Increase police warning distance
Waze users are warned of speed traps or police presence only about 600 feet ahead of time. This is far too late of a warning. With a clear line of sight, law enforcement can detect speeders at 1-2 miles out.
By the time the Waze warning pops up, you could have already been detected.
This feature – while very well intentioned and thought out – is useless with so little warning.
Michael
shared this idea
What we are aiming to do here is speed based alerters.
89 comments
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Tim Smith
commented
"With a clear line of sight, law enforcement can detect speeders at 1-2 miles out."
Good! Give them all tickets!
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Jason
commented
It would be better to have an alert area instead of along a segment. Often on a freeway the troopers are running in both directions. and if you are going in the opposite direction of the report you will not get an alert. Police should be reported as a zone not a point.
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Tyler
commented
+10000 for this suggestion.
For everyone saying driving fast is dangerous and wont get home safely, do some research first.
https://sites.psu.edu/siowfa15/2015/09/18/is-driving-faster-safer/ -
Anonymous
commented
I agree and think the alert distance should be customizable; police alerts could be set to 1/4 mile - 3 miles before police location. And please allow me to turn off hazard warnings and keep police warnings on!
And to all you commenters saying "don't speed", "we want to get home safe too, blah blah blah": don't forget, this app gained most of its popularity for the feature of police reporting. I speed on every highway I travel; without police reports I wouldn't even use the app. So get off your high horses, stay in the right lane and let the non-zombie drivers drive. I save dozens of hours of time spent in the car every year because I speed; just because you can't drive safely at 70mph in a 55, doesn't mean I can't.
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Jon Reynolds commented
The way I see it, the alert is there so that people know there may be an officer on the side of the road, and to keep alert in order to avoid a wreck.
Nobody owes you data on speed traps. Caveat emptor, driver.
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mojo
commented
janet .. stay out the left lane and worry about your speed thanks ... we all will get home safely
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Janet
commented
If your worried about getting a speeding ticket, SLOW down. Your not the only one on the road. We all want to get home safely to our families.
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Darrell
commented
it's not 600 feet it's a half mile.
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Sherlock McGyver commented
In fact, many times there is no warning, especially if there are multiple reports in succession, only one will be reported, which requires the user to be distracted yet again by touching the symbol in order to give it a thumbs up, etc.
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Jim commented
Should also be based on speed - more distance warning at 65mph vs 25mph
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Anonymous
commented
I would like this programmable as well.
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another citizen
commented
Lets try driving using our own eyes first
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chris
commented
I agree, increase cop alert range and allow more user customization. For example, be able to turn off vehicle on side of the road alerts. Also, when reporting cops, be able to report cops who already have someone pulled over versus cops running a speed trap.
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alex dunn
commented
Saw a recent video where someone ran over a pallet in the road... 1 second after hitting the pallet you can hear waze alert about the road hazard...
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FoxStang
commented
The distance for all alerts should be individually adjustable from 0-5 miles in .25 mile increments through a settings panel, as well as a customizable repeat notification as the user gets closer to the marked alert. There should also be an option to disable certain alert types entirely. This would greatly enhance the functionality of the app by allowing each Waze user to decide what alerts they want to prioritize, so that important warnings like road debris or police spotted can be properly elevated above less critical warnings such as vehicles stopped on the shoulder.
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pipinos1976
commented
With the new laser guns used that can clock your speed at distances over 3/4 of a mile the alerts should be user selected.
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RegisT
commented
[it's been ages since i commented on this thread. today, a less than thoughtful comment inspired me to share ^^]
Background: i remember one day when my daughter came home from [public] school frustrated -telling me that she had to debate from the "LESS Gun Control" perspective with which she disagreed (they had been "learning" about the importance of gun control).
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hmm. i told her to look up actual data on Wikipedia: gun homicides by country.
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i needn't bother saying more about what she *really* learned that day..
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needless to say, cars don't usually kill -People Do- including those who are risk takers or suicidal..
** more information (police reporting)
** presented with safety in mind (increase the warning distance)**** IS NOT the same as promoting reckless endangerment & speeding..
* does it allow scofflaws to use the information as a warning to warn them to slow down?
Absolutely!--- i don't see a problem ---
(i just hope the idiot speeding behind me doesn't rear-end ME, *when I slow down* :)
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Aaron Watt commented
Speed limits are enforced for a reason. It seems people have forgotten why we have them. Feature not voted.
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Jeff
commented
I see your point for an a much earlier warning because anything shorter than a quarter mile would probably be ineffective, especially if traffic is very light.
As a police officer, I can tell you that we never spot someone 1-2 miles out. The radar's signal may travel that far but we cannot see that far. Radar is a tool to confirm my suspicion that someone is speeding. It is not my only source of detecting your speed. After running radar for many years I can guess within 2MPH how fast you are traveling, so if I am running radar in a 45MPH zone and I estimate your speed at 58MPH, I use my radar to confirm you speed, not to tell me you are speeding. If my estimation is more than 2MPH off your actual speed, I would disregard you and recalibrate the radar unit.
In order to graduate from the radar instruction course I took, I had to estimate the speed of 10 cars while I was moving and 10 cars while I was stationary. If I estimated the vehicle's speed by more than +/- 2MPH more than 3 tries on the 20 vehicles, I would have failed the course.
This feature of alerting to the presence of police, for speeding purposes, does not bother me. It causes people slow down and that save lives. I will catch plenty of people speeding regardless of WAZE, radar detectors, etc. But in lieu of current events and hostility towards law enforcement, this portion of the app does bother me. Officers may eventually be targeted using these types of apps if the anti-police trend continues.
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Daniel
commented
Please remove the police warning feature. Helping speeders, drunk drivers and maybe even wanted criminals to avoid the police is not making the roads safer.