Reprinted from the Daily Mail - Wednesday, 5th September 2001 .

Speed Camera Blitz Gives Boost to 'Satellite' Detector

POLICE plans for a massive increase in the number of speed cameras have brought a business boom for a firm making a device, which warns drivers when one is near.
The dashboard-mounted Geodesy is legal because it does not involve radar detection. Instead, it uses the Global Positioning System; the satellite network relied on by sailors and pilots to accurately pinpoint their positions anywhere on the planet.

Morpheous, the Kent firm, which makes the device, says the exact locations of 10,000 UK cameras are stored on a computer chip inside it.
Lights start to come on once the GPS detects that the driver is within half a mile of a camera. As the car gets closer, more lights are triggered until an alarm is sounded a few yards from the speed trap.

The Geodesy comes with a phone modem for downloading new locations as extra cameras are set up. Morpheous have already sold 6000 of the devices, which take their power from the car's lighter socket, and is now turning them out as fast as possible as orders pour in. But director Martin Birch denied that they were encouraging irresponsible drivers. He said: 'I don't one of our customers is under 25. They are all respectable people including magistrates, chauffeurs, MPs and taxi drivers.'
'One is a 56-year-old female teacher who keeps having problems with one particular camera.'

Police have reacted cautiously to the device. The Association of Chief Police Officers said yesterday: 'We are not encouraging it's use, because if people are driving within the limit they shouldn't need one. However, it does have the effect of slowing people down, which is what we want. There are, unfortunately, two things Geodesy cannot do - detect mobile speed traps using laser guns and warn of patrolling police cars.

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