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New App Warns Drivers About Nearby Red Light Cameras

By Pat Loeb

PHILADELPHIA (CBS) - Now that red light cameras are once again in effect in Philadelphia, and expanding to other jurisdictions in the state, people might be wondering if there's any way around them.

There could be, in the form of an app on the smartphone.

It's called Trapster. If you download it to your phone, it will beep to tell you know when you are approaching an intersection with a camera so you know not to try to floor it through that yellow light.

"It's the world's most downloaded driving application," Trapster product developer Sean Farrell says. "We're about to reach 16-million users worldwide."

Farrell says that's good because the locations of the cameras are crowd-sourced, which means users report the locations and they're added to the database.

"So there's 16-million users on the road and you basically warn each other," he says.

Farrell refers to it as the high-tech version of flashing your headlights to warn oncoming drivers about speed traps.

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