I was doing some editing at home and noticed a local freeway backed up because of an accident in the live map. I knew I would be leaving soon, and using that freeway to get to work. I figured it would be a good test of how I would be routed around the traffic. Sadly, Waze failed me. Terribly.
I hopped in the car, told Waze where to go, and it routed me directly through the bumper to bumper traffic.
I couldn't believe it, so I tried alternate routes. Nothing.
I turned on avoid highways and it gave the route it should of given to avoid traffic.
Turned off avoid highways, it still routes through the (now worse) traffic
I have a couple more screenshots of my route through traffic, but 3 is the limit per post.
I don't know why this happened, if it routes fine with avoid highways turned off it should know to avoid a traffic jammed freeway. Here's the permalink, but that won't help with traffic avoidance
This is making me think twice about contributing any further time to editing. This time I knew an alternate route to avoid the traffic jam, but how can I ever trust Waze in an unfamiliar area? Or recommend it to friends?
The purpose of Waze is to help me avoid traffic like this, and it failed me.