police car sits on the side of the road waiting for an unsuspecting speeder to pass. If you’re lucky, you can slam on the brakes fast enough to avoid getting caught, but for many, it’s simply time for another ticket.

What if you could be alerted to speed traps before you hit them? Well, there’s a free Web community that attempts to offer this service to people. It’s called Trapster.

Trapster provides a forum where people can report speed traps and red light cameras by pressing a button on their phone or calling a toll free number. When a trap is reported, others are alerted as they approach the trap.

So how does it work? It combines technologies such as GPS and wireless location, voice transcription, geocoding, reverse geocoding, and SMS, with a central database server. It communicates in real time, using the Internet. Pretty cool, huh?

I’m signing up today, so I’m not sure how well it works yet. If you’re interested, check it out here.