Keep it clean! (Your licence, that is) (Other Car Accessories)

Member Name: wayfarer

Product:	Other Car Accessories
Date:	07/02/01 (270 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Foolproof, reliable, future proof

Disadvantages: Expensive

I don’t habitually break the speed limit, I’m a law abiding sort of chap in general and I tend to identify with people who live on suburban roads and whose children have to cross traffic to get to school. So I’m rather happier to stick to 30ish than the person on my tail would appear to be.

I’m also a bit paranoid. Speed cameras are spreading like a rash in my area, often hidden and with no obvious rationale for their positioning other than to catch people who don’t spot changes in the limit quickly enough. That’s what happened to me. I need my driving licence for my job and I don’t want to be caught out again.

I considered a radar detector, but their dubious legality, and even more dubious effectiveness, put me off almost straight away. Then I heard about the Morpheous Geodesy. This is a clever box of tricks, but it is not a radar or any other sort of detector. What it is, is a satellite navigation system, minus the map display but plus a database. The database is loaded, as often as you like, with the latest known positions of every known fixed speed detector on every road in England, Scotland and Wales. When you approach one, it warns you. You slow down because you know it’s there. It helps you drive within the law.

The box is about the size of a small diary, and comes with a socket-like bracket to put it in your car, and so you can take it out to avoid losing it to thieves. In fact you get two, one with a cigarette-lighter plug so you can move the thing from car to car, and another for permanent wiring if you want to. Fixing is with the usual sticky pads. The front of the box is transparent, with a row of lights behind it and one button on the end. It has to have a clear view of the sky through the windscreen, to pick up the satellite transmissions, so has to go on top of the dashboard. It sits quite nicely between the speedo and tacho on my car, but I can’t find
anywhere to sensibly put it on my wife’s. It also comes with another box, which plugs into the phone line and is used to download the latest database as often as you feel the need. It takes less than 5 minutes.

Once on, the first light comes on green, then turns blue to signify that the box has a fix on where it is. It stays that way until you get close to a speed-trap, when the rest of the row of red lights start coming on, one by one, as you get closer. A few hundred yards away the noise starts, and continues until you pass the trap or push the button to shut it up. Just before you get to the camera or whatever, everything flashes, and the noise gets more insistent if you haven’t silenced it. After you pass the trap, the lights all turn green and count down as you get further away.

All of this happens with uncanny accuracy, and without fail, unless you are passing a camera, say, that is very new and so not in the database, or maybe inactive (apparently many are). In this case, you can push the button as you pass. The thing will caterwaul as before, but this time it has remembered the position, time and date. In this case the box will warn you when you pass that way again, until your next download. When you download, any data you’ve entered is lost to you, but is uploaded to the database. New sites notified this way are apparently rigorously checked, then added to the database for the benefit of all users. The person who first notified each new site (by time and date, remember) is supposed to get a cheque for £50. I say “apparently” and “supposed” because I’ve notified 3 sites, but none of them have been added to the database and I’ve not received a single cheque. However the box seems to know about road-works cameras which must be very new, and the sites I spotted have been there for yonks, so perhaps they are inactive? Ho hum, I’m not about to zap past at 150mph to prove
this point.

Anyway, I challenge even the doziest of drivers not to be alerted by this gizmo, and everything can be programmed (via a phone call or email, prior to a download) to suit you. You can have the colour of the lights, the volume of the noises and the range changed. I had mine changed so that the noise could be heard better over the radio, and the range was shorter at lower speeds, which helped reduce false alarms from cameras on other roads nearby, in built-up areas.

Opinions are divided on whether this is a real aid to safe and legal driving, or just a way to avoid getting caught speeding. That’s up to you, but the device is at least likely to remain legal, as it is not a detector. There’s loads of info and some pictures on Morpheous’ web-site, and this seems to be the only place you can buy it from. Add-ons to allow you to program the options from your PC, and display full sat-nav information on your Palm, are said to be on the way, as is an external aerial so it doesn’t have to sit on top of the dash.

Ok, I here you say impatiently, I want one, how much? This is the main drawback. £380 of your hard-earned pounds, plus phone calls at “national” (that’s premium, but not too much so) rate, and £30 pa for updates after the first free year. Strictly for gadget freaks or people who need to keep their licence, but then I fall into both those groups.

Summary: