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Speed camera detectors (need advice)


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Hey,

For the last year or so i've been using my tomtom with the pocketgps database for speed cameras (Pocket GPS World - SatNavs | GPS | Speed Cameras)

I will admit i've found it very good, every camera i've been through so far, mobile ones as well have been in the database. I don't exactly do much long distance driving though so I can't say for sure how well it performs in other areas.

But I want to update a bit, something with a database I can trust 100% and can pick up all mobile camera sites. A few months ago I bought a snooper sapphire, picked up the static cameras I tested it with, but hardly any of the places I KNOW they park speed vans it didn't alert me.

I know what i'm looking for will alert me many times for the mobile spots even when they aren't there at that time, but i'd rather it alerted me to a possible camera. Used to it going of all the time with the tomtom anyway!

I was looking at the Road Angel Professional, or Road Angel Professional Connected, just worried i'll get it and the database i'm using on my TomTom might be better like what happened with the Snooper Sapphire.

I like to have something encase I stray over the speed limit even just a little, and not notice. I need to keep my license clean.

Please some advice, :)

Edited by Phoenix
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Hey,

But I want to update a bit, something with a database I can trust 100% and can pick up all mobile camera sites.

No such thing, I'm afraid. None of the various databases are 100% and allowing yourself to be lulled into a false sense of security by one database, or another, is a recipe for disaster for your driving licence.

Having said that, I reckon the PocketGPS database is probably the most comprehensive of the options out there. It's dumb and relies on your satnav to warn you of potential locations but is the most believable of the various devices I've tried.

Whilst I'd guess static camera locations are probably 99% accurate on most databases, it's the "live" mobile scamera sites that are the big problem. Being alerted to "known" scamera van locations helps but you can get a bit blase about the warnings when you've been alerted to dozens of potential sites on your journey, only to find nothing there. Sods law says you'll then ignore the alert about a location that does have a live camera in operation. :(

Theoretically, the Road Angel Connected could be the killer warning device but people on this forum have reported problems (whilst others are perfectly happy with theirs) and you're still relying on one companies database for accuracy. Until there are ten of thousands of RA Connected's in use and people actually take the time to actually report live locations it's all a bit hit and miss, IMHO.

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As already said there is no such thing as a 100% correct database.

And you can even go the detector route either - laser detectors tell you when it's already too late (if they tell you at all since the laser beam is tightly focussed and usually pointed at the numberplate), and radar detectors give so many false wrnings you tend to ignore them.

I'm afraid there's only 2 things we can do:

1) keep within the (often ridiculous) speed limits,

2) keep pointing out that according to the Transport Research Laboratory at Crowthorne (the Government's own group of experts on roads and road safety) only 5% of accidents are caused by speed, so why the hell are they spending the vast majority of the road policing budget on that 5% and doing next to nothing about the causes of the other 95% of accidents?

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Hey,

I was looking at the Road Angel Professional, or Road Angel Professional Connected, just worried i'll get it and the database i'm using on my TomTom might be better like what happened with the Snooper Sapphire.

I like to have something encase I stray over the speed limit even just a little, and not notice. I need to keep my license clean.

Please some advice, :)

The new TomTom Live range of Connected PND's to be launched shortly (and available to pre-order at some online sites) will contain the Road Angel database and the Camera Share feature which allows users to report a 'live' camera van in a known mobile camera location.

TomTom chose the Road Angel database as it was the most comprehensive and accurate in the UK, it is also the only commercially available database where camera locations are validated by our own employees.

regards

Graham Mackie

Managing Director

Road Angel Group

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