you need to either install TomTom maps on your phone and pay the subscription or grab one of their stand alone sat navs with lifetime free updates to maps and camera database, that way you get a gentle reminder if you're speeding on most roads and also get advance warning of any speed cameras and red light cameras as you approach them. I have never received a speeding ticket in 56 years of driving.
Can you please explain to me what legitimate use a red light camera warning system is. The only use case I can see is for scofflaws who want to deliberately run most red lights (endangering everybody in the process) and not get caught by the few traffic lights with enforcement cameras. There is no plausible explanation of how technology designed to subvert red light enforcement is going to contribute to road safety.
We've had the conversation about speed cameras before and I'll just reiterate my argument that if you're going to exceed the speed limit than you should be exercising enough attention and observation that spotting a speed camera well in advance is child's play by comparison. If you don't have the skill to do that then you shouldn't buy a chunk of electronics to allow you to speed with impunity. Better still, just don't speed.
I'm not going to utterly condemn something that reminds you what the speed limit is the way I do devices designed to subvert speed and red light enforcement cameras, but again, if your observation is so poor that you can't figure out the speed limit of the road you're on, then it's so poor that you'd fail a driving test, and thus really shouldn't be driving unsupervised until you've improved it.
Simples, many of the red light cameras these days also have a speed camera within them, I know of at least 1 or 2 here in Chelmsford. I agree, don't speed, I try not to speed, I have never made a habit of speeding or setting out to break the law in any way, be it civil or criminal, but the plain truth is that these days it is so easy to lose one's licence if you are not 110% on the ball and it is so very easy to be distracted at the crucial moment of entering a speed restricted zone, so you miss the sign. The speed camera database does not, it alerts you to the fact that you are approaching a camera, you have to look at the screen to discover what the speed limit is, it does
not verbally announce it. There are stretches of the A13 in East London that have varying speed limits ranging up and down between 60, 40, 30, 50, and I dare say, now even 20mph, all within a mile or so. The TomTom and similar devices, don't just issue a warning as you approach the camera, they continue to monitor your location and should you make the mistake that you think you are in a 40 zone, but actually in 30 or 20 zone, it will constantly remind you to check your speed. Likewise, they will also constantly monitor your speed while in an averaging zone, as you will be aware (hopefully) that it is not unlawful to go faster than the speed limit in such zones, as long as your average speed between camera locations is at or below the limit, so you can overtake slower vehicles if you want to.
They also warn you of accident black spots, possible mobile camera locations and also congestion charge zones, so NO they are devices that allow you to speed and just slow down when you have to in order to pass a camera, they are truly a road safety device, they alert you to the speed limit for the road you are driving on, EVEN if there are no cameras on it. The will always show the limit for that road on the screen, but will not alert you if there is no approaching camera, or you are below the limit, as soon as you go over the limit, then they alert you, if you ignore them, they will continue to alert you. As a person, who over 30 years has been in a job which required a clean driving licence, I consider such devices as an essential tool just as much as you do the tools of your trade or hobby.
Now if you have an old fashioned speed camera detector that detected if a camera was emitting radar waves or not, then yes, you are breaking the law as those devices were purely aimed at drivers who wanted to speed and only obey the limit when a camera was active. TomTom, being a sat nav is purely GPS based and so can only tell you where cameras are located, it cannot tell you if it is currently active or not.
British Police are happy with these systems as they are in effect, doing a good job of making people aware of their speed, and this is very useful when driving in strange places that you don't know what the limits or where the cameras / hazards are. If you don't have one, that's cool, its your choice.
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