Mobile Scameras & Pold in Lay-bys - Early Warning?

[goodlife]

An idea has been rumbling around my head for a while.

There are 20,000+ members here on PH, so at any time there is a good chance that one of us will spot mobile camera vans & police sitting in lay-bys.

98% of us will have mobile phones, so what about setting up some kind of txt service, where anyone spotting this potential danger sends a txt to a central number (after pulling over of course). Anyone else can then subscribe (for a fee to cover the txt costs) to having these warnings forwarded to their phone.

There could also be a 'Where are they now' section on the site we could all take a peek at before setting out on a journey.

I can forsee a couple of things to sort out:
1) There would need to be some kind of 'location' you subscribe to so you didn't get txt's about Edinburgh when driving in Devon, but that shouldn't be too hard to sort out.
2) The alerts would need to be time bound, or able to be over-ridden by an 'all clear' txt to prevent over-crowding of the service.

I'm not technical so have no idea of the details needed to sort this out, but how about it?

[andytk]

Sounds too complex. It might work though.

Some of the scamera van outfits put their location on webshites. However I have heard rumours that the information on said sites isn't particularly accurate.

One idea I came up with was a bit off the wall.

Get some GPS transponder thingys and link them to mobile phones somehow. These GPS locaters check their position every half hour and then text the co-ordinates through the phone.
Now for this to work you'd have to break into the yard the scamera vans are stored overnight and attach the GPS units somewhere discreet. The units would have to have BIG batteries and have an areil (sp?) that could "see" the sky to pick up the satellites.

Then after that you would have real time locations of all the scamera vans in one particular area.

Like I said its completely off the wall.

Andy

>> Edited by andytk on Wednesday 16th April 10:48

[swilly]

How about a simple system whereby you push a single button on a controller when you pass a plod/talivan site which logs onto a GPS system.

Anyone with a similar GPS system gets a warning when they approach any sites so logged.

[deltaf]

How about a missile system, so as instead of logging the position it removes the position from earth completely?....or am i being too harsh?

[pwig]

deltaf said: How about a missile system, so as instead of logging the position it removes the position from earth completely?....or am i being too harsh?

I like your style!

[philly]

It's starting to become possible to "buy" location information of handsets from the Network Operators (O2, Voda etc.) the business driver for this is location-based services e.g. "tell me where the nearest McDonalds is"

No need therefore for GPS links, although there is a cost in getting the info from the Network Operator (a few pence each request) - could solve the geographic issue, but only to a point.

[tim_s]

i've worked on many web-based txting systems and it does sound like a very good idea and it sounds realistic too. txt's cost less than 5p through the majority of sms gateways or you can have messages reverse-billed to your phone (currently only supported by Orange,Vodafone,O2). setting up a "short-code" (i.e 81222) to text messages to is a lot more costly though and probably not worth the hassle. a lot of us members use the forum during work so maybe there could be a simple form where you could fill in the details, location of the camera/van etc and then the txts could be delivered to the appropriate people.

[superlightr]

or have a monitor in car linked to Piston heads 'where are they now' section and pre set it to highlight any in say 'Sussex' or whereeveryou live.


The PH side would work, lots of people type a lot, but to spread that message whilst you are in the car is the difficulty. ie laptops in cars as you drive, i love the PH site but thats even too far for me.

It has to be real time, it has to be able to be updated in real time and the message/warning last for say 2 hrs. (cops dont tend to stay in the same place for very long)

You the PH member need to be able to see the warning in real time and update the Ph warning site in real time whilst driving.

so, apart from real time I dont think the tech is there yet until we get permant car links to the web, and by then Big brother will be watching us anyway.

so after all that- dont ask me how to do it !

[rowland]

There's anew sat-nav type device - Smart-Nav??? where you call an 'operator' to plan your route and it sends info as you drive (just like an in-car sat-nav). They already warn of static cameras and SPECS on your route so if they were to accept info on Scamera vans this could be relayed to drivers using thos specific routes.
This would promote road-safety by prior warning of a traffic "Hazard".
if anyone's interested i'm happy to talk to a rep of theirs

[chrisgr31]

rowland said: if anyone's interested i'm happy to talk to a rep of theirs

Well nothing is lost by talking to them about it! At least one of the GPS speed camera location devices on the market has mobile camera sites programmed in doesn't it? The disadvantage is that it doesn't advise if it is live or not. Although some scamera partnerships do publish where the Talivans will be on a daily basis