More than 10,000 Americans die in drunk driving crashes every year. Now there are smartphone applications that could help drunk drivers avoid the law. Now lawmakers are fighting back, trying to get rid of the apps.
Mobile apps like Phantom Alert, Trapster and iRadar warn drivers of speed traps, red light cameras and D.U.I. checkpoints.
Some say drivers are using these apps to side-step the law and avoid speed traps and D.U.I. checkpoints. Others, like Colorado law enforcement don’t see it that way.
“We certainly make no secret to when we are going to do [checkpoints] and where we are doing to do them,” says Steve Davis, PIO for the Lakewood Police Department. “We never operate checkpoints secretively we want people to know we are out there doing this.”
Critics say these tactics are not stopping drunk drivers but instead giving them a way out.
“You shouldn`t be driving drunk. Why should you be protected to know where they are at?” says smartphone user, Erica Ruseck.
“You can look at your phone and say, oh we can`t go that way we gotta go this way,” adds driver, Mark Easter. “They are just avoiding the consequences."
A group of Senators sent a later to smartphone companies asking to ban the apps. Blackberry’s maker, Research In Motion agreed to pull the apps. Google and Apple haven’t responded.
Lakewood police say the apps aren’t the problem.
“There`s always going to be some way people are trying to circumvent the D.U.I. checkpoint and we probably miss some people,” says PIO Davis.
Both Research In Motion and Apple reportedly claim their apps are not designed to help drunk drivers avoid getting caught. Rather, they’re made to get drivers to think twice about drunk driving and remind them how easy it is to get caught.
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