Summary

In the UK, motorways are patrolled by National Highways Traffic Officers and DVSA Enforcement. These vehicles use high-visibility yellow/black or yellow/green livery. Because Waze currently only offers a "Police" report button, users frequently misreport these agencies as Police.

This results in "False Police" alerts that cause unnecessary braking and degrade the accuracy of actual speed enforcement data.

The Solution

Update the "Report Police" menu (specifically for the UK and relevant regions) to include a sub-option for Traffic Officer/Enforcement.

Proposed Menu Structure:

Report > Police

Visible / Hidden (Law Enforcement)

Traffic Officer / DVSA (Incident Management / Non-Enforcement)

Why this helps Waze:

Reduces "Panic Braking": Drivers won't slam on their brakes for a speed trap when it is actually a Traffic Officer attending a breakdown.

Improves Data Integrity: Prevents the "Police" category from being diluted by non-enforcement vehicles.

Reduces Editor Workload: Community editors currently spend significant time "cleaning" these misreported icons from the map.

Better Situational Awareness: Knowing a Traffic Officer is ahead warns drivers of a potential hazard (breakdown/debris) rather than a speed check.

Supporting Insight (The "Probability Gap"):

To put the scale of this issue into perspective: across the UK, there are approximately 1,500 National Highways Traffic Officers patrolling the motorways daily.

In contrast, a major county like Kent often only has two dedicated motorway-rated RPU (Roads Policing Unit) vehicles on patrol at any given time—one for the North and one for the South. If these units are diverted to incidents in city centres, there may be zero actual police presence on the motorways.

With 1,500 Traffic Officers versus very few actual Police patrols, the "Police" reports on Waze become statistically unreliable. Users see a high-visibility vehicle and instinctively report "Police," leading to a map filled with false positives.

Global Relevance

This is a scalable solution. Other countries that utilise similar Traffic Officer or Incident Management patrols include:

Argentina, Australia, Austria, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, China, Colombia, Croatia, Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Hungary, India, Indonesia, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Luxembourg, Malaysia, Mexico, Morocco, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Pakistan, Philippines, Poland, Portugal, Russia, Spain, Sri Lanka, Sweden, Taiwan, Tunisia, Turkey, and the USA.

Thanks for considering this improvement to map accuracy!