| How Does Trapster Work?
When you see a trap, report it by pressing a button on your phone, or calling a toll free number. Other user's phones will alert them as they approach the trap. Trapster learns the credibility of traps based on how many users agree. It also learns the credibility of each user, over time.
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So how does it work? Our goal is to make it so simple that you don't need to know. But in case you are interested, 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. What types of mobile phones does Trapster support? * iPhone * BlackBerry * Android (the TMobile G1 and others) * Nokia N95, N96, N97, 5800, E71, and other Symbian s60 phones * Palm WebOS phones such as Pre and Pixi * Windows Mobile touch screen phones with 6.0, 6.1, or 6.5 OS and GPS * Unlocked J2ME phones with GPS (for example the Sprint Samsung Instinct) If you don't have one of these phones you can still get text message alerts with maps on any phone that supports text messaging, and report traps that you see using our 1-800 tip line. Do you sell or give out my private information such as my email address? Of course not. We would never do that, and we have never done anything like that. Read the Privacy Policy Why you need Trapster even if you already have a radar detector. Even the latest, most expensive radar detectors are useless against modern police enforcement technologies such as instant-on radar and laser. Your radar/laser detector will still beep, but in almost all cases, only after it is too late. VASCAR, another common enforcement method, emits no signal at all so a detector can never help. The only way a radar or laser detector can help you is if it beeps in time for you to slow down before the officer gets a reading on your speed. With instant-on and laser, this only happens if the officer activates early or "misses" the shot, and some of the signal leaks past a car in front of you (a very unlikely scenario). Radar detectors are still effective for older radar enforcement methods, which are mostly used in smaller towns in remote areas. We recommend that you use both Trapster and a radar/laser detector for the best possible coverage. Also radar detectors are illegal in some countries and some US states, and are illegal nationwide in the US for commercial vehicles. Our understanding, corroborated by national law enforcement organizations, is that Trapster is legal in all 50 US states. You should check your local and state laws to be sure. The app is asking me for a confirmation code, I did not get one. If you already confirmed your account by clicking the link in an email, you no longer need the confirmation code. If the app is still asking you for one, try backing out of that screen and simply entering your username (not email address) and password in the login area (not signup area). If that does not work, try deleting and reinstalling the app. I did not get my confirmation email. Please check out our account troubleshooting page. Push notifications and text messages. Push notifications are the messages you get on the iPhone when the Trapster app is not open. You can configure push notifications and text messages so that you only get them at the times you drive, on the roads you drive. To configure push notifications, use this URL: http://trapster.com/push. To configure text messages, use this URL: http://trapster.com/config-alert-sms.php. A map of speed traps on a website will NOT help you avoid a ticket Police are not stupid. They change the locations where they set up speed traps many times per day. Only real time data is useful. Trapster data is real time data. Speed traps entered by other users are distributed immediately. Speed trap location data is only useful if you can actually use it. You can't just look on a map and memorize all the trap locations. Trapster continuously communicates with your mobile phone. Data is never stale. And it's FREE. Do I need a special data plan? How much will Trapster add to my phone bill? Trapster is FREE. The Trapster hybrid GPS/WiFi downloadable client does make extensive use of data services (at least several MB/day if you use it a lot, and that is subject to change without notice). If you sign up for text message alerts it uses text messaging too. If you have an unlimited data and text message plan, there should be no extra charges. You should check with your provider to make sure. Will Trapster work on my Garmin or other Navigation Device? Absolutely! You can download Trapster data for your Garmin, TomTom, or other Navigation Device. At this time we do not have a way to integrate Trapster data with your manufacturer's in-car navigation system, but rest assured we are working on a solution. Google Maps shows my location even though I don't have GPS. Why can't Trapster? First, Google Maps uses Google's proprietary database of cell tower locations. It just shows what cell tower location your phone is currently in range of. The accuracy is at best a couple of miles, which is not even close to accurate enough for something like Trapster. You would never stop getting alerts in most cities! Second, even if it was accurate enough, we couldn't use it. The Google Maps API is open for desktop browser integration (and in fact is used on this site), but Google does not (yet) not allow 3rd party developers to program the Google Maps Mobile API. |