Tomtom Speed Camera
Around most of the developed world, a reasonable percentage of rate limit-related law enforcement has transferred from human hands to the kingdom of machines. Therefore a good knowledge of rate limits and where the automatic systems employing them are situated is vital for the modern motorist. That is where TomTom's Speed Cameras comes ; it is pretty much all of the app does.
TomTom's Speed Cameras is an app for iOS only, like the organization's fully featured sat-nav program. It is even more prohibitive, however, because a mobile data connection is a necessity. So it only runs to the iPhone 3GS and over or among those 3G iPads. It is not compatible with all the iPod Touch or even wifi-only iPads. The app itself is free, but it's entirely useless on its own. You will need to purchase a subscription, which costs #16.99 a year, although an introductory offer of one month for #1.49 is available.
With the app installed and a subscription applied, the interface couldn't be simpler. During regular driving, a stylised road graphic fills the display, with a speed limit sign on the right and your existing rate on the leftside. If you're inside the limitation, the speed shows in white, but if you exceed the limit it changes to light reddish then a darker reddish. We noticed that Speed Cameras wasn't mindful of the limit in certain suburban side roads, except where this had been reduced to 20mph. However it should be fairly evident the default speed is 30mph in residential neighbourhoods, and all major streets were discovered properly.
The main role of the app, of course, comes into play when you're approaching a speed camera. This may be a fixed camera, a mobile camera, a traffic light camera, or an average rate camera, even though you can also turn Google maps with Tom Tom speed camera alerts at least one of these off independently. As you close to the camera, then a warning beeps and a space countdown begins at the base. Sometimes, cameras are detected that aren't on your current path, but just around a nearby turning, which can be a particularly handy safeguard in case you become a side street which also entails a reduction in speed limit.
A much more useful feature is how average speed zones are presented. Instead of merely telling you to maintain below the limit, Speed Cameras keeps track of your existing average inside the zone. So if you do wind up unintentionally going too fast at any point, you can peg your speed back enough to keep the typical lawful. For very long average zones, this is going to be quite handy indeed.