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.
91 comments
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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.
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Withhold Seth
commented
Waze, please provide ▪MOAR▪ detailed information to commuters
Waze needs to show moving sheriffs, travelling police, moving highway patrol to increase the safety of those they serve.
Show direction, velocity, acceleration, frequency, heat map, color coded aging of alert, credibilty, disallow removal by those within close proximity who are stationary, disallow removal of other alerts by those respectively stationary near other [recently] active alerts, disallow removal by those who only mark not-there, grant higher confidence to faster than herd commuters, provide ETA based on which percentile group of commuter, tie traffic alerts to marked police for better estimation of dissipation (with color coding).
○ sheriffs are in conspicuous vehicles in high contrast black & white
○ sheriffs wear uniforms to stand out from everyone else
○ finding sheriffs without waze is not difficult
These high visibility vehicles inspire panic in hand-to-mouth commuters oft resulting in
• unexpected breaking
• truly reckless behavior
• slowing without break lights
• rubber-necking caused mass delays increasing risk of rear-endings
Sheriffs driving both slower than the herd & slower than outdated posted limits benefit no one, obstruct commerce.
These facetious requests to censor map information is inanity & unamerican. Currently Sheriff Association is the whine festival.
♢ criminals intent on harming sheriffs will listen to police radio to find sheriff's location.
♢♢ should we ban radio use?
Less information obviously will not stop crime. Better information allows better decisions. Please don't treat everyone like criminals. Innocent until proven guilty? Remember!
More restrictions makes no one safe. Gun licensing and firearm right-suppression undermine right to life from conception to natural death, and demonstrably increases crime. Everyone has a RIGHT TO THE TRUTH.
The road is less safe with absurd limitations.
%▶ if safety: 9 mph
%▶ if pollution reduction or efficiency: 92 mph
Fast driving is not reckless. Slow driving can be reckless.
▶ roads are built for commerce
▶ commuters pay taxes
▶ cities don't exist to be profitable
▶ citizens aren't a money tree
Waze helps tax payers effect prudence.
● police should be pursuing those who perpetrate violence against others after a crime.
● police are not performing their sworn duty well by collecting artificial undemocratic taxes.
● highway patrol was created to help commuters with road-side difficulties prior to the age of wireless phones.
wTL;dr
■ more information better
■ censoring is not better
■ do not treat everyone as a criminal
■ say NO to impoverishing efficiently driving commuters
■ fixed limits are outdated per se
■ dismiss with prejudice sheriff association inane request
May God bless America and its internets.
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Greg Sully
commented
This would be a useful feature, not only for speeders. When you see a speed trap up ahead, there is panic breaking, that can be dangerous in its own way.
I like knowing that there is a gatso camera up ahead, as it gives me time to adjust my speed and change lanes if ness assay to avoid the panic breaking of other motorists who suddenly see there is a speed trap ahead.This is especially useful in places like the USA and in Europe, where truckers are speeding. Going over there limited speed and other traffic with towed loads.
Whilst driving today, I saw someone driving at 75 - 80mph towing a rowing boat. My father was driving, and we were both speculating on how soon the load would displace causing an accident.
It was useful knowing there was a police trap up a head in the form of a gatso, so my Dad changed lanes, so he wasn't behind the driver towing the rowing boat, when its driver saw the speed trap. Like magic, the driver towing the boat, panic braked and I watched as the boat he was towing fish tailed as he braked suddenly. No accident, but proof there are morons on the road, speeding beyond the towing speed limit.
This feature would Defernatly help :0)
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Paul McGinnis
commented
It's often difficult to tell where the hazard is in many reports. Living where 4-10 lanes in one direction are common and high traffic density is common in many areas, trying to look everywhere isn't practical if I also don't want to drift of miss the vehicle ahead of me making a sudden stop. An indication of left, right, center, specific lane, on my side or the other side near the divider would be quite helpful.
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Paul McGinnis
commented
While I would like to have more lead time, I often loose the opportunity to confirm or deny the existence of the Police or other hazard because I don't see it before the pop up goes away. Looking at the map for location to hazard vs present location frequently is an excellent way to add another hazard and I'd prefer not to do that. I often miss commenting on this because I pass the point and don't see the concern named or I report 'Not There' and then see the hazard 30 seconds later. If I knew that I would have opportunity to mark it for some time / distance after the hazard, I could more safely check to see if it's still there or not without loosing the opportunity to vote or making the wrong vote and not being able to reverse it.
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Silvio G.
commented
People who don't understand why this increase in warning distance as it's been suggested simply don't drive a motor vehicle long enough to grasp the need for it. See, you are in possession of such a device/app/apk/whatever that can warn you of every road hazard and it 'could' do it timely and let you know precisely everything about road conditions and could do it better than any other device ever could. What good is it if it does it too late?
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Ed
commented
Since the reported location cannot be edited, some locations may be reported several hundred feet AFTER the real location. Extending the warning distance will help in those situations
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Leonardo Lombardi
commented
I don't get why there is a police report feature in the first place.
What's the reason for reporting? To alert someone that is committing a crime, so he doesn't get caught. This is wrong. -
Anonymous
commented
Agree-the longer the warning the better - also.easier if waze shows yards continually not feet .
Annoying countdown in yards then switches to feet .
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Mike
commented
A 1/2 mile alert for police ahead is utterly useless. Either allow it to be extended to over a mile, or automatically extend it a similar distance, by average speed. Also, an alert for police reported on the other side of a divided highway would be nice, too.
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Camou893
commented
If you think about changing, please make it user adjustable. Those big distances (i read 5280 feet) may be right for the US but they are surely not for many other countries.
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Nick Warren
commented
I'd also like to hear a distinct audio alert with the police warning, as well as "object in road".
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Anonymous
commented
My memory says that when I started using Waze, the alert distance was longer. I agree this should be user customizable for both police and other hazards, and making it speed dependent, or longer on freeways, would be a nice feature as well.
To the poster who said "Stop speeding and putting people's lives in danger" - you do realize that it's safer to drive with the flow of traffic than to be a rock in a stream correct? And when was the last time you were on a freeway in the US where the vast majority of road users *weren't* speeding?
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Spike
commented
As most have said here, we need to know about police well in advance and the distance at which we get a warning should be adjustable out to at least a mile. The location for all reports should be logged at the first touch and not at the finish of the reporting process; I'm not sure that it is.
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Anonymous
commented
I would like to see at least a mile out. As others have said, 0.5 mi is not nearly enough.
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Anonymous
commented
While 1/2 a mile was an improvement, is is still not enough time on the highway as you are likely in the kill zone already.
I would love to be able to customize the alert distance, as well as choose which alerts show pop ups and which alerts play audio notifications.
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Chris
commented
Agreed, too short. Also it is not always clearly recognized from the phone speaker. Maybe an alert tone then identify?
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CJ
commented
Minimum alert distance on highway should be 1mi for police warning. Anything less does not give you enough warning, whether it be for speed enforcement or giving you the heads up to the people who jam on there breaks when the see a cop. At best 1/2mi for slower speeds when not on highways and 1mi at higher speeds on highways.
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Anonymous
commented
An under 1000 ft warning for police ahead…..no good. By the time you're aware of the alert your on top of the officer and well within range of his/her traffic radar or, laser. It is far safer to be alerted well in advance so that you can monitor your speed and not have a "panicked" reaction. Jamming on the brakes is no good for anyone. Please make the alert distance at least a mile.