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Comment by apaprocki | Hacker News Reader

Since you're mentioning the area, a JFK pro-tip is usually taking the second, less frequently used exit from 495 that goes down the East side of Flushing Meadows Corona Park [1]. Use Waze. Trust it, even if what it is telling you seems crazy.

[1]: https://www.google.com/maps/@40.7292844,-73.8393884,1040a,35...

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I really want to like Waze, two issues:

* I am not used to Waze UI I often missed my exit or turns..

* Waze often has a delay telling me when to turn (very often I get a turn signal just 100 feet away).

So my plan these days is use Google Map as always, but study the direction, try to learn the road, and optimize on my own if I need to repeat the trip again. My dad says a good driver needs to know how major road works. Years ago GPS wasn't a thing and people got by without problems. Last year's Labor Day weekend I spent the holiday with my friends in Lake George. On the third day I had zero cellular connectivity most of the time on the road, but lucky me I already learned the road (since we have been driving in and out the place multiple times during the day), I was able to get by with little problem.

Waze is very bad at notifying you of chains of directions. For instance "Take a left on Main St, then take an immediate right on to N 1st St."

It will say "Take a left on Main St." then think for a little while, and then beep because it needs to reroute you.

It's really annoying, because it means you need to look at your screen in order to figure out exactly where you are going. Google Mpas gives much, much, much better verbal instructions. I know WAZE doesn't have as much information on every given road as Google, but it isn't difficult to figure out if the next instruction is going to be given too late.

I think it's the opposite though. Google Map is very clean. It certainly doesn't optimize route like Waze does (seriously I don't get it why, especially Waze is now part of Google). Google Map is known for taking the main road avoiding local whenever possible. BTW, I don't turn on voice notification, I read the graphic off the screen.

>Google Map is known for taking the main road avoiding local whenever possible.

That's not really my experience. At least some subset of the time Google Maps seems to get it into its head that what it would really like to do is take a nice country drive that involves making turns every half-mile or less. I can't comment on how frequently it does this relative to other applications, but Google will definitely sometimes take you on a very convoluted route to ostensibly save 3 minutes.

It's fair, it's relative to time, location, and sometimes your preferences (avoid toll etc).

I had that experience sometimes, but perhaps places i visit happen to have main road around. There are times I look at the GMap and just goes smh telling myself I know a better route than Google does, and I am right many times. Now I have driven for two years, I actually enjoy driving and figuring out how to get to a destination.

I believe they did this in defference to residents after an earlier, more perfectly otimized algorithm ended up turning residential streets into main traffic thoroughfares.

I'm not talking about the routing, I'm only talking about how the different apps notify you of upcoming navigation. Even if you have voice off, it should be noticeable, since Google's visual aids provide a much more coherent and easily interpreted user experience.

I hate the fact that I have to look at WAZE while I'm driving. I drive in Chicago, and you need to basically keep your eyes on the road at all times, because people are flying in from all directions. I trust drunk drivers more than I trust people who look at their phone when they drive, because at least drunk drivers are looking at the road.

Okay, yes, echo your experience with Waze, that's really my experience, I can't keep my eyes off of it either. Yesterday I was on I-495 before merging onto Van Wyck, freakin' SUV driver made an abrupt left turn on the left-most lane, and then right turn back to cut one car off for no damn reason. He almost caused a collision with me and six other cars, freakin' driver (the car in front of me was trying to switch lane so we were constantly braking).

Google Maps' routing weighs simplicity of directions, such as fewer turns, more than Waze does, even if it adds an extra minute or two. In most cases, that kind of heuristics means taking main roads.

Google bought WAZE in 2013. I wonder why Google Maps would be so much better than WAZE four years later.

I think Google purchased Waze as a way to get up-to-date traffic information. Beyond that I don't think there is much integration between WAZE and Google Maps. Waze still uses community built maps for instance.

If they made Google Maps better, users would replace Waze with it and their data collection would decrease. Since an app needs to run in the background to collect speed and location data, moving that feature to Google Maps would be a negative to most users.

Maybe at some point in the future there will be a universal app.

I agree. I cannot use Waze solo. It has to be used with one driver and one Waze operator.

Waze is awesome for road trips. It will save your ass driving down I95 through DC or something like that. It sucks for intra-city travel, as it is too optimistic about the speed of side streets and under estimates things like stop signs.

You mean the Van Wyck. It has the added bonus of not having to do the difficult merge from the Grand Central in the Van Wyck later on. But of course: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S8AS_tisvQI

As a child, we recall many an hour stuck on the Van Wyck. My aunt worked at JFK and my mom and I would pick her up sometimes.

Literally, any time of day or night could be an epic traffic snarl. The worst was when I was stuck on a school bus in the 80s for 4 hours on our way back from a field trip when Gorbachev was speaking at the UN.

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