from Hacker News

Waze will now warn drivers about crash dangers using historical data

by carride on 11/7/23, 2:19 PM with 156 comments

• by tallowen on 11/7/23, 3:03 PM

  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...

• by josefresco on 11/7/23, 3:45 PM

  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.

• by jurassicfoxy on 11/7/23, 3:04 PM

  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.

• by yabones on 11/7/23, 3:14 PM

  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.

• by barbazoo on 11/7/23, 3:22 PM

  > 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.

• by brk on 11/7/23, 3:06 PM

  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.

• by lbriner on 11/7/23, 4:49 PM

  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".

• by chrisweekly on 11/7/23, 6:25 PM

  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.

• by CharlesW on 11/7/23, 3:56 PM

  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)

• by tim333 on 11/7/23, 11:16 PM

  Good idea!

  There used to be constant crashes outside my house as it was a crossroads but not very visually obvious and with poor side visibility so they wouldn't notice the car coming at right angles till too late. An app warning probably would have improved things although eventually they re-engineered the junction with mini roundabouts which mostly fixed things. That was many decades into the junctions existence though.

  That said rather than users adding information you'd probably get better data from motor insurance data as they probably log most accidents.

• by purpleblue on 11/7/23, 4:40 PM

  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.

• by Scoundreller on 11/7/23, 3:42 PM

  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.

• by pards on 11/7/23, 4:46 PM

  This doesn't account for homeowners that regularly report fake accidents on their streets to prevent Waze from directing traffic through their neighbourhood.

• by kbos87 on 11/7/23, 5:29 PM

  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.

• by bitsinthesky on 11/7/23, 3:38 PM

  I hope they'll start warning about bad drivers using historical data (one day)

• by dimitar on 11/7/23, 4:39 PM

  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.

• by hnburnsy on 11/7/23, 8:41 PM

  Hey Waze, how about telling me exactly which lane the 'Object on road' is? Surely users can be asked the lane when reporting.

• by Havoc on 11/7/23, 3:07 PM

  Why not just idk fix the issue?

  Place like that need government intervention not digital warnings for a small percentage of drivers

• by idatum on 11/8/23, 1:49 AM

  I used Waze and loved the idea before I became so cynical -- around 2013-ish -- about the "surveillance economy" that I started deleting apps from the likes of GOOG and FB. This included Waze post-GOOG.

  Maybe there could have been a revenue stream for Waze pre-GOOG from something other than ads and tracking? We'll never know.

• by xwdv on 11/7/23, 3:20 PM

  Waze is great but I have no idea how they make money and I fear now I’m the product.

• by rangestransform on 11/7/23, 8:30 PM

  I wish waze would use computer vision to auto-report roadside police

• by datadrivenangel on 11/7/23, 3:04 PM

  The digital equivalent of a caution road sign!

• by grdvnl on 11/7/23, 3:12 PM

  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