SMS service set to help drivers dodge speed traps

A Norwegian company is planning to launch a mobile phone service to help drivers dodge police speed cameras.

Norwegian company Cellus has been offering the service in Norway since September, where it has signed up tens of thousands of subscribers.

Whenever a subscriber sees, or is caught by, a police speed trap, they send an SMS text message to a central server, which broadcasts it to all the subscribers in the area.

Subscribers receive around 10 messages a week, for which they pay NOK3 (25p) each.

Thomas Syhn is a product developer at Cellus, the twelve-man company which developed the product. He said: "It's legal in Norway. But the police don't like it."

Cellus is planning to open offices in the UK and Sweden by the end of the month. The SMS service for speeders won't be the first service launched, but Cellus does plan to launch it "if it's legal, and if there is demand for it," Syhn said.

He can be confident of significant interest from the UK's speeding motorist community, but the police and Home Office may not be so enthusiastic.

However, a spokesman for the Department of Transport confirmed that such a device is not currently illegal.