The popular phone navigation app Waze is experimenting with a new feature that warns users about dangerous roads.
The app uses historical user reports and other data which suggest a particular route could be more susceptible to vehicle accidents than others, reported MyBroadband.
This then allows Waze to compile a “history of crashes” report for a given road which can be shown to the driver before setting off. A notification will also tell users how long the dangerous section is.
When using the app, this portion of the road will be displayed in red instead of the blue, purple, and green colours that are typically used to outline a selected route.
Waze history of crashes warning. Image sourced from MyBroadband and Geektimes.
The red colour will also be shown in a dangerous area regardless of other indicators such as road conditions and traffic levels.
However, Waze may not always display the notification if the route is one that the user frequently travels on.
This is to ensure that the app does not create any additional distractions for the driver when it is assumed they are already familiar with the area.
Users that do not want the feature will be able to turn it off by going into the “Notifications and reports” section of the settings menu and disabling the “History of traffic accidents.”
Beta stage
The new dangerous roads feature is currently in the beta stage, and it is unclear whether or not the company has any plans to release the update to the public.
Nevertheless, tech publication Geektime commented that, while not all beta features make it to the official publication stage, Waze’s history of traffic accidents function is far enough in development that a rollout is quite likely within the next few months.
Waze is currently one of the most-popular mobile navigation apps in the world, with over 100 million downloads on the Google Play Store.
Alternatives include the Google Maps mobile app, and more recently a service called What3Words has been growing in popularity – even being added as an integrated feature on Jaguar and Land Rover’s vehicles as a form of onboard navigation.
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