I’d like to introduce you to Trapster. Trapster is a social mobile application where its users submit the locations of speed traps, red light cameras, live police, checkpoints, and a whole lot more. Warning: Don’t use your phone while driving. As of writing Trapster has nearly 10 million users. These 10 million users are your eyes and ears to the streets of where you live. Are you unknowingly approaching an officer at the bottom of the hill with a radar detector pointed your way? Well don’t worry, that beeping sound is Trapster telling you to slow down because there’s someone ahead waiting to ruin your day. So how does it work?
First you need to download Trapster. It’s free and it runs cross-platform: iOS, Android, Blackberry, Windows, Palm, your dashboard GPS like Garmin or TomTom, and more. You create an account (it’s free cheapskates) and you’re off to do your civic duty of saving the masses from driving infractions. Trapster has a slew of cool features that I won’t get into, but one I really like is the “Confidence Level” display of the road you are on. Depending on the last time and how recent a fellow Trapster user was traveling your same route, the road you’re traveling will change to various shades (darker signifying a higher “Confidence Level”) so you can feel “confident” that those red and blue lights won’t soon be blinding you in your rearview. As with any GPS-based application, Trapster will suck your battery life pretty quickly, so keep your phone plugged into your cigarette outlet. The makers of Trapster realized that battery drain is a downer so the application will automatically turn off the GPS feature if it doesn’t detect movement for a certain amount of time. Drive safe. Be aware of your surroundings. And God speed.
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