Gridlock Comes to Your Cell Phone

Los Angeles has a love affair with car chases on TV. But delivering traffic cam footage to your cell phone? That's the idea behind FreeTrafficCams.com, which has rolled out its product in a few cities across the country. From the list of their upcoming cities, they're definitely in "expansion" mode.

Currently live in Houston, Indianapolis, Kansas City (MO), Knoxville, Los Angeles, and New York, they plan to expand soon into Albany, Buffalo, Chattanooga, Cincinnati, Columbus, Detroit, Louisville, Memphis, Milwaukee, Rochester, and Syracuse.

The supported device list is full of Windows Mobile and Palm OS phones, some Blackberrys, and a few Razrs as well as Nokia cell phones. But don't look for it yet: no iPhone. That version is coming later this summer.

Pretty simple to use: you go to your city, type in your cell phone number, and they send you a text message that allows you to download the application to your phone. In L.A., for example, you can access 270+ traffic cameras (which means, in L.A., a lot of gridlock images).

Some of the cameras will show rapidly updated still images while some will show live video.

It should be noted that a large message on the FreeTrafficCams site says "Warning: Do not Use While Driving," which one would think would reduce the utility of this application, but considering how much distraction comes from just talking on a cell phone, it's good advice.