How Much Distance to Warn of Red Light camera

It is likely the speed trap location is on the northbound shoulder. It worked well northbound. This same location made an alert going southbound but it doesn't make sense because it is on the other side of the road.

Remember that any "Speed Trap" POI files are from the original poster using local knowledge and may not ever be updated. On the other hand, at POI Factory we have a large community of contributors constantly reporting the locations of Red Light Cameras and Speed Cameras. The more people report these locations the more accurate these files get.

dobs108

You should look at the POIs to see exactly where, relative to where " the location that the police car hide[s]", is located.

I think you were expecting that the "location" would be alerted in both directions but that may not be the case.

While there are over 30 speed trap files here at poi-factory, speed traps are often moved as people get used to them. Thus, they have to be used as a help but not as a fact.

Which did you use?

Most of the "few" RLCs I see are in the suburbs or on highways, so the default works for me. Besides I'm less concerned just where the red light is, more concern that it's time to behave myself, not even considering running through a yellow late.

Default setting perfect.I don't even care which intersection is protected. The warning serves to make me pay closer attention in case I am distracted by something as I drive along.

http://www.poi-factory.com/node/37843
http://www.poi-factory.com/node/37644
http://www.poi-factory.com/node/36044

There may be more, but that's what I got in a pinch.

Here in Philadelphia a city block is about 620 feet, I took this dash cam video yesterday showing my warning beep starting one block before the light.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AEDUfalG-l4

..it seems to work for me.

Like a lot of things in life, the answer is 'it depends.' You have to strike a balance on where you're driving, for city environments where a city block is 264 feet (in the NE), to 330 feet (mid-west), to 528 feet (out West). The of course speed factors in. I generally use 250 feet.

I feel the standard one that is in my red light cam file.

I see your location is New York. So, assuming you are talking about NYC, the standing block size in NYC per mile, is 20 street blocks, or 4 ave blocks.

Taking that into consideration, that means each street block is a tad bit under 260 ft, or 250 if we round.

But the best dist will be depending on the block size of your city/town.

jc

660ft, because I want to know the precise block and not hear a warning about one that is 3 or 4 blocks away.

That is what I use for years and it has worked well for me

I use about 500 feet myself

I have it set at the default at 1320 ft and get too many warnings. I thought that was the recommended distance but I will try 600 feet and see if that is better.

I have set mine at 1/8 mile (or 660) feet for years. With the default setting of 1/4 mile there may be two intersections before the 'redlight' intersection. At 1/8 mile (or 660 feet) I've found that there is plenty of alert time for city street speed limits of 40 mph or less.

I have a Beltronics RADAR detector that has a built in GPS and a red light camera database, weekly updates from Bel keep the list up to date.

One thing it does I wish the Garmin would do is the Bel alert sounds at different distances based on how fast I am going.

For instance there is an interstate that goes under a red light camera controlled intersection, and the Bel sets off a warning at 1000 (or more) feet at highway speed, but if I'm on the actual street where the camera is it sounds at around 600 feet.

When did they change that? Are you supposed to get some type of error if you have more than one distance set? I have always set more then one distance on my POIs and to my knowledge they seem to work. I don't update my POIs too often but reloaded them when I received my 2597 and didn't get any error message. How do you tell if the distance isn't working?

There is an exception that Box Car reminded me of.

If we are loading the POI Factory red light camera file and want all New York City POIs to alert at 450 feet and all others at 1000 feet, there are two ways to do it:

1 - Using Excel, sort the POIs into two files. Using POI Loader in manual, load one file at 450 feet and one at 1000 feet.

2 - Sort using Excel and use Extra Poi Editor to assign distance info for each POI and save as a single .gpx file. Load using POI Loader on auto.

It may not be practical to do either one if you intend to download the updated file every week.

dobs108