Many users choose to turn off voice navigation in Waze because the alerts can be frequent and distracting—especially on familiar or long drives where there’s no need to hear every turn, lane change, or minor update.

The problem is that once voice guidance is disabled, it becomes easy to miss a critical turn. Sometimes missing a turn has little impact, but in other cases it can extend the trip by 10, 20, or even 30 minutes.

The proposed solution is to introduce a new alert mode: “Critical Alerts Only.”

In this mode, Waze would not provide voice instructions for every turn, but only when missing the next instruction is expected to cause a significant delay.

For example:
If missing the next turn would add only one minute to the route — no alert would be played.
If missing the turn would add more than five minutes — Waze would issue a voice alert.

Users could define their own threshold in the settings:
“Alert me only if missing a maneuver will add more than X minutes to my route”
(e.g., 3, 5, or 10 minutes, or a custom value).

This approach allows users to enjoy a quieter, less distracting driving experience without sacrificing important alerts—ensuring they are notified precisely when a small mistake could lead to a significant delay.