Finding and Reporting Speed Traps in Canada and the USA

There are three resources that I currently use for reporting and avoiding speed traps.  These are Trapster, the National Speed Trap Exchange, and Twitter.  Each of these sites has a slightly different focus.  Trapster and National Speed Trap Exchange are both are geared to helping everyone avoid tickets.  Twitter is a simple service with the broad focus of helping everyone via short (140 character) messages.

Trapster is available both on the web and as an application for most hand held devices such as the iPhone.  The mobile Trapster application allows drivers to have real time information as they travel.  In some cases, this works better than a traditional radar detector.

National Speed Trap Exchange is a web site dedicated to listing speed trap locations.  It is not available as a mobile application though discussion on this site is much easier than with Trapster.

Twitter is available from any web browser, including those included on most mobile devices.  Example:  To find out traffic information for the Edmonton area, go to http://search.twitter.com/ and enter the hashtag #yegtraffic.  Or, go to http://twitter.com/yegtraffic which is a special Twitter account set up to rebroadcast the contents of the #yegtraffic search.  The traffic hashtag for other cities will vary though usually it is easy to guess such as #yyctraffic for Calgary.  (YEG and YYC being the airport codes for each city.)

Since my mobile device is an iPod Touch (which is an iPhone without the phone) I am more limited to what I can do while on the road.  When I encounter a speed trap in the Edmonton area, I stop at the nearest wireless hotspot and enter the location into Twitter, making sure I use the hashtag #yegtraffic at the end.  When I get home I can update both Trapster and National Speed Trap Exchange.

Most Safeway grocery stores have a Starbucks.  Most of which have free public wireless.