Waze Can Now Help You Avoid Traffic Accidents
Waze , Google Maps’ more useful cousin, adds another useful feature . After nearly a year of beta testing, Waze is now introducing a new warning system for accident-prone roads, so you’ll know to be on high alert when turning onto a street with a history of accidents.
How Waze Crash History Reports Work
Waze uses a combination of artificial intelligence and user-reported crashes to generate this data. AI technology analyzes historical crash data combined with various data points such as the road’s normal traffic level, elevation, turns, and whether it is a highway or a local road. The AI synthesizes the data with reports from millions of Waze users, where users report an accident every two seconds, according to Google.
When you travel with Waze, the app displays a tooltip showing you if the next mile or section of road has an accident history. According to Google, Waze doesn’t differentiate between major and minor crashes, so it’s not obvious from the alert how serious a particular road’s crash history is. Instead, use this tip to be mindful of your driving: reduce your speed and, of course, change your route completely if necessary. The warning also does not take into account whether other vehicles, cyclists or pedestrians were involved in the accidents.
How to Check if Waze Crash History Reporting is Enabled
To minimize distractions, Waze won’t show you notifications for roads you frequently drive on, but will be more alert when you’re in unknown territory. This feature is now available to all iOS and Android users. You can check or disable this feature by going to Settings > Alerts & Reports > Reports .