Photo Enforcement on a Federal Highways

Map of the US National Highway System

Does a state, city or municipality have a the legal right to use a Federal highway for speed or red light cameras? If yes does the federal government share in the revenue generated from the cameras? What permits or permissions from what federal agencies are required?

Despite the Interstate or US highway label it is probably owned by the state or city and not the Federal government. In order to use the cameras the State legislature would have to enact legislation describing how and where photo enforcement could be used. Only rarely do these roads typically belong to the federal government and these roads are on military sites, national parks and perhaps Indian reservations.

Google Maps Needs Safety Cameras

Google Maps users deserve red light cameras and speed cameras as a layer for navigation. We have a database of 7,000 cameras we have been accumulating for the last 10 years. We have tried numerous times to reach out to Google and provide this data to them for use on Google Maps without any success. When we first started collecting the data 10 years ago there were only a few hundred cameras in use across the US. Now there are about 7,000 intersections and locations that are under photo enforcement surveillance.  Contrast that to Europe has 50,000 cameras and most of them are speed cameras. The majority of the cameras in the US are red-light cameras and not speed cameras like in Europe.

Every time we talk to large companies who want to use the data in the US they seem worried about the legality of using the data. They ask questions like:  Is it legal to use this information? What happens if a driver gets into an accident after using the information while driving?   I am not sure I understand their concerns considering people are not trying to evade the law by using the data.  Drivers simply want to know where these locations are to avoid fender bender collisions.  People drive erratically around photo-enforced locations and the residual effect are typically small accidents instead of t-bones.

Anyhow, a new user interface for Google Maps layers is being tested. The new UI enlarges the buttons that let you switch views between content layers. Now you can quickly switch between custom maps, driving directions, local search results, and Google Maps layers. Google Maps also shows the weather for the current location. It's very useful and it's about time they start putting some content on the map that helps people drive safely.

Trinity Red Light Camera Database Questions

I am continually amazed at how companies who sell radar detectors and our red light camera database competitors claim to have a more comprehensive database than we do.  PhotoEnforced.com was the first US company to start sourcing this data back in 2000 and our next competitor did not come onto the market until 2005.  How do they do it?  Well, they copied our free database online and started adding to it and selling it as their own proprietary database.  Simply ask the next time you want to license Trinity's database when they got started collecting the data and how they did it.  You probably won't get a straight answer because they will never admit that they stole information from PhotoEnforced.com.  Photoenforced.com has 7,000 - 8,000 locations in our database as of today and it's growing every day.  We also have removed hundreds of locations from our database that are inactive or not accurate.  What another competitor can claim they have a comparable database that is free?

I have asked several of these companies including to do a public "bake-off" comparing the number of locations in their database.  Still, no one wants to compete with crowdsourcing or user generated content because our competitors say they get too many false positives.   Here is what Trinity claims on their web site. Trinity is more accurate and complete than other databases because our team gathers more data than anyone else, to give you the most detailed alerts on the market.  In addition to the camera locations themselves, we plot:

• the camera type
• directional vectors
• speed limits (where applicable)
• ticket directions
• “no ticket” directions

When it comes to camera location data, accuracy is key. One of the reasons why Cheetah detectors are better than others is that our proprietary database is 100% verified by Cheetah’s professional database team, which monitors all media and internet channels as well as communicating directly with police departments, city traffic engineers, city records, Municipal Codes of Ordinances, traffic bureaus, state transportation agencies, our own network of trusted camera spotters and field survey teams.

Why doesn't Trinity publish the locations in the database?

Here is a response from Trinity on their Facebook page. Comparing the number of locations won't give an accurate measure of the quality of the Trinity 2.0 database compared to other databases. For example, some other companies actively promote they have camera numbers into the millions, which would lead to extensive numbers of false alerts. We take great care to verify our camera locations are accurate and update regularly.

PhotoEnforced.com Response

Photoenforced.com started collecting the 10 years ago and have cameras in 1200 markets. It's impossible to gather the data without crowdsourcing. I agree that verification is important but that is why we have 2000+ people per day coming to PhotoEnforced.com and using the database. Not even Google or Navteq with all its resources can verify locations. It's a false claim and your database will always be behind the curve. Post settings Labels Data, Database, Google, Google Maps, Navigation, Navteq, red-light cameras, Traffic, Trinity Published on 10/18/10, 4:11 PM Pacific Daylight Time Links Location Search Description Options Custom Robots Tags default