Waze tests new alerts warning drivers about roads with a ‘history of crashes’
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One example I have is there is an intersection on my way home that Tesla maps (and Google maps) wants me to turn left at. The problem is that its a left turn without a signal, across 4 lanes of traffic with limited visibility. This is a recipe for crashes, and I've seen multiple crashes here. However, if you go 1/4mi out of your way then you go under a bridge and wind up at an on-ramp to the same road .. no left turn needed.
It took me a while to discover this route when I moved here. It would be nice if there was a "safer route detected, +1 minute" option presented to me.
It's in Google's backyard. How they get this one wrong is puzzling.
https://www.pcmag.com/news/waze-wants-to-help-you-avoid-diff...
I’ve also found their turn by turn directions less stressful to follow than google maps because they announce like a human codriver not like you’re an AI. At least a few years ago it felt like Google Maps didn’t do the whole “go through this light then at the next one turn left”, which is easier than a last minute “turn left now!!”
Sometimes called a "Michigan left." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michigan_left
I'd guess that if you consistently avoid a left turn it could be because it's forbidden instead of because you miss it every single time. It's safe to assume that by now they take this kind of implicit feedback, but it either takes a long time to be processed or it's not happening on time-restricted left turns..
To highlight this, it is literally impossible to choose your own route. Google will randomly redirect you, will keep nagging, while you constantly have to click 'no'.
For example, let's say you are driving from New York to California. There are two main paths, dictated by the mountains.
Google knows this, and lets you pick the southern, or northern route.
The southern route is 5 hours longer, but gee, no snow! Google doesn't have "avoid snow", and 5 hours longer becomes much faster, if the northern route has a storm.
So you pick the southern route.
Congrats! For the next 50 hours of driving, google will happily exclaim "I found a faster route!" and switch you over, unless you click cancel.
This means that you are constantly, sometimes as often as every 5 minutes, forced to interact with maps while driving, or be forced to redirect as google wishes.
This 5 year old bug is well known, people complain about it everywhere, but google could care less.
The worst thing is for maps to be "silent" when there's a route available that can save you half a day of driving. You don't want that but an average driver does.
You are basically a power user who knows better than the map which is fine, but then just add a waypoint that forces the Southern route and go on with your life.
For the average user, nagging them to get the 5 hour faster route is the right strategy.
Extremes much?
You act as if there are two options only. Relentlessly nag the user, and not tell them at all.
There is another. Ask the user, and be done with it.
When I click on decline, I mean it. Everyone does. And it isn't just nagging, it literally forces you to click no every time, or your route changes.
When in traffic. In seconds. Immediately. Over and over.
It is a terrible design choice.
I wouldn't count on that. I've been exiting a Costco for years now where Google Maps tells you to take an impossible left turn due to a divided road. Google should have a mountain of data showing those directions are never, ever, taken. Street view shows it to be impossible too.
If they are actually looking at that type of data they aren't doing much with it.
Archived at http://archive.today/92Ghx
They could shadow enable this option for people whom they deem need it based on location data. This would be to everyone's benefit.
I like it for intra-town commutes where I know where I'm going already and just want to possibly try something new, but if I've never been to a place before or want the "works best 80% of the time" route, maps all the way.
YMMV.
The tolls option is great. Rather than having an "avoid tolls" setting, it just gives you multiple options and let you decide in the moment. For example, you might enter a destination and it'll give you 3 results:
- 35 min, no tolls
- 30 min, $2 tolls
- 28 min, $9 tolls
Google Maps doesn't understand the concept of "some tolls", nor "I want tolls sometimes, but only if I'm in a hurry or the time saving is significant".
Everything else is just that little bit nicer too.
Sometimes it’s not even much of an increased distance, just departmental roads with a lower speed limit.
And gas/food is always cheaper off the highway, but I will admit French highway service stations do have fairly clean and free bathrooms.
I recently told my children how it was like to take the highway during summer time about 40 years ago when I was a kid.
They had all kind of entertainment, large tents for families with babies (and free diapers). There also was a sort of large national game for children where they would "hunt the spoils" - get points for actions that reduced fuel use (opening windows, checking tires pressure, etc.)
There are no more such things today, the areas are just overcrowded - but I agree that they are very well organized.
this seems to me like a regulation issue. basically that left turn should be either not possible or with a dedicated left turn traffic light.
b) I'm going to laugh my butt off when they, in an attempt to be neutral, define it algorithmically and all the rich waspy inner ring suburban enclaves that HN loves because "good schools" wind up on the list too.
I don't see why -- but if that's the case, they could simply offer a way to let users exclude[0] towns the user chooses. As a bonus, this would work for more than sundown towns. Let's say you don't want to go through a town where your ex lives, or whatever.
0: I really mean "increase the cost of travel through these regions" so the app will try to avoid them rather than never send the user through them.
Also, the overdensity of information on the screen is mind-boggling. Combined with the choice of mild designer palette robbing all the contrast - I wonder if this is only me struggling? Or am I getting old?
I cannot fathom why the "No, I don't want that route, keep me on the one I picked" interaction is not treated as permanent.
Edit: I just checked and they still seem to think the Kingston-Edmonds ferry is some sort of magical warp drive that instantly transports you from A to B in precisely 1 half hour from your arrival at either endpoint.
Anyway, thank you very much for not cutting. It's extraordinarily aggravating to sit lined up down the highway for hours only to see someone sail in ahead of everyone via a sneaky right turn.
The locals wont particularly care for you. But they may become incentivized to put up signs, or otherwise disincentivize the activity at an infrastructure-level.
> But they may become incentivized to put up signs, or otherwise disincentivize the activity at an infrastructure-level.
Yeah, addressing it at the infrastructure level is definitely the way to go. According to the attendant, the local PD usually physically blocks the lane people were using to cut, but the PD was out to lunch at that moment.
The part I found amazing was that even without the barrier, cutting would require
1) being a massive asshole by design
2) driving so obliviously to your surroundings (immediately visible giant fucking line of waiting cars) that you're being a massive asshole regardless of intent
Idk about the distribution between the two, but either way, yes please to infra-level solutions.
Google Maps seemed to kind of know there was a problem, and kind of not know... it got us in a loop of getting on and off of the freeway, literally in a loop. So, I just decided there must be a problem ahead, and went a bit further along the detour it kept starting us on, and it eventually found us a proper detour. It's very strange that Google Maps routing heuristics put us on the detour when we were on the freeway, and re-routed us to the freeway as soon as we got on the detour.
We looped twice while I was weighing the relative merits of forcing Google Maps to bring us further down the freeway vs. forcing Google Maps to bring us further down the detour, and exactly the best way to accomplish that.
On a side note, don't drive in Italy, particularly with a navigator with aphantasia who isn't used to GPS lag, particularly in downtown Rome. We came very close to accidentally entering restricted traffic zones during restricted times, and narrowly avoided large fines, in both Rome and Florence.
Curious what you think aphantasia has to do with this?
Just for my own personal interest, did you already know the two words aphantasia and amnesia? If so, would you mind rank-ordering the following three possibilities in your mind when you posted the comment:
- GP comment mixed up the two words
- GP comment intended aphantasia in a way that makes sense but you do not yet know how
- GP comment intended aphantasia but that does not make sense
Generally, I'd prefer to navigate and let my wife drive, but she's used to driving in countries where they drive on the left, and I'm used to driving in countries where they drive on the right. Also, if a manual transmission is significantly cheaper to rent, then I end up driving, regardless of which side of the road the locals drive. More than once, I've down-shifted while turning on my wipers instead of my turn signal while entering a roundabout. At least car manufacturers don't flip the shift pattern right-to-left when changing which side the steering wheel is on.
I kept having to dismiss it until the "shortcut" was passed.
What I fail to understand is, I guess everyone on the dev team of google maps, is actually using the app on almost daily basis. Why can’t they see its flaws, how can they not be passionate to improve something that they themselves use daily and when they are even getting paid to improve it.
This is ripe for a new player to jump in.
“Alert! Tap this little region of a touch screen now or else your map will be replaced with a route that you’ve had no opportunity to review.”
As an infrequent car user (hence the map; I know bike routes well) I am usually fully preoccupied with just trying not to die.
You need a passenger with you, but I have noticed this is more a problem on longer routes. And on longer routes, I have a passenger with me anyway.
Google Maps sucks now. It's full of ads, pop ups, etc cluttering the interface. Also- why are we asking drivers to report things while they're supposed to be driving?
The experience while driving with Android has gotten terrible. In 2013 everything worked, now we are moving backwards.
I can hardly imaging what this would actually be like - maybe the kind I saw in Waze where local stores are advertised as being at x minutes away without being asked?
1. Fastest route
2. Shortest route
3. Safest route <-- this is the big one
The insurance companies would love it, and I'd love it. The data is out there... I've been asking this for over 10 years.
I frequently take more complicated back roads to avoid areas like the above.
I think safest route is hard to define, especially given that the data is not dense and may not be relevant (e.g., an intersection had a lot of historical accidents so its technically unsafe based on data but it has been rebuilt recently and there has been no accident since so its currently safe).
Possibly a similar situation if they claim they can tell one route is safer than another, but then don't give you the safer option?
Microsoft's attempt was branded as racist[0]. I don't think any of these companies are likely to touch this feature in the US. I did see an article about Waze doing this in Brazil in 2016, but not sure if that's still happening.
[0] https://www.npr.org/2012/01/25/145337346/this-app-was-made-f...
Passengers in my car (ie my family) want an option that prevents the driver from complaining about the navigation.
This would be incredibly useful in congested areas. Good feature suggestion.
But that isn't really the case in city area.
I would like a option that avoid turns if possible unless it is really too far.
In Sweden we have some roads with a lot of accidents caused by people driving above the speed limit.
They fixed this by installing automated speed cams. The goal is not to give people speeding tickets but to get drivers to slow down. It works really well so I actually believe this new Waze feature will be really handy.
Edit: Btw, I use Waze to get alert about the speed cams.
That is a user hostile way to solve the problem, and it still leaves the design issue open. _Why_ are people driving too fast for what the road can safely allow for?
There's a lot of work being put into road design which naturally calms traffic, and a good part of it shows promise. Large wide open boulevards seem to encourage people to driver faster than what is actually safe because they feel comfortable driving at that speed with that much perceived space.
If you narrow the road, add center island obstructions to limit long distance views, remove outside lanes for parking with curb extensions or put in protected bike lanes, roundabouts, better lane markings, they all seem to make drivers more aware of the density of their environment and work to slow them down naturally.
And again.. this all works to get them paying attention to the environment, not simply trained to wait for an automated alert with financial consequences.
Limiting view distance sounds more user-hostile than speed cams. I'd like as much information about my environment as possible.
I have a fascination with watching dashcam videos on /r/roadcam and /r/idiotsincars (I think it has made me a better/significantly more defensive driver), and seeing some of the videos from places that have fixed cameras that catch every crash just makes it clear that some portion of people simply don't pay attention to anything.
In the 11'8" bridge example (https://11foot8.com/), they've installed a system that detects if the approaching truck is too tall, flashes an "OVER HEIGHT" neon sign, and automatically turns the traffic light red. They even raised the bridge 8 inches a few years ago. People consistently ignore the sign, run the red light, and rip the roof off of their truck on the special bar that was installed to protect the bridge from direct damage.
In the Milwaukee Roundabout example (https://www.youtube.com/@MilwaukeeRoundabout/videos), drivers are coming across the bridge way, way above the speed limit to go sailing as far as they do. Perhaps in this case the road could be narrowed and speed bumps installed, but this is a contingent of drivers who are not paying attention to the road, and the rest of us would benefit from knowing where they screw up.
^As an example, 17-19 year old drivers have a 19-fold higher risk of a fatal single-car crash than 60-69 year olds: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S002243751...
For the Young/New: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shoshinsha_mark
For the Elderly: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/K%C5%8Dreisha_mark
For the Young/New: souped up fart can cars / Econobox
For the Elderly: Pale Blue Lincoln Town Cars
But I would like to see these stickers in the U.S. too, along with Germany's much tougher driver education requirements.
I am highly, highly suspect of such an assertion. Watching videos of edge cases is at best a really inefficient way to get good at detecting the preceding conditions.
These aren't really edge cases. For some definition of frequent, they happen frequently. There are a lot of near misses...
There are plenty of very specific scenarios that are easily avoidable crashes, yet constantly show up in these videos. Off the top of my head:
- Being “nice” on multilane surface streets: stopping to let someone turn across your lane (or turning when someone leaves room for you) is dangerous. The other lanes may be moving at different speeds and drivers won’t be able to see or expect someone coming across their lane from between stopped cars. There are countless videos of this scenario.
- “Thing on the highway”: in heavy but fast moving highway traffic, a foreign object on the road will be hidden by cars ahead until the last moment. Following distance helps, but paying attention to cars suddenly changing lanes a few cars ahead is also useful.
- Backing up at a light: a surprising number of stupid crashes happen when someone decides they’re too far into an intersection at a red light, and starts backing up. The driver behind them assumes they’re checking their mirror, but they’re not! I honk and flash my lights proactively based on having seen this fender bender happen in so many videos.
- Mismatched turn lanes: people are terrible at knowing which lane they’re going into in a multiple-lanes-turn-the-same-way intersection.
The other thing you learn is that uninsured motorist insurance is an absolute must. The number of people driving around without insurance is staggering.
Also it flashes up when it detects an over-tall vehicle, but that won't be clear to a vehicle that's never been there before: it probably looks like one of those speed limit signs that flashes to everyone. And yellow-on-black signage is usually not going to tell you "stomp brakes now", usually more like "road closed next week", so it doesn't filter to the front of brain when navigating an intersection.
The Australian water-shower projector is much more obvious that you have to stop right now or bad things will happen to you.
If you're paying, sure. If you're not, the obvious answer is to route away from the accident-prone routes while trying to minimize increases in journey time.
fix the road <= perfect solution
warn people that the road is bad until the road is fixed (possibly never) <= good solution
Is Google using Waze as their staging platform now? Because Google Maps features aren't incorporated into Waze (lane-based navigation, street names in voice guidance etc).
https://techcrunch.com/2016/03/16/waze-now-tells-you-when-to...
Some Home Assistant documentation at
- https://www.home-assistant.io/integrations/google_travel_tim...
- https://www.home-assistant.io/integrations/waze_travel_time/
What a silly thing to disable edits after a while.
Sure, it'll probably reduce the number of overtakes. While making the ones that happen so much worse.
They’re often indicated on highway signage, which I hate because you’d never intuit the meaning.
Plus is this road-usage normalized? A freeway with bumper-to-bumper traffic is going to have more crashes than a country road with a few vehicles an hour, but one crash a day on one Vs. multiple a day on the other could be required to indicate a more dangerous stretch in real-terms.
Or, take a different route, probably eventually as presented by waze? Presumably they aren't just going to say "hey a lot of people die on this route. LOL good luck"
For as long as these kinds of navigation utilities have been around, it seems like the implementation of non-intrusive or at the very least not-overly-distracting notifications have been figured out by the industry.
Circling the building, the gauge for accident risk spiked as the team member drove past the poorly marked entrance to the parking garage of the building we were sitting in.
I'd say getting alerts about things like that would be fairly useful because most people don't drive at "maximum safety" all the time.
You can get people to slow down at least somewhat closer to the speed limit, get more attentive, etc. in hotspots for accidents.
Of course, that might just end up shifting the hotspots in some cases, but more often than not I imagine you'd find an environmental aspect to hotspots, like our poorly marker garage, or areas where sunlight can be blinding during commute hours.
Then you could offer an "avoid shit drivers" route option.
All that would do is route me around the wealthy suburbs.
Unfortunately that's rarely a good way to get where I'm going.
And all I could think about was how the city was very literally not going to do a single damn thing about it.
There are self-fulfilling prophecy type effects in psychology. I can see how making people more anxious could do that. Also could see how removing the more risk averse traffic from certain stretches of road, would make the traffic that remains more dangerous; fewer cars leading to greater speeds.
I feel like waze and other “people engineering” apps don’t fully grasp their responsibility in shaping human behaviors.
These are streets where there is usually not room for two cars to pass in opposite directions and pedestrians, dogs and bikes are frequently going to be hazards.
As a bonus this will catch all the "leaves close calls in their wake but never winds up at fault so they think they're a good driver" brand of bad drivers.
Will Google Maps adopt these unique alert features?
Not about to switch from maps to Waze, but does inch closer!!
Usually you hear something like “you are entering an automated speed control zone”.
I wish Waze did Audio call-outs of speed limit changes.
When I googled later though I found plenty of people complaining about this particular place in this small town where the police regularly trap "speeders". (FWIW, it's a 15 MPH school zone ... no kids at 6:00 in the morning but apparently that's not relevant.)