Yes, davipt, some natives might explain this better. In Germany, there is a law against having a working device in your vehicle during a drive, while the possession of such a device is entirely legal, likewise the manufacturing, distribution and sale of such hard- or software are compliant with the law. Every manufacturer of PNA-devices or navigation software offers this as a part of their software, either included for free or as a premium service.davipt wrote:I've always been curious how could waze have kept the cameras in Germany when everybody there knows it's illegal to even have software to inform about cameras installed. I almost had my scary moment when I had trapster installed and the police was quite curious about my old nokia device on the dashboard, but was lucky they were just hunting people drunk from the bars and didn't bother me.
As far as I can remember, for completeness, radar detection hardware is strictly forbidden, and software that announces cameras, fixed or mobile, are also forbidden in some countries - germany being the case - and over there, according to my rough german law translation and the comments from my friends, even having the software installed but not being open could be used against us. I may be wrong on this, I've been back to Portugal for two years now.
I'm mentioning this because there may be the case that removing the cameras from the map is not enough. There may be a need to even remove the camera report and maybe even the police report from the client, but I'm sure some native German can explain this better...
There are even dedicated traffic warner applications in the official app-stores of Apple and Google.
There was separate legislation against the possession of radar receivers, but this was part of the regulations of the use of radio frequencies and is to my best knowledge obsolete since several years.
Moreover, the german law differentiates between a crime (like hitting someone in the face) ("Straftat") and an administrative offense (like exceeding your parking time) ("Ordnungswidrigkeit"), and the usage of such a device is just an offense, not a crime.
There has even been a discussion on federal level about this special law - several states pledged to lift the ban entirely, as it is completely useless - there has not even been one known case where someone was punished for this offense. Herr Ramsauer (Minister of transportation) has decided not yet to see the light on this matter.
Best regards,
Detlev
Re: Removal of speed cameras following legal issues