Navteq, a mapping and navigation solutions company owned by Nokia, has acquired California-based Trapster according to a Reuters report. The somewhat controversial move suggests that future navigation solutions from Nokia might integrate Trapster’s product. Trapster provides a location-based service that alerts motorists equipped with its iOS or Android app when they approach known police speed traps. The company’s speed trap location data is completely user-generated, and the service claims to currently have 9.4 million users. The purpose of the service, in a nutshell, is to help users disobey traffic laws without getting caught. It then further endangers users along with the pedestrians and motorists around them by encouraging people to divert their attention from the road to manually report speed traps they pass during their travels. According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), there were 9,479 fatal traffic accidents in the U.S. in 2009 involving speeding, resulting in 10,591 deaths.
Nokia-owned Navteq acquires Trapster
Updated Dec 19th, 2018 6:56PM EST
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