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>if you dont want to have a ton of traffic dont buy a house on a major road. You're not wrong, but Waze directs traffic down roads that aren't considered main
by noxToken 7y ago
>if you dont want to have a ton of traffic dont buy a house on a major road.
You're not wrong, but Waze directs traffic down roads that aren't considered main thoroughfares. That's part of the issue. There are paths to work that I would have never imagined had I not used Waze, and plenty of those routes take me through quiet neighborhoods.
A good example is the shunting yard I encounter. Most of the time, trains are short enough that if they stop, they don't block the crossing. There is a short way through a neighborhood that adds a couple of minutes to your commute (in either direction) that dumps you out on a highway just on the other side. There are also two longer routes (one for north, one for south) that goes around neighborhoods but adds 10-20 minutes to your drive time. I wouldn't call the short route a main nor major road, but I'm sure the residents who bought those houses more than a few years ago didn't know that the uptick in rail usage would cause much more activity on their street. You can even cut deeper into the neighborhood to save minutes by circumventing the line of cars.
On a related note, I stopped using Waze after watching someone roll through about 5 stop signs. The driver didn't hit anything, but that moment made me realize that I was part of a neighborhood nuisance that nobody asked for.
- ambicapter 7y agoWhat does using Waze have to do with ignoring road signage?
- pfranz 7y agoI'm pretty confident Waze routes people not by posted speed limits, but by average driving habits and traffic speeds. I do think Waze users are self-selecting. People that are willing to take "short cuts" choose Waze. I often ignore Waze's suggestions and have had people in the car with me comment on the extra turns and backroads. There's a certain type of driver who prefers to mostly "tune out" and take the most direct route versus someone who wants to get there with the quickest ETA even if that means a more complex route.
- lostsock 7y agoI'd be amazed if this is true. Especially as Waze has a GPS based speedometer built in that goes red if you go over the speed limit. I image it looks at a combination of speed limit, current traffic and then if the historical data is faster than the speed limit it discards the historical data.
- pfranz 7y agoJust anecdotally I feel like I have to drive fairly aggressively to meet the estimates. I'm quick to disregard Waze because it will often throw me into an awkward intersection where I know taking a route with fewer turns would get me there faster. Waze also doesn't have speed data for many stretches of road. As it got added (and since) I haven't noticed any changes in routing or ETAs. I'd be very curious about an actual answer, but that's why I suspect it doesn't use it.