Turn off speed camera alerts

[Paul Armstrong]

My UX Takumi has speed camera alerts which seem to work well.  However, soon going to France where speed camera alerts are illegal.  How do I turn them off while I'm in France

Thanks

 

Paul

[Linas.P]

First of all I would doubt they work in France... i.e. they would stop automatically, because they are based on published GPS locations for cameras, in France those locations are not published (although there is official goverment site with locations) so they are not included in your maps... and therefore they will not work. Making your compliant by default. Secondly, why do you care? It is not like French police going to stop you and check if you speeding alerts are off? 

I kind of get it - "be complaint with the law", but this is way over the top compliant. Take at least some advantage if you can. 

Just did 3000 miles in France few weeks back and in British cars you basically do not exist for them, so really nothing to worry about. No crit`air sticker either and I am not even driving car that is obviously compliant. 

[NemesisUK]

I wouldn't be surprised if the system didn't automatically suspend alerts once it detects you are in France.

[Linas.P]

That is fundamental misunderstanding on how this system works. It is not some sort of magic, it needs to know where the cameras are to alert you about it. It is really quite simple - Lexus get's list of all camera coordinates from presumably some partner, or some source and publishes those location to the system, then system alerts the driver when they driving towards the GPS location. it is a simple list, there is nothing sophisticated there, no signs recognition, no open source... nothing. 

As this is illegal in France, Lexus would automatically avoid collecting and publishing such information, so your alert system could not alert you, it simply doesn't know where the cameras are. For this to work Lexus would have to go out of their way to collect what they not suppose to and to provide it to you, which you also may not want to know (as OP). But there is no benefit for Lexus to try to provide this information, not only there is no benefit, but it would actually be illegal to do i.e. liability for them and for you. I am not 100% sure, but I would be extremely surprised if they did it.

Where does this misunderstanding came from? Well - it is kind of simple, the law outlawing speed camera warning came into force in 2012. At the time when many cars already had GPS fitted, but before the time those devices received real-time traffic information and "over the air" updates (OTA). Meaning there was some overlap between old devices that have static, pre-loaded location of speed cameras in France and that were not updated after the law changed. But the possibility that modern system system that relies on real-time traffic information and "OTA updates would illegally warn you about speed cameras is extremely slim. It could happen because of some sort of mistake and the warning is likely to be incorrect anyway, but it is unlikely for Lexus to specifically try to circumvent laws in France... for benefit of nobody nonetheless!

Now there are companies that seems to do it anyway - Waze does circumvent this by showing speed cameras as "user reported location of police patrol car"... Basically, as far as they are concerned "they don't show where the cameras are", but everyone knows that "police car reported ahead" means a camera. I was kind of "disappointed", because I specifically took my car from UK, rather than renting one in France to avoid speeding fines, but because Waze shows all the locations I wasn't even flashed once this year!

[Paul Armstrong]

Thanks very much for these comprehensive responses.  It occurred to me that the camera alerts wouldn't apply in France, given the legal position, but it's nice to have authoritative explanations to confirm this.