US Patent 7353107 Verifying the validity of traffic status information

A method for providing traffic status information as part of a traffic status detection by a motor vehicle, in particular traffic information for detecting traffic jams is provided. To provide high-quality traffic status information at an acceptable cost, it is proposed that a first step should verify whether the vehicle is currently participating in public road traffic. A second step verifies whether the vehicle has been operated otherwise for more than a predetermined period of time, and optionally in a third step the traffic status detection is interrupted.