GPS system that warns of camera locations and accident blackspots.

Before beginning any outpourings regarding the Road Angel, I should point out that I normally drive 'without protection'. Also, although I travel a large number of miles each year, the journeys are on the whole to the same places which means I'm aware of what to expect.

The Road Angel we tested is one of the new generation of GPS based warning systems that beep away at you merely based on your location. Pointing up at the sky, the system compares your position with the locations in its database and starts yelping if it matches.

It's a useful idea and one well executed by the Morpheous Geodesy. The unit itself is relatively bulky and but simple in design. Three buttons allow you to control the menu system, to set your preferences for volume, distance of warning etc.

Bleeping Good

2.5 metre cable provided as well as a 'stretchy' cable.

When approaching a hazard that it feels it should warn you about the unit starts beeping and the display starts flashing. The closer you get the greater the frequency of the beeping and the faster the display flashes (in red). A small label at the top of the screen indicates whether the hazard is an accident black spot, fixed camera location or a favourite of plod for a mobile trap.

The unit can be tweaked to control the distance at which it starts to warn you. If you do the same journey frequently and want to remove a warning from the system, then you can hit the 'delete' button and the location is then wiped from the Road Angel's database. You can also add a location if you so wish.

That database can then be synchronised with Blackspot's central database to give you the latest updates. This is done by hooking it up to your PC.

Bleeeeeeep

So is it useful? To me no. The inclusion of 'Accident Blackspots' I suspect is a marketing ploy to give the tool more credibility amongst the anti-speed lobby. Cruising around the country it was warning me of numerous places that it considered a blackspot. These included simple motorway junctions and in general all locations where the hazards are obvious unless you're a completely blinkered numpty. If there is a means of removing the warning for blackspots via the menu system then I couldn't find it (and yes I did RTFM). By the end of one four hour journey I was cursing the unit for bleeping away like R2D2 on a cattle grid.

Putting that issue to one side, it is a good database they've got for cameras. In a journey of around 400 miles it didn't fail to spot every camera and even warned which gantries on the M25 are genuinely fitted with cameras.

In day to day driving I've got too used to driving without a warning system and didn't feel the urge to take the unit with me every time I left the house. If I was driving in more unfamiliar territory on a regular basis - particularly at night - then I might think again. But not if the Road Angel continued to bark on about 'blackspots' every half mile...