Legality of devices monitoring positions of speed enforcement

Question

There is a new GPS device available called ROAD ANGEL. This device uploads the positions of speed traps/cameras on an hourly basis. Surely owning a ROAD ANGEL with a view to establishing where speed traps are so that one can break speed limits in between constitutes owning an illegal device being used to obstruct the course of justice???? Please can you advise whether this device is legal or not as the manufacturers are claiming it is. Your advice is appreciated.

Answer

The device gives you the location of law enforcement sites. This information is available in various means and in itself does not constitute a problem. The question of whether it constitutes "Defeating the ends of Justice" is a difficult issue. Some views are that, if the law enforcement speed controls are placed in positions where speed was the proven overriding contributing factor to crashes, and persons slow down due to advanced knowledge of the potential for prosecution, then the desired effect has been achieved (slower traffic in the problem area). There are those, too, who feel motorists should be prosecuted. It is interesting to determine WHO has stated that the device is legal the manufacturer / distributor. It has not been "declared" legal by the Department of Transport nor the Dept of Justice. The manufacturer has no mandate or status to declare anything legal in terms of the law. There is no reported case (to my knowledge) regarding this issue (a reported case is one that has gone the whole legal process through the court system and is then used as a definitive example in other cases of a similar or exact nature). It is important to note that traffic policing (and the related prosecution activities) are there to increase road safety, not making money. The targeted prosecution is aimed at problematic areas.