Four Democratic Senators denounced PhantomAlert’s SmartPhone application that not only points out red-light traffic cameras speed limit changes and police speed traps but now also notifies drivers of the exact locations of DUI checkpoints. Despite the senators’ intentions to eliminate the app media coverage of the public condemnation has caused a 5000 percent spike in downloads of the DUI checkpoint alert tool according to Joe Scott CEO of PhantomAlert.
While PhantomAlert claims to simply inform drivers of “approaching traffic enforcement zones in plenty of time to adjust to changing traffic conditions and for that very reason it’s endorsed by Police around the country making it 100% legal (phantomalert.com). The senators disagree.
With drunk driving fatalities accounting for nearly 32 percent of all traffic deaths in 2010 according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Association Senate Democratic Party Leader Harry Reid sees the mobile application as a tool to sabotage police efforts to catch drunk drivers. In his letter to iOS Apple software senior vice president Scott Forstall Reid pronounced the senators’ disapproval of the app.
“With a person dying every 50 minutes in a drunk-driving crash this technology should not be promoted to your customers — in fact it shouldn’t even be available Reid wrote on behalf of Sens. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y.; Frank Lautenberg, D-N.J.; and Tom Udall, D-N.M. We appreciate the technology that has allowed millions of Americans to have information at their fingertips but giving drunk drivers a free tool to evade checkpoints putting innocent families and children at risk is a matter of public concern.”
In immediate response to the government’s dissatisfaction BlackBerry’s Research in Motion (RIM) removed the app from their online store; however Google has guaranteed to retain PhantomAlert while Apple Inc. still remains in limbo in regard to its loyalty to the app.
“These applications are nothing more than a how-to guide in avoiding law enforcement and they provide drunk drivers with the tools they need to go undetected putting innocent families and children at risk Senator Schumer wrote.
But PhantomAlert CEO, Joe Scott, considers the senators’ disapproval a knee-jerk reaction explaining in a Fox News interview that the application is similar to the road signs that announce DUI checkpoints or other police-sanctioned warnings.
If [the senators] actually found out what PhantomAlert is all about and how we help drivers they’d actually support us Scott said. We help drivers avoid traffic tickets by helping them obey traffic laws.”
The application’s website posts many customer testimonials which accredit the app to saving them from costly tickets by warning them to slow down. There are even police testimonials on the site confirming that the app cracks down on impaired driving by advertising the locations of the police checkpoints which then dissuades some tipsy drivers from getting behind the wheel.
Even local law enforcement finds the application in complete accordance with what they are already doing. The LA Sheriff’s Department stated that press releases go out to “all major media sites letting them know when and where the DUI checkpoints will take place” at least a day in advance. With the application alerting drivers of the exact same knowledge that the public can already access through media outlets the LASD doesn’t see anything wrong with it.
It is still being debated whether PhantomAlert helps buzzed drivers avert police sobriety stops or deters drunk driving by reminding the public of police presence.