Hi Waze team,
I’ve been using Waze for many years and genuinely appreciate the product — it just works, consistently, and that’s rare enough to be worth saying.
I wanted to share a feature idea that came to me on the road. You already have years of aggregated police report data from millions of drivers. The next logical step seems straightforward: use that historical data to surface police hotspots — locations where officers are reported frequently — as a persistent map layer, not just real-time alerts.
The practical value is clear: a driver approaching a stretch where police presence is recorded at high frequency would receive a proactive warning even before anyone has reported an active stop that day. That’s a meaningful improvement over the current model, which depends entirely on someone reporting in real time.
A few thoughts on how this could work:
The threshold could be something like “reported at least X times in the past 12 months within a 100m radius” — you’d know better what the data supports. The layer could be optional (opt-in in settings) so it doesn’t clutter the map for users who don’t want it. It wouldn’t replace live reports — it would complement them.
On the data side, there’s also a marketing angle worth considering: a public, interactive heatmap showing the most common police enforcement spots by region could generate significant organic traffic and press coverage. People would check it for their commute area, share it, come back to it. You already have the data — publishing a curated version of it isn’t a big lift, and the attention it would drive seems worth it.
One honest caveat I’d flag: once drivers know a hotspot is pre-flagged, they may report active stops there less often, assuming the app already has it covered. Worth factoring into how the feature is communicated — probably framing it as “historically frequent” rather than “currently active” would keep reporting behavior intact.
Anyway — thought it was worth sending. Keep up the good work.

Thomas

Good point but shouldn't drivers concentrate on driving than reporting such things? It would take too much time to make a report while driving and I'm sure you won't pull over to make a report...so that's taking too much of your needed attention.

This will increase safety for everyone as highlighted by Withhold Seth

Possible already exists. Add speed camera in the are where police frequently setup mobile speed traps

Map editor: Could use the speed camera option. Only it doesn't give option to set it as mobile camera.

Additionaly, the icon could stay longer, in proportion to the number of reports, in the place where such reports were repeatedly reported.

How about the glowing blue area with intensity to show probability, obviously but show high probability spots and times… Like collect the locations with time stamps to predict what times there will be high probability of police sitting with radar

Whenever I have tried to add in on the map that there is police pulled someone over or a booze bus or something else to do with police, unless I’m posting it exactly where I am that the police are there then I can’t do it. I don’t want to go on my phone while I’m driving to post that the police are somewhere on the roads but if I post it when I pull over down the road then it says the police are at whatever my location is at that point and then I can’t delete it if it’s wrong. Seems a bit silly to me to not have that option.

I think that a great addition to Waze would be an icon showing where police frequently sit (but aren’t reported to be sitting currently). For example, if police are commonly reported in one spot over a long period of time but aren’t reported to be there right now, put a warning sign there. I know of a few spots near me where police commonly sit and are reported on Waze, but I sometimes see them there without Waze reporting it. This would just give people a heads up that police are commonly there, so to be weary of that even though nobody in the area reported one to be there now.

To Withhold Seth,

I agree with most of what you say, We ARE NOT Gov. piggy banks!

Not sure about OTHER countries, however in AUS. Waze has removed the "Message bubble" on Police reports!!!!

IS WAZE HERE FOR THE PEOPLE OR MERELY A LAP DOG FOR THE GOV. MILITARY FORCES?

The message bubble is a GREAT Idea, if Police are at an accident, motorists are prepared to A: avoid the area or B: slow down!
RADAR TRAP! people can check their speed for compliance etc!

Search: heatmap

Please add "common police locations" for e.g. where police have been reported in the last 6 months or so (not necessarily currently reported).
This would give the same effect as speed cameras, make people more careful in problematic areas (police usually monitors in such areas).

In my view this would be beneficial even for police too, same effect as cardboard patrol cars, or even parked empty police cars which is also common.

Well.. Yesterday I saw cops pulling over people right at the corner
And the Cops mark is there but only after the first person see it and report
But what about to make the app learn people’s report and determine this place as a hot spot?
I mean.. it can mark to people “this is where cops usually waiting here and this day at this time
You can also add different kinds of background to the icon to help the driver know what is the possibility to encounter them
And if someone does report Cops are here it will be marked (but as long as the time goes by the high threat will decrease)

Would love to see a new bubble to place on the map that says “common speed trap location” or something similar. I travel same highway often and know where all the locations cops sit. If I can warn users of those locations they can be prepared.

this is a great idea, that could be switched on or off by the user. If I'm traveling out of my area, this would be very handy. I know where these vermin sit around my commute.

Negative votes.

As a former Trapster user, I can attest that "known hideouts" are pretty useless. They can hide out in dozens of places in a small area, and you never know when they'll be there. The end effect is a LOT of clutter on the map. I looked at the Trapster map of San Francisco once, and the "known hideouts" were packed 2-4 per block! I don't know how it could possibly be useful to be told that the police may be hiding in any of a dozen places in the next mile. I don't need an app to remind me that I could get in trouble if I break the law on a given stretch of road. If you're that paranoid about police, I don't see why you need technology to reinforce, or more probably amplify your paranoia. Just remember that they are hiding behind every bush and billboard and you'll be fine.

If we could add the popular trap location for the country that we want, like in tomtom, igo, sygic, etc. Would be great

I also agree with Gamma, the patrol officer who commented on how "speeding is infrequently reckless". Even speeding at what is consider "reckless by speed" is hardly reckless. Speeding in statistics is hardly even worth mentioning as a cause of accident, let alone death. Also, if government would simply set a maximum Federal speed limit for all states not-to-exceed, and require car manufacturers to govern all vehicles sold in the US at that limit (perhaps about 90 mph, or so) then they would do far better than all of the needless patrols and ticketing for profit. Once cars become more connected, this will even be outdated, and cars will self-regulate their speeds based on geofencing, which will know what zone the car is in based on GPS, know the desired speed limits and be able to govern on-the-fly.

That's a great idea to have as an Advanced Option. Show the locations that police are often reported based on historical data. Genius. DO IT!