Something about TomTom’s new Safety cameras subscription service just doesn’t sit right with me. For $49.95 a year, you can receive twice weekly updates for your TomTom satnav that ensure you’ve got the most up to date information when it comes to those government revenue raisers. Both fixed speed cameras and red-light cameras are included and the positioning is verified by TomTom, so it should always be accurate… but really, are there so many new fixed speed cameras and red light cameras going up around the country to warrant twice weekly updates? And is that information really worth $50 a year, especially when you can probably update the map yourself on a TomTom with Map Share. My gut says no, and I generally listen to what my gut tells me. Like right now, it’s time for ham.
I think that speed cameras are the devil’s technology that impugn our basic human rights, but Maryland high school students show how they can be used for fun and profit revenge.
Of all the Big Brother things corporations, governments, and other nosy entities that want to examine all the minutiae of our daily lives looking for transgressions of stupid little rules, I feel like speedtrap cameras are the most egregious. Endemic in Europe, they’re gaining a foothold in the US. They break the whole system that governs the way we drive on American highways, the fundamental fairness of the road, that unspoken agreement between poh-lice and people who drive: It’s only speeding if a living, breathing cop spots you. And even then, they might just let you pass. The Mini Coyote from Novus can restore this balance.
Yes, the photo above is real: It is Animal–from The Muppets–driving a British Audi while speeding through a German road. The famous pink drummer is driving the police there absolutely crazy, because he keeps doing it again and again. Or better said, the real driver is, using a low-tech approach to take advantage of a weak point of the radar cameras. I don’t know about you, but this image makes me laugh out loud. The German police, however, wasn’t amused when they explained to the press how the whole joke worked and how they couldn’t fine the driver because of it:
