[HN Gopher] Waze will now warn drivers about crash dangers using...
___________________________________________________________________
Waze will now warn drivers about crash dangers using historical
data
Author : carride
Score : 153 points
Date : 2023-11-07 14:19 UTC (8 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (arstechnica.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (arstechnica.com)
| tallowen wrote:
| Imagine if we had the tech to apply speed governors in places
| with high crash rates! What if departments of transportation
| could lower speeds dynamically to make sure that risky road
| infrastructure is made safer.
|
| I can't help but feel a little bit salty about these baindaid
| solutions to our ever increasing rate of road deaths in the US.
| I'm not sure what the right solutions are to keeping people safe
| while allowing them to get where they want to go but the solution
| of adding yet another notification on an electronic device seems
| disheartening to me.
|
| An article about increased pedestrian deaths:
| https://www.npr.org/2023/06/26/1184034017/us-pedestrian-deat...
| phpisthebest wrote:
| >>I'm not sure what the right solutions are
|
| Giving the federal government the ability to dynamically
| control my car based on crash data is 1000000% NOT the right
| solution....
|
| The black box is bad enough... giving them control HELLLL no
| bkallus wrote:
| Curious to hear your objections to the black box.
|
| Black box data (speed, steering+pedal input logs) were
| invaluable in determining fault in an accident involving one
| of my family members recently. As long as the data doesn't
| leave the car under normal circumstances, what's the harm?
| deschutes wrote:
| There are a lot of people that don't want to be held
| accountable for their negligence and blatant disregard for
| the safety of others. Driving like you're the main
| character is so normalized that it will take generations to
| fix the problem.
| phpisthebest wrote:
| I dont think giving the government the power to force by
| law people record their movement, operating conditions, and
| other factors is inline with spirit of constitution.
|
| Sure it makes it easy to "determining fault in an accident"
| but same could be said if everyone was required to wear a
| body cam, or install surveillance camera's in their home
| that the police monitor 24x7.
|
| I am opposed to any and all government mandated
| surveillance, I do not want to live in the surveillance
| state we do, I sure as hell do not want to see it expanded
|
| I also reject the narrative that another commenter
| basically claims, one of "if you have nothing to hide you
| have nothing to fear", that old trope has been proven
| through out history to be moronic statement
| tallowen wrote:
| > federal government
|
| I had assumed it would be state government since they
| normally control traffic law?
|
| What other solutions would you propose for enforcing
| speed/safety regulations on state owned infrastructure?
| Personally, given my experience interacting with police, hate
| our current system that relies on being pulled over and
| interacting with them. I would much prefer an automated
| solution (e.g. speed governors or automated speeding
| cameras).
| phpisthebest wrote:
| >>I had assumed it would be state government
|
| I dont want them either, but these types of things are
| really controlled by Federal Highway regulations in
| practice.
|
| > I would much prefer an automated solution (e.g. speed
| governors or automated speeding cameras).
|
| Well I have the right to face my accuser, and speed
| camera's have been ruled a few times to be unconstitutional
| for that reason. I for one DO NOT want automated speed
| camera's and much like Red Light Camera's you will find
| they are not deployed to increase safety but solely for
| Revenue generation, and often have the impact of REDUCING
| safety not increasing it.
|
| red Light camera's caused more crashes then they prevented,
| and speed camera's would do the same
|
| >What other solutions would you propose for enforcing
| speed/safety regulations on state owned infrastructure?
|
| Well I would start with a reduction of said regulations,
| and a more rational objective way to not only set the
| regulations but also appeal them.
|
| LOTS of speed regulations are less about safety and more
| about setting up revenue streams for towns and cities.
|
| You seem to believe that all of these regulations and
| government actions are purely out some altruistic motive to
| protect you the driver. Nothing could be further from the
| truth. Most of the regulations are designed to
|
| 1. Create Revenue stream 2. Give the police a pretense to
| look for other criminal activity
|
| Safety is maybe 3rd on the list, maybe
|
| in short, i do not trust government, and I do not look to
| government to protect me.
| djyaz1200 wrote:
| "Imagine if we had the tech to apply speed governors in places
| with high crash rates! What if departments of transportation
| could lower speeds dynamically to make sure that risky road
| infrastructure is made safer."
|
| This, of course, could be done, but what if people driving fast
| are rushing to flee a rapidly advancing forest fire, tidal
| wave, active shooter, etc?
|
| As a check on the ever-growing power of government and
| surveillance tech, anytime a system is capable of taking away
| someone's liberty, there should be a human in the loop on the
| other side to make sure those decisions are reasonable.
|
| Edit: Or just don't take away their liberty at all
| JoeAltmaier wrote:
| Sure, reasonable. But not a this-or-that kind of thing.
|
| Hit a button - override! Be your own boss. There was a fire,
| everybody will understand.
|
| But you just press that button because you're a type-A dick,
| well pay the ticket then.
|
| Liberty!
| Zpalmtree wrote:
| Sounds nice, but eventually, the button is always taken
| away.
| willsmith72 wrote:
| So... a speed camera?
| cj wrote:
| Maybe you could have a speed governor that can be overridden
| if the gas petal is fully pressed to the floor. (Fine for gas
| cars but probably not a good experience in EVs).
|
| I live near a blind turn into an intersection where the speed
| limit is 50. When there's heavy fog, it's deadly. I've seen 2
| fatal accidents, one with a dump truck and school bus,
| multiple people died. Another one I witnessed the next year
| was someone head on hitting a telephone pole. Same
| intersection. Same conditions (heavy fog).
|
| Right now the only other solution is to reduce the speed
| limit or to add a red light. Or do nothing and let the
| accidents continue
| tallowen wrote:
| How do we balance safety regulations with these emergency
| situations?
|
| We're experiencing some of the highest traffic fatality rates
| in decades and I think the liberty of those dying and being
| injured on our streets need to be taken into account as well.
|
| I prefer the technological solution of a speed governor to
| automated traffic cameras because I think automated traffic
| cameras can easily become surveilance devices while speed
| governors tend to be implemented locally (i.e. within the
| car).
|
| Are there other solutions that you prefer that can protect
| liberty law abiding drivers and pedestrians from the
| recklessness of speeding and dangerous driving?
| ImPostingOnHN wrote:
| Ticket drivers who drive dangerously. Address the problem
| (the person's decisions), not the tool they're using.
| NegativeLatency wrote:
| Eh your right to drive like an aggressive maniac is not
| enshrined in the constitution.
|
| People have consistently shown that they're incapable of
| driving responsibly. If we're not going to fix the actual
| problems, I'd prefer some limits on car speeds when inside
| cities and more populated areas.
| autoexec wrote:
| > "People" have consistently shown that they're incapable
| of driving responsibly. Therefore "You" should have less
| freedom and if it results in You and Your family dying
| because a device You paid for refused to do what You told
| it to, that's an acceptable loss to Me
|
| That may not be the best line of reasoning. There's
| probably a lot of things you enjoy doing that aren't
| "enshrined in the constitution" that I might want to take
| from you in order to make me feel more comfortable, and the
| same can likely be said for a lot of other people as well.
| If we all played your game there's no telling how much you
| could end up being prevented from doing.
|
| I like speed limits too, I'm glad that we already have
| them. Draconian enforcement of rules by machines is
| supposed to be a cautionary tale, not something to aim for.
| Pxtl wrote:
| You are driving on publicly funded roads in a licensed
| machine where the police have the legal authority to demand
| you submit to inspection at any time, and you legally must
| purchase insurance from a private company to operate it.
|
| I would say local speed governors would be _less_
| authoritarian than many interventions that already exist for
| driving, which is an act that is already a leading cause of
| death in North America.
|
| Just make it an IR blaster on the street lamps over the road
| that the municipality can remote command to send out the "low
| speed limit next N meters" signal. Let it be legal for
| drivers to override the governor, but doing so is effectively
| an admission of guilt that you're speeding.
| SoftTalker wrote:
| > rushing to flee a rapidly advancing forest fire, tidal
| wave, active shooter
|
| You design for the normal, not the "so unlikely that 99% of
| drivers will never be in this situation in a lifetime of
| driving."
| sojournerc wrote:
| So much of what engineers design for is the abnormal. 100
| year flood, hurricane strength wind, web traffic surge, etc
| etc.
|
| If you can't anticipate contingency in your design, it's
| not a very good design.
| macNchz wrote:
| I am not actually in favor of speed governors, but it makes
| for a bit of an interesting thought experiment: I wonder if
| it might actually increase throughput in a widespread
| emergency-many of the worst gridlock situations I see in the
| NYC area are caused by aggressive drivers who crash and wind
| up blocking the road, so I could imagine it being the case
| that, at least in dense areas, restricting speeds could
| mitigate the stampede effect and keep traffic flowing.
| hibikir wrote:
| Competent authorities don't ask for technology to be added to
| the car to deal with very dangerous spots: They redesign them.
| The dangerous spot was designed by an engineer, and approved by
| an official or eight. If it's that dangerous, it was designed
| putting safety too far down the priority list: It happens. So
| why add a speed governor, with its bonus risks, instead of just
| redesign that section of road correctly?
|
| It's the same as with the pedestrian deaths: It's dangerous
| vehicles that hit in the chest, and roads that make pedestrians
| cross a surface of cars going way too fast to react. We can
| avoid the situation altogether by fixing the road.
| tallowen wrote:
| I agree with the idea that I would like to see roads
| redesigned to make them safer.
|
| I'm not sure why it's an either or though. Redesigning roads
| can certainly slow people down and make them safer but that
| often comes at the cost of a large planning process and a lot
| of money spent. Dyanmic speed limits and speed governors
| could be much simpler to manage.
|
| I think most proposals for speed governors would make it
| difficult to go over 10 mph above the speed limit under non
| emergency operation. I don't think anyone would argue that
| it's safe to drive 10 mph over the speed limit on a
| redesigned street so why wouldn't a speed govenor be another
| tool in the toolkit?
| User3456335 wrote:
| Arguably your plan would take longer to implement as you
| would need standardization across vehicles, implementation
| into actual cars, extensive testing, adoption by drivers,
| codification into the law with some enforcement mechanism
| and implementation on selected locations. It's a cool
| creative idea but redesigning a junction seems like
| something more within reach and that can actually prevent
| crashes in the meantime.
|
| If you want to tackle speeding on highways, income-based
| fines from speed cameras seem like the way to go. It is
| more feasible, can be implemented more quickly and easily
| and is cheaper overall.
|
| So really, it seems like a new expensive tool with
| questionable relative benefits that would take really long
| to deliver (not to mention the privacy / freedom concerns
| its existence would raise) while the existing tools haven't
| even been used yet.
| toast0 wrote:
| > I don't think anyone would argue that it's safe to drive
| 10 mph over the speed limit on a redesigned street
|
| Speed limits are set for many reasons. In good conditions,
| such as very light traffic, good visibility, dry road,
| limited access, reasonable maintenance of vehicle and road,
| it's not unreasonable for the safe speed to be 20 mph or
| more over the posted limit, depending on what went into
| setting the posted limit.
| riffic wrote:
| we have the technology to engineer safer roads
| mjevans wrote:
| I love the idea of a surface layer without cars at all (other
| than emergency vehicles, and some rare permitted / licensed
| construction stuff).
|
| All of the motor vehicles on a dedicated layer beneath, an
| industrial transit zone.
| cheeseomlit wrote:
| The right solution is to drastically raise the bar for
| obtaining a driver's license, and make it far more easy to lose
| one. Periodic testing and stringent enforcement of basic rules.
| Don't use your blinker when turning? No license for a year.
| Bobbing and weaving in and out of traffic like a maniac?
| Electric chair. (/s)
| eli wrote:
| Meanwhile we can't even agree whether automated traffic
| enforcement using cameras should be legal
| michaelmrose wrote:
| DOWNSIDES
|
| - Your car can get hacked to extort you to pay the ransom to
| unlock normal/any ability to move
|
| - The government can get hacked for the same reason crippling
| an entire region
|
| - A terrorist or enemy state can strike a major blow against
| our economy
|
| - The government now has the capability to use this to shut
| down protests. Nice protest you had there shame you can't get
| to it. Remember also that we are on the cusp of a dice roll to
| decide whether we slip into fascism
|
| - The government now has a record of where you drive at all
| times. What if someday psychotic municipalities think they can
| punish you for driving through their county to get an
| abortion... wait that already happened.
|
| - Your individual car could be hijacked on the road to rob you
|
| - Your car could simply malfunction and not work right
|
| - Your car could apply the wrong rules based on inaccurate GPS
| reading and cause you either an inconvenience or an accident
|
| - Your car could make it hard to willfully exceed the speed
| limit in an emergency.
|
| BUTTON OVERRIDE
|
| - Governments often speed limits too low or impractically low
| given how much traffic has to traverse this space that if it
| was automatically applied would destroy throughtput to the
| point that traffic would utterly break down.
|
| - Use of the button even though it might enable emergency
| traffic would be one more thing you have to do in an emergency
| that might well not get done. For example you got hit because
| you couldn't maneuver or you freaked out and mashed the pedal
| but didn't disable the misfeature in a timely fashion.
|
| - There isn't enough courts to have time to hear why people did
| or didn't use the button it would end up being an automatic
| ticket unless you affirmatively hired a lawyer and harassed
| them and as a revenue center it would be optimized for sucking
| your money out of your wallet. Think about how red light cams
| lead to shorter yellows to extract rent not increase safety
|
| COST
|
| - It would cost 150B to outfit all existing cars
|
| - Outfitting only new cars would still add substantially to the
| costs born by Americans, depress sales of new cars drastically,
| hurt the deployment of electric cars in turn, and probably be
| complete by the time it no longer matters.
|
| CONCLUSION
|
| A truly awful idea
| whichfawkes wrote:
| How about instead of adding authoritarian restrictive
| technology to private vehicles, we just take cars out of the
| cities?
|
| With proper public transit, this would be a no brainer.
| datadrivenangel wrote:
| The digital equivalent of a caution road sign!
| usrusr wrote:
| And what a great excuse to take the eyes off the road where
| they matter most!
| jurassicfoxy wrote:
| Waze is really good. No comment on the accuracy of the
| directions, but I loved the crowdsourcing, and the warnings were
| the best of any of Apple, Google, & Waze. Loved the very accurate
| "police ahead" warnings.
|
| Like most of you I'm sure (beating a dead horse here) I really
| wish they hadn't been bought out by Google.
| foobarian wrote:
| For all we know they would have been out of business now if it
| weren't for the acquisition.
| Cthulhu_ wrote:
| Yeah, besides some adverts (when you stop, and I haven't seen
| them in a while), there doesn't seem to be any monetization
| going on.
| barbazoo wrote:
| Do you still appreciate the police warnings knowing you only
| get them because a group of people saw one and started fiddling
| with their phones, probably while driving, to let the app know?
| trumbitta2 wrote:
| I don't fiddle with my phone. I touch 3 times my onboard
| touchpad via carplay without looking.
| EthicalSimilar wrote:
| Or they pressed the report button on their screen, not too
| dissimilar to changing the AC. Or do you pull over before
| operating any of the controls in the car? :)
| barbazoo wrote:
| It's at least 2 clicks away. And trying to click an icon on
| a screen is much much worse than interacting with an actual
| button.
|
| https://support.google.com/waze/answer/13739289?hl=en
| joezydeco wrote:
| My Mazda has a jog dial that works with CarPlay. Sending
| a report can be done without moving my hand from the
| center console.
| Scoundreller wrote:
| Can someone build a little Waze keyboard that maybe Bluetooth
| links to do the phone and does a one-touch accident report?
|
| Should be doable with an auto-hot key type of script.
|
| More likely possible on android.
| jdminhbg wrote:
| > More likely possible on android.
|
| Just as easy on iOS. You can have an NFC button associated
| with a Shortcut, so as long as Waze exposes "send accident
| report at current location" to Shortcuts, it would be very
| simple.
| Scoundreller wrote:
| Just checked and Waze isn't exposed to Shortcuts at all
| :(
| s3p wrote:
| Uhh okay?
| NDizzle wrote:
| It's two button presses on carplay. Not exactly fiddling.
| Zpalmtree wrote:
| Yeah?
| cjrp wrote:
| You can do it with your voice, something like "hey google,
| report police" when you're in Waze
| jurassicfoxy wrote:
| Typically I'm only worried about police during highway
| driving, so I don't actually mind the phone usage that much.
| You make a point: it's not the greatest & safest, but Waze
| has a much better UI than Google Maps for this, so it's very
| quick.
| ImPostingOnHN wrote:
| Maybe the police reported themselves. Either way they could
| just not be there, causing accidents and unsafe road
| behavior.
| no_wizard wrote:
| The alternative was Meta if I recall correctly, but they
| couldn't make the deal fast enough.
|
| The founders wanted to sell, they were ready to exit, it was a
| matter of when not if
| __jonas wrote:
| I used it recently on a roadtrip with some friends, it seemed
| quite nice, but I really don't want advertisements in my
| navigation app, I'm guessing there is some premium subscription
| to avoid these?
|
| I'm also not sure about those gamified prompts that come up all
| the time, I feel like if I was driving alone I could get
| distracted by the strong call to action to always tap something
| on the phone to earn points.
| jiggawatts wrote:
| The gamification made it feel like an app targeted at
| children.
| instagib wrote:
| Haven't seen a price to remove ads. yet. They're pretty
| annoying at night when you have dark mode on but bright white
| ads pop up whenever you stop.
| brk wrote:
| I wish Waze would tell me less things. It is getting to the point
| that it's issuing warnings every 1/4 of a mile. Car stopped,
| object in road, railroad crossing, etc. I like using Waze for
| navigation, but I know keep the sound off to avoid it's constant
| chatter and interruption of my music stream.
| Karawebnetwork wrote:
| You can deactivate railroad crossing warnings, which is useful
| if there are many on your route.
| phpisthebest wrote:
| Yea they need to allow people to disable notifications by type.
| cjrp wrote:
| You can: Settings > Alerts and Reports > Reports. Enable or
| disable "Alert while driving" for each type.
| instagib wrote:
| Except cars on the side of the road. That never turns off.
| Havoc wrote:
| Why not just idk fix the issue?
|
| Place like that need government intervention not digital warnings
| for a small percentage of drivers
| boredumb wrote:
| It's in a development approval process please check back in a
| few years when it is rejected for budgetary concerns.
| ostbender wrote:
| How would Google or Waze 'fix the issue'? Do you want them to
| start a road construction company?
| solardev wrote:
| Free wifi the whole way, but 100x the usual number of
| billboards? Hmm, might be worth it
| jabroni_salad wrote:
| > Why not just
|
| 'just' do it yourself then if it is so easy.
| grdvnl wrote:
| Another interesting addition would be to warn drivers if a close
| by car/driver also had a bad driving history. May be also track
| if the close by car started of from a bar/restaurant and weight
| the probably of the driver ending up with a crash with other cars
| in the vicinity
|
| /s
| bitsinthesky wrote:
| Given the lack of data security in cars, I bet we could see an
| open source project doing just this
| yabones wrote:
| Waze is good, but it does have some very weird over-
| optimizations.
|
| Anecdote: A couple years ago, while driving into Toronto on the
| 401, we hit some traffic as always. Waze told me to get off at
| the next exit which I was fortunately right beside, so I assumed
| it was going to route me around the accident and back onto the
| highway after it cleared up. What it really did was take me up
| the off ramp, do a U-turn, and get back onto the on ramp to gain
| about 700m of distance from where I was before. It theoretically
| saved me 5 minutes of travel time, but it only really moved me a
| few dozen car lengths ahead.
|
| Their wealth of real-time and historical data is certainly
| beneficial, but it also causes some truly bizarre navigation now
| and then.
| zubiaur wrote:
| I use extensively when in LATAM. It sometimes feels as if the
| route chosen was for the algo to "probe" an alternative.
| startupsfail wrote:
| It is a technique commonly used in gaming, StarCraft for
| example. It is called "send a drone" or "send a probe".
| dylan604 wrote:
| But do drivers earn points for taking these side missions?
| Like if you accept multiple probing missions, do you earn a
| badge that the algo uses to find drivers known to be
| willing to accept these new assignments which should
| increase the likelihood of the missing being accepted?
| rideontime wrote:
| Waze used to do the same thing to me on my morning commute. The
| worst thing was that the backup I was "avoiding" was itself
| caused by the merging traffic from that onramp, so Waze was
| perpetuating the vicious cycle.
| losteric wrote:
| I know some human drives do that without Waze. It is a faster
| and legal route, why wouldn't the algorithm send you down that
| path?
| squidgyhead wrote:
| It seems like it would mess up traffic more? I have heard
| that Waze sends drivers through residential areas as
| shortcuts, which, you know, kills kids.
| GuestHNUser wrote:
| My two cents: weaving through dense traffic is stressful and
| probably puts you at a higher risk of an accident than
| remaining in the same lane for an extra 5 minutes. I prefer
| to ignore those kind of shortcuts.
| planede wrote:
| It's arguably an asshole move, even if legal. You really just
| gain the same time as the other people collectively lose
| between the off ramp and on ramp. In addition you cause
| additional traffic on the ramps, which might hold up other
| road users using these ramps normally.
|
| I imagine the Nash-equilibrium of this pattern if more people
| does this is that there is blocked traffic on the highway
| between the ramps and also on the ramps.
| shepherdjerred wrote:
| Not arguably. It's objectively selfish. Why is your time
| worth more than those that you're passing?
| cgriswald wrote:
| This seems like over-optimizing for time. For the individual
| there are trade offs in wear and tear, fuel consumption,
| stress, accident risk, and as a sibling comment indicates, a
| social component.
|
| For traffic in general this increases the number of lane
| changes and merges, increasing risk and slowing traffic
| further. Depending on location it may benefit by using more
| of the road surface (and alleviate problems further back) or
| may cause problems off the freeway at the local exit either
| due to greater traffic at the intersection or the freeway
| queue backing up into surface streets. (Or both.)
|
| It should also be noted that this is an illegal maneuver in
| some US states. I presume Waze doesn't suggest it in those
| states.
| ghaff wrote:
| I'm not totally averse to taking shortcuts on routes I know
| well. But excessive shortcuts through suburban developments
| to save a few minutes are sort of obnoxious even if they're
| legal.
| nineplay wrote:
| My experience has been that map apps are overly reliant on
| average times when traversing city streets. A shortcut
| thought LA might save you 10 minutes if the traffic light
| gods are in your favor or might add 30 minutes if you hit a
| red light at every intersection.
|
| There are two parallel roads between my home and office and
| google likes to tell me that they will take the same time.
| One goes though about 10 stoplights in busy retail areas, one
| goes though about 5 stoplights in quiet industrial areas.
|
| On average both roads might get me there at the same time,
| but on a unlucky day the busier road may cost me 20 minutes.
| I always take the other path
| rando_dfad wrote:
| Traffic flows better if played as a collective game, where
| the objective is to help the others get through it along with
| helping yourself.
|
| This strategy, if followed by enough people, massively
| reduces traffic stress. It may also reduce travel time, but
| honestly the difference is likely just a few minutes each
| way.
|
| Yes, I've driven in cities that play by the "we are in it
| together, let's work together to get us all out", and cities
| that play by "any advantage I can get regardless of the cost
| to others".
|
| Problem is, once enough people start playing the selfish
| game, the equilibrium breaks and everyone has to go selfish.
|
| that's how you kill a society. Kill the social contract, the
| care for your fellows, one form of interaction at a time.
| goatforce5 wrote:
| Waze seemed to not understand the express/collector system in
| Toronto for the longest time, and would have you merge back and
| forth between the two unnecessarily. It seems to have become
| better over the last year or two, however.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Local-express_lanes
| Pxtl wrote:
| Every GPS I've ever used seems confused by the
| express/collector system on the 401. Google Maps, the one
| built into my Toyota, and the old Garmin all had trouble with
| it.
| ape4 wrote:
| There should be a way to adjust how aggressively it optimizes.
| mjevans wrote:
| I'd like the option to add small positive or negative weights
| to intersections / roads I know to be problematic.
|
| Generally I also prefer to stick to more major roads unless
| there's a major time savings (E.G. >= 5 min, this is part of
| 'how aggressive' you propose) or accident.
|
| The other aspect of aggressive would be the relative cost for
| 'unusual movement', such as (legal) U turns, cutting across
| on small side street connections rather than a major
| intersection, etc.
| Cthulhu_ wrote:
| Yeah that happens to me sometimes, to the point where I just
| ignore it and stay in traffic instead of going down exits and
| B-roads, which are more effort / more tiring than just creeping
| forward.
|
| It has sent me down some interesting roads though.
| ghaff wrote:
| I sometimes feel that Google Maps goes into what I call its
| "I feel like a country drive today" mode. I'm pretty sure
| it's usually slower because half the time I miss one of the
| 20 turns it's telling me to make--especially at night or if
| there's some multi-road intersection where the roads aren't
| at right angles. It's particularly annoying if there has been
| recent snow because the back roads tend to have snowdrifts or
| are otherwise just slow.
| alistairSH wrote:
| Once upon a time, I was trying to cross from VA into MD via the
| Woodrow Wilson Bridge. The bridge was closed due to an
| accident. Waze happily directed off the highway and onto side
| streets, where it had me do circles in and out of parking lots
| and strip malls until I gave up and went home. It was really
| weird - literally couldn't go anywhere, so instead of telling
| me to stay put, it just ran me around in bumper-bumper traffic
| for 90 minutes.
| pests wrote:
| Did it really take you 90 minutes to realize you were going
| in circles?
| alistairSH wrote:
| No, that was the time it took me to give up and go home (vs
| waiting for the bridge to re-open). It wasn't literal
| circles, but looping in and out of feeder roads,
| neighborhood streets, etc. Completely silly - nobody with a
| destination in MD was going to get there, why would Waze
| take us off the interstate at all?
| drewg123 wrote:
| This actually works in some cases. There is a section of I95
| near me with an exit "shunt" that's divided from the main
| highway. The main highway has a merge where another interstate
| joins, and that "shunt", where you can enter/exit is protected
| from the merge traffic. So taking the shunt can save you 5-10
| minutes when the merge point is at a standstill.
| mikestew wrote:
| _What it really did was take me up the off ramp, do a U-turn,
| and get back onto the on ramp to gain about 700m of distance
| from where I was before._
|
| I'm pretty sure that isn't even legal, at least in the state of
| Washington. I rarely go that way, so help me out here Seattle-
| area Eastsiders, but a lot of folks used to do this on
| eastbound WA520 at 108th in Bellevue, to the point that there
| at least used to be a sign at the bottom of the exit ramp
| saying (in much fewer words) no, you can't get back on the
| freeway by going up the entrance ramp. (Sorry, street view
| doesn't show the sign that said, IIRC, "no reentry", so I could
| be imagining it.)
| paulclinger wrote:
| There is a similar sign next exit 17 on 405N prohibiting
| existing and re-entering back.
| websap wrote:
| So you saved 5 mins? Seems like an overall ok experience?
| willio58 wrote:
| Any time I try to use waze it gives the most insane route
| recommendations. Would they shave 1 or 2 minutes off my
| commute? Sure! But will I be tasked with crossing several 5 or
| 6 lane stroads in doing so? You bet! It's like what do you
| value more, saving like 4 or 5 minutes of driving a day or your
| life?
| arijun wrote:
| For me it's depended on where I am at the time. In LA it
| would do exactly that, having me cross many lanes in heavy
| traffic, but elsewhere it was fine.
|
| My theory is that Waze must model what maneuvers are
| possible/easy based on other drivers in the area. So if you
| live in an area with more aggressive drivers it assumes those
| maneuvers are easier to do.
| lamontcg wrote:
| Yeah Waze needs a "UPS" setting where it doesn't take you
| straight across stroads and heavily favors turning right,
| while not routing you straight through everyone's residential
| neighborhoods.
| ChatGTP wrote:
| Google does this to me too, sends me on some really annoying
| route because it's slightly faster.
|
| I also wonder if they kind of "round robin" routes so not to
| cause traffic?
| axegon_ wrote:
| I have a very similar experience. Truth be told, it is what I
| have on my car's navigation whenever I know exactly where I'm
| going: the warnings about traffic jams, stationary radars,
| police and all that is all I care about. But whenever I need
| directions, I quickly switch back to the big G.
| xwdv wrote:
| Waze is great but I have no idea how they make money and I fear
| now I'm the product.
| reidjs wrote:
| It costs them money to develop and operate, they were bought by
| Google, and you don't pay anything for it. All I know is my gut
| says, maybe.
| frankbreetz wrote:
| There is ads. You often get a pop up saying: A trip to Taco
| Bell add 5 minutes to your drive. Would you like to go?
|
| It seems less invasive then most other apps out there.
| capableweb wrote:
| Waze is a Google product, so yes, you are the product. Also,
| they sell ad spots. Published a few for a restaurant, worked OK
| actually as we got some customers who got there because of the
| ad.
| barbazoo wrote:
| > One feature of Waze that was unique for a long time was its
| ability to crowdsource traffic information. Users add live
| traffic information to the app as they're driving, like a car
| stopped by the side of the road or a crash.
|
| I wish apps wouldn't encourage their users to interact with it
| while driving.
| EthicalSimilar wrote:
| You can do it through voice assistant.
| prmoustache wrote:
| but you perfectly know most people don't
| misnome wrote:
| or passenger
| klinquist wrote:
| I would love Waze to sell a set of bluetooth buttons that I can
| mount on the back of my steering wheel. Press a button to
| report speed trap, accident, or other hazard.
| unethical_ban wrote:
| Yes! And/or a hot button bar in the UI for frequent reports.
|
| Object in road, stalled vehicle, police are the top things I
| report.
| User3456335 wrote:
| Programmable Bluetooth buttons already exist, it seems like
| you would just need to connect them to the Waze API (which I
| presume exists)
| klinquist wrote:
| I was hoping Waze would have a deep link scheme to report
| speed traps (https://developers.google.com/waze/deeplinks)
| but they don't. If they did, I could potentially pull this
| off with iOS shortcuts.
|
| They do not appear to offer it as part of any other API.
| bitsinthesky wrote:
| I hope they'll start warning about bad drivers using historical
| data (one day)
| Scoundreller wrote:
| I'm very hit and miss with Waze as an early user.
|
| On the one hand, more users = more data to share back with me.
|
| On the other hand, more users = some of the amazing shortcuts
| it's shown me aren't so amazing anymore.
| smogcutter wrote:
| Waze is the tragedy of the commons in action.
|
| It's great for the individual, but the more people use it the
| worse off everyone becomes, including the users _and_ the
| surrounding community.
| Scoundreller wrote:
| I mean, I'm sure they've implemented some logic to avoid
| "over-suggesting" a 1-lane shortcut from a 4 lane highway,
| but I have taken shortcuts where I'm clearly in a line of
| Wazers.
|
| I feel bad when it sends me toward a difficult unprotected
| left (in the LHD world) and there's a bazillion cars behind
| me waiting to turn right but can't until I can move.
|
| I do think Waze and the like have effectively "added" 10%
| more roads out of thin air. Departments of Transportation
| should be paying them.
| josefresco wrote:
| Long overdue. I use both Waze and Google for long trips from MA
| to ME and despite Boston being a clusterf*ck every. single. time.
| These apps will routinely behave like they've never seen rush
| hour (or any hour) of Boston traffic.
|
| It always baffles my mind that these apps consume mountains of
| data, each day about traffic flow, yet can't predict slowdowns. I
| have one, human speed brain and I could probably estimate traffic
| jams better than Google/Waze.
| CharlesW wrote:
| > _I use both Waze and Google for long trips..._
|
| You use both simultaneously? Or if you alternate, based on
| what?
| Wolfbeta wrote:
| I do this.
|
| I use Google Maps for trips with multiple destinations or
| extended routes, and Waze for spontaneous, on-the-fly
| directions when I need to make unplanned stops.
| _rs wrote:
| I tend to use multiple apps simultaneously (Waze, and
| either Apple Maps or Google Maps, depending on how I'm
| feeling or the area). Especially for longer trips or trips
| outside of my home area, I trust non-Waze apps to keep me
| more on the "safe route" and not make detours into unsafe
| neighborhoods or winding back-roads in areas I'm unfamiliar
| with.
| josefresco wrote:
| I alternate at random, although I prefer Waze for the hazard
| warnings. I will use both when my wife is driving, and I want
| to plan ahead or deal with the aforementioned traffic snarl.
| BTW Apple Car play is terrible for navigators. Once a phone
| is "locked in" it's useless for the navigator. You need
| another device to "look ahead".
| spdustin wrote:
| Not sure I understand here... you can tap on the CarPlay
| map and then drag to scroll around. It's better on
| capacitive screens, but still works well. Then, tap the
| compass indicator to go back to current location.
| josefresco wrote:
| > It's better on capacitive screens, but still works well
|
| From my experience? It's wonky. Tap map, zoom out, drag
| map and then randomly it will snap back (Waze is worse) -
| it works (for this one task), it's just clunky. Clearly
| all the focus in car navigation is on the driver, who
| shouldn't be diddling the screen but it would be nice to
| have a few features for "navigators" riding shotgun.
| Tade0 wrote:
| > These apps will routinely behave like they've never seen rush
| hour (or any hour) of Boston traffic.
|
| Interesting - when I pick a route it typically says something
| among the lines of "increased traffic at this hour".
|
| It does indeed seem to assume that the traffic situation won't
| change for the duration of the trip, but I got around that by
| checking different departure times.
| CharlesW wrote:
| Hey, does anybody know why Waze still exists as a separate app?
|
| It was acquired a decade ago. Is there a legitimate reason, or is
| it just a reflection of Google leadership's lack of a holistic
| app strategy? (see: Google's history of messaging apps)
| andygeorge wrote:
| > Google kept Waze independent and as a separate brand to
| preserve the spirit of innovation of the team behind it and
| because there was really no reason to kill it, but there was
| also no reason to promote it.
|
| but sounds like its days are numbered
| https://www.calcalistech.com/ctechnews/article/go92isunj
| lbriner wrote:
| If Google are planning to merge the two, why haven't they
| added the ability to provide real-time feedback to their app?
| A few times I have met a closed road and have no options. I
| can't reroute because Google doesn't know the road is closed,
| it just tries to turn me around to go on the closed road. I
| can't report it closed etc. other than a long-winded Google
| Maps thing.
|
| I don't know how they are supposed to know about temporary
| road closures but I do sometimes see them marked on maps.
| dimitar wrote:
| At least here signs do that. Safety is the reason they are put in
| but drivers use apps to avoid police. The best way to avoid fines
| is to follow rules, but I hope users will follow apps more than
| signs.
| purpleblue wrote:
| What Waze needs is a proper zoom function, especially on Apple
| Carplay.
|
| Waze is almost unusable in that its auto-zoom doesn't work
| properly, and I'm forced to switch to manual zoom, which also
| doesn't work when I want to see more precise directions to places
| that I've never been before.
|
| Apple Maps gets this right, in that it properly zooms between
| long distances when I'm on the highway, and short distances when
| I'm on the streets. I don't know why Waze doesn't get this right
| and I've moved to Apple Maps entirely for new locations.
| pards wrote:
| This doesn't account for homeowners that regularly report fake
| accidents on their streets to prevent Waze from directing traffic
| through their neighbourhood.
| debesyla wrote:
| Is this happening often? (Wondering, I don't know.)
| jstarfish wrote:
| It's about to, on mine.
| lbriner wrote:
| I did quite like Waze for most reasons but once the ETA started
| to drift inexplicably, I started to trust it less. I would leave
| for a 2 hour journey and it would estimate 1hr30, which would
| creep up to 2 hours by the time I arrived at home. No traffic, no
| delays so why didn't it start at 2 hours ETA? Some kind of gaming
| algorithm?
|
| However, Google nav is far worse. It doesn't seem to log traffic
| on more minor roads and where I work seems to keep me in the
| traffic instead of taking me a slightly longer route which is
| generally quicker. As you sit in the traffic, the ETA just creeps
| up and up proving it is not measuring real-time positions which
| would tell it how slowly we are moving and therefore how long it
| is likely to take over that path.
|
| We also had a very bad experience with Google where it sent us on
| a detour to avoid a serious accident on the motorway and pointed
| us, as well as everyone else, up a very narrow road despite a
| slightly longer route on a much wider "normal" road. It took an
| hour to get about 1 mile, when we finally rejoined the empty main
| road. Again, very concerning that Google doesn't seem to
| understand that sending everyone up a slightly more direct route
| doesn't work when it blocks everything up. It took us a number of
| other interesting routes and took us about 3 hours longer than
| the 3 hours it would normally take. Sometimes I wonder if it
| shouldn't just say, "Everything's rammed, just wait it out here".
| chrisandchris wrote:
| > [...] Google nav is far worse [...]
|
| I have Google Maps in my car and I can't understand how that
| thing got into production. It keeps suggesting "alternative
| routes", which is basically a good thing. Except when the
| shortest route is like 1.5 hours and the alternate route
| usually adds 45min or more to the drive. The worst thing being,
| there's no setting to turn suggestions off.
| bradfa wrote:
| I've consistently observed the same creeping ETA on Apple Maps.
| Sometimes it's blatantly clear when planning a route when the
| estimated travel time and distance results in needing my
| average speed to be higher than any speed limit along the
| route. More often it's just that I'm traveling at a reasonable
| speed yet the ETA just keeps creeping out and out.
|
| Additionally, maybe it is some settings I have on my iPhone,
| but Apple Maps seems to not make recommendations but just
| execute them, with no input from me. Recently we tried were
| navigating out of Burlington, VT, USA and specifically chose a
| route to avoid the ferry only to have Apple Maps decide we
| really should take the ferry without ever asking if we wanted
| to accept the route change.
| 0xffff2 wrote:
| I expect your idea of "reasonable speed" does not align well
| with the actual average speed of travelers along the route.
| The only time I see this ETA creeping behavior is when I'm on
| long a long trip, not in a hurry, and I intentionally drive
| at the speed limit instead of at the average speed of traffic
| to conserve fuel.
|
| A navigation app that estimated based solely off of the
| posted speed limits would be utterly useless for 99% of all
| drivers. Ideally the app would learn from your actual driving
| habits and adapt based on them, but I don't know if any of
| the big 3 do that.
| bradfa wrote:
| I think it's totally unreasonable for a mapping app to ever
| assume you can travel at a higher speed than the posted
| speed limit, but they all seem to do it.
| BobaFloutist wrote:
| It should be illegal to estimate times lower than you can
| achieve within the speed limit - it means people leave
| later and have to speed to show up on time.
| fy20 wrote:
| I feel that's what missing from Google Maps is an analysis of
| the driving difficulty. Last month I was driving across Europe,
| where we were driving all day, doing close to 1000km per day.
| Where there wasn't a direct highway connection, it would quite
| often suggest going through local roads, which more often than
| not, had just one lane each way.
|
| If there is an option that involves more highway driving for
| only 5 or 10 minutes more, I'd rather take that, as it's going
| to require a lot less mental energy to drive along that, than a
| narrow windey road I've never been along before. Sometimes the
| alternative routes suggest that, but most of the time I had to
| just look at the map and figure it out myself, then create a
| route from A to B via C to see it's only going to add 10
| minutes to this 3 hour leg.
|
| Toll roads are another fun thing. When driving through France
| from Switzerland to Normandy, the most direct route would have
| resulted in close to EUR50 of toll fees. We ended up driving
| half an hour more via Belgium (where fuel is cheaper too), on a
| highway that had no toll fees.
| kbos87 wrote:
| Glad to see this! Waze, while still an excellent routing and
| traffic utility, has felt stagnant and neglected for years.
| There's so much room for improvement over Google or Apple Maps
| with features like this. I'd say I'm surprised by the lack of
| innovation, but acquisitions left to languish is well known to be
| Google's playbook.
| chrisweekly wrote:
| I mostly like Waze and use it a lot. But its inability to
| determine which way to turn when exiting a parking lot at the
| start of a trip is consistent and baffling. Often as not it'll
| show the wrong direction, followed by a literal U-turn or more
| complex sequence amounting to the same thing. I resort to using
| the compass and/or taking the extra time to zoom out on the map
| and see if it's sane.
| rangestransform wrote:
| I wish waze would use computer vision to auto-report roadside
| police
| hnburnsy wrote:
| Hey Waze, how about telling me exactly which lane the 'Object on
| road' is? Surely users can be asked the lane when reporting.
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