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Waze now warns drivers about roads prone to car accidents

A crash history alert on Waze.
Waze

As a driver, the worst way to learn about a stretch of road with a history of crashes is by ending up in one yourself.

Locals will likely already have that information to hand and will therefore approach a hazardous area with caution, but drivers not in the know face an elevated risk as they pass through such places.

But now Waze can help.

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The Google-owned navigation app has just launched a new “crash-history alerts” feature to let drivers know when they’re approaching an accident-prone road.

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“Every day, almost 3,700 people are sadly killed globally in crashes involving cars, buses, motorcycles, bicycles, trucks or pedestrians,” Waze said in a post announcing the important new feature. “Crash injuries are estimated to be the eighth leading cause of death globally — and Wazers around the globe report accidents about every two seconds. But, what would happen if you knew in advance that you were approaching a road that had a history of crashes?”

The crash-history alerts feature draws on reports from the Waze community, and like everything else these days apparently has some AI smarts built in, too.

If your route includes a crash-prone road, the app will show an alert before you reach that section of your journey, Waze said. According to a screenshot (top) of the feature shared by Waze, the alert will say something like: “History of crashes — next 1 mile.” A blue bar above the text will then gradually recede as you approach the hazard zone. The nature of the hazard isn’t specified, but that seems fine as a general alert like this should serve to place a driver in a heightened state of awareness.

But take note: Waze said that to keep driver distractions to a minimum, it won’t keep sending out crash history alerts for a section of road that a driver uses regularly.

Waze said the feature launches on Tuesday, so make sure that you have the latest version of the app installed to get it.

Trevor Mogg
Contributing Editor
Not so many moons ago, Trevor moved from one tea-loving island nation that drives on the left (Britain) to another (Japan)…
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