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Traffic-weary homeowners and Waze are at war

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Re: Traffic-weary homeowners and Waze are at war

#281

Post by lqdc13 »

socalnate1 wrote: post #250
ciconia wrote: post #210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I actually decided to stop using Waze for that reason. It felt like its routing algorithm is way too aggressive and would take me on shortcuts through smaller streets, just to shave off a minute or two. This in turn would require being much more attentive, since you need to make a turn much more often. I absolutely hated it.

Same, I switched to Google Maps. It seems to have a much higher threshold of "time saved" that it needs to hit before sending you off on some bizarre route.

For me it is the opposite.

Sometimes when late I rather save a few minutes and I don't care which route I take.

Maybe they should let one pick whether they want an aggressive route or not. There's always google maps for slower highway mostly routes.

Re: Traffic-weary homeowners and Waze are at war

#282

Post by jo909 »

GVIrish wrote: post #176
mseebach wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To get to 12 tickets an hour, you need at least 12 offenders an hour which is probably the bottleneck the GP alluded to. That said, 5 minutes per ticket pretty much requires offenders to present themselves in a nice, orderly line. A more normal scenario where the officer has to cruise around, pull someone over, get out, talk to the person ("no no, I'm not passing through, my sick uncle lives over there"), write the t…

> That said, 5 minutes per ticket pretty much requires offenders to present themselves in a nice, orderly line. Officers get exactly that when they set up shop in a place where they know there are going to be plenty of violators. Highway 66 inside of the DC beltway is HOV during rush hour. The police will just sit at the end of the on ramp and write tickets for everyone trying to cheat HOV or with expired tags or ins…

I kind of want my police force to do their controls in the most efficient manner, to catch the most violators with the least amount of manpower. (Of course supplemented with an element of surprise.)

No real reason to make a DUI checkpoint in the end of a cul-de-sac, is there?

Re: Traffic-weary homeowners and Waze are at war

#283

Post by abandonliberty »

Jacqued wrote: post #254
cmurf wrote: post #229

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I stopped using Waze because of its nutty directions: deep dives into neighborhoods, stop signs every two blocks, piles of turns, circuitous routes, etc. I do not like coming to a complete stop every two blocks, I'll take 5mph continuous over that. I do not like dumping my traffic annoyances onto neighborhoods who didn't voluntarily agree to increased traffic just to make my commute shorter, this is free loading and…

> neighborhoods who didn't voluntarily agree to increased traffic just to make my commute shorter, this is free loading and their roads are for them to get to and from their home It's nothing against you but is this a common opinion in the US? People in neighborhoods "own" the streets? As a Frenchman saying this is astonishing as I would naturally consider that I do own the street just as much as they do and it's my…

An interesting phenomenon is resident-only on-street parking.

While I have a parking spot on my own land, in some neighborhoods you get to take a public asset and make it private for either free or 1/10th the market rate. Some are even audacious enough to put cones in front of their houses.

Re: Traffic-weary homeowners and Waze are at war

#284

Post by shiftpgdn »

pc86 wrote: post #259
Jacqued wrote: post #254

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> neighborhoods who didn't voluntarily agree to increased traffic just to make my commute shorter, this is free loading and their roads are for them to get to and from their home It's nothing against you but is this a common opinion in the US? People in neighborhoods "own" the streets? As a Frenchman saying this is astonishing as I would naturally consider that I do own the street just as much as they do and it's my…

> It's nothing against you but is this a common opinion in the US? Not by anyone who understands how roads are paid for.

I pay for the roads in my neighborhood through increased property taxes (A MUD tax.) That said I do understand it's a public utility and don't care all that much about people cutting through.

Re: Traffic-weary homeowners and Waze are at war

#285

Post by WalterBright »

gooseus wrote: post #196

As a Waze user, this has actually been a source of increasing frustration for me. I do not want to save 1-3 minutes on a commute by cutting through unfamiliar residential areas where deaf kids play and homeowners give me dirty looks as I go over their oversized speed bumps. I use Waze not so much as a super-optimal routing tool, but as an aggravation-avoidance tool. Traffic and speed-traps aggravate me, sure... but n…

In my neighborhood, I always go the long way home because it avoids the narrow road with blind curves and kids on bikes.

My dad would always drive maddeningly slowly through residential neighborhoods, and he'd explain it with kids are irresponsible and unpredictable. I didn't understand then, but I do now.

Re: Traffic-weary homeowners and Waze are at war

#286

Post by pdabbadabba »

Jacqued wrote: post #254
cmurf wrote: post #229

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I stopped using Waze because of its nutty directions: deep dives into neighborhoods, stop signs every two blocks, piles of turns, circuitous routes, etc. I do not like coming to a complete stop every two blocks, I'll take 5mph continuous over that. I do not like dumping my traffic annoyances onto neighborhoods who didn't voluntarily agree to increased traffic just to make my commute shorter, this is free loading and…

> neighborhoods who didn't voluntarily agree to increased traffic just to make my commute shorter, this is free loading and their roads are for them to get to and from their home It's nothing against you but is this a common opinion in the US? People in neighborhoods "own" the streets? As a Frenchman saying this is astonishing as I would naturally consider that I do own the street just as much as they do and it's my…

This American does not believe that residents "own" the streets. But I also understand the people who live on quiet residential streets would like to keep traffic to a minimum. That's probably why they chose to live there! So I do think it is rude to consistently cut through their neighborhoods, undermining their expectation of a quiet neighborhood, and generally reducing their quality of life when there are other perfectly good routes available.

Re: Traffic-weary homeowners and Waze are at war

#287

Post by sandworm101 »

gooseus wrote: post #196

As a Waze user, this has actually been a source of increasing frustration for me. I do not want to save 1-3 minutes on a commute by cutting through unfamiliar residential areas where deaf kids play and homeowners give me dirty looks as I go over their oversized speed bumps. I use Waze not so much as a super-optimal routing tool, but as an aggravation-avoidance tool. Traffic and speed-traps aggravate me, sure... but n…

>>> All the aggregated minutes of driving it has saved me over the last couple years would not have been worth it if yesterday's single poor routing decision had ended with me in the hospital/dead and/or my car totaled.

I don;t think you need even go that far. All those extra corners, braking and such aren't great for the car. They have a cost in terms of maintenance. Lots of "city miles" driving is why cop and taxi cars fall apart so quickly. I doubt so many people would follow Waze so closely if they new it was going to cost them a couple hundred extra every year in parts.

Re: Traffic-weary homeowners and Waze are at war

#288

Post by pc86 »

mikeash wrote: post #46
astrodust wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a certain amount of irony here that people are complaining about cars clogging up their streets but think nothing of what they do when they're driving through other neighbourhoods, especially more urban ones. Suddenly they get a taste of why people living downtown are not too enthused about highways bringing in more people. A lot of this mess stems from the absurd designs of modern American subdivisions with…

I don't think there's much irony here. It's a matter of what came first. If you move to a busy downtown then you should know full well that dealing with heavy traffic on your streets is going to be a fact of life. If you move to a quiet suburban street which then years later transforms into a busy artery, that's a completely different situation. I also completely disagree with your evaluation of pointlessly twisty ro…

> If you move to a quiet suburban street which then years later transforms into a busy artery, that's a completely different situation.

I say this as someone who bought a house because of most of the reasons mentioned here. That being said, buying property does not somehow imbue you with the right to keep things exactly as they are for three decades while you pay it off.

Cities expand, people move in, population increases. If your quiet, picturesque residential street turns into a rush hour parking lot six years later, that's nobody's fault but it doesn't mean the right thing to do is put up speed humps (the oversized, usually movable plastic speed bumps) or whatever other nonsense you can think of to stick it to people because you were unlucky in your choice of property.

If it's not obvious I am using the royal you, not you specifically mikeash :)

Re: Traffic-weary homeowners and Waze are at war

#289

Post by 6stringmerc »

neves wrote: post #189

Here in my third world country, I know people who live near dangerous areas that love the traffic increase that Waze created. Sure it there is a little more noise, but they also fell more secure. Maybe it is just a different point of view.

That is interesting to hear, I think you're right it's a different point of view. Thanks for sharing.

Re: Traffic-weary homeowners and Waze are at war

#290

Post by mattmcknight »

zippergz wrote: post #216
gooseus wrote: post #196

As a Waze user, this has actually been a source of increasing frustration for me. I do not want to save 1-3 minutes on a commute by cutting through unfamiliar residential areas where deaf kids play and homeowners give me dirty looks as I go over their oversized speed bumps. I use Waze not so much as a super-optimal routing tool, but as an aggravation-avoidance tool. Traffic and speed-traps aggravate me, sure... but n…

I've had this problem as well. Another one I've run into is that Waze doesn't seem great at taking into account things like stop signs and traffic lights in my area. So it will re-route me down some street that has little traffic, but requires me to stop every block. Even if this doesn't actually take more time, it is certainly more aggravating. At this point I ignore Waze re-routes unless I have a good indication th…

Lights in particular are a hard problem. Depending on timing, some are a 3 minute wait, or none at all. If someone can start to model traffic light timing, it could really improve flow.
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