Donnie Cole thought a post office and a church were the only highlights on the stretch of Georgia Avenue near his Brookeville home. But this past spring, a new addition to the neighborhood — a speed camera — slapped him with a $40 ticket. Shortly thereafter, another speed camera nabbed him on Olney-Sandy Spring Road.
"When I got the letter in the mail from them, it was kind of a whack in the head," recalled Cole, who said he is a safe driver who doesn't otherwise get speeding tickets.
After uttering a few choice words for the cameras, Cole decided to combat one piece of technology with another. He found Phantom Alert, an online database that can be downloaded to a car's GPS navigation device and audibly alerts drivers to everything from speed and red light cameras to school zones and past locations of speed traps.
Montgomery County police said the devices are perfectly legal, although they don't officially endorse Phantom Alert since the databases are updated by drivers and not police.
But for Cole and others, Phantom Alert is an up-to-date way to avoid tickets and receive alerts about potential traffic hazards.
"This can tell me there's a school up ahead, there's a bunch of crosswalks, there's whatever, that I wouldn't know about from an ADC map or my GPS for that matter," Cole said.
The company was started by Washington, D.C. resident Joe Scott, who himself was ticketed by speed cameras in the District. Scott said after a few tickets he tried keeping track of where the cameras where in his head, but found this too difficult.
"The only way to keep track of all these cameras is for people to share information," he said.
Drivers who visit Phantom Alert's Web site can pay a fee and then have access to an application that can be downloaded to a GPS device notifying drivers about upcoming speed cameras, dangerous intersections, school zones and other pieces of traffic and safety information. These applications are updated by Phantom Alert customers and users can report on the accuracy of posted notifications.
Once downloaded onto a GPS device, the Phantom Alert application then will provide an audible notification and a map symbol to drivers as they approach speed cameras, school speed zones and other traffic-related infrastructure.
The device has alerted him to several cameras and other special safety areas that he had no idea existed, said Alexander Howe, a Howard County resident who frequently drives through Rockville and other areas of Montgomery County for work.
"When I hear that gong go off, the first thing I do is look at my speed and say, ‘Hey let's cut it down a mile or two,'" Howe said.
Cole said Phantom Alert has notified him about upcoming speed cameras from 300 yards away.
Scott said there are about 20,000 Phantom Alert customers in the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area.
If the Phantom Alert notifications help people drive more safely, then police are not against the devices, said county police spokesman Capt. Paul Starks. Starks did note that police could not officially endorse the accuracy of what the databases showed drivers, and that drivers could perhaps sometimes confuse state Department of Transportation cameras for county speed cameras.
"That'll be slowing traffic down, it'll be calming traffic and it'll be making the roads safer for everybody who's using them," Starks said.
There are 119 posted locations for speed cameras in the county, with 60 fixed sites and 59 sites that are monitored by vans with cameras. Speed camera revenue is expected to reach $13 million for fiscal year 2010, with the majority set aside for county police.
Chevy Chase Village also harbors no ill-will for Phantom Alert, even though the community gets revenue for pedestrian and public safety projects from its four Connecticut Avenue speed cameras.
"We've never made a secret of where our cameras are in Chevy Chase Village," said Dr. Douglas Kamerow, chairman of the village's Board of Managers. "The idea is to get people to slow down, so I don't have any problem with them."
