I am pretty strongly against them, for much the same reasons given above. There are limited circumstances where they are valid at a crossroad - poor visibility, signs etc. But there are many reasons against them.
“Continue” is not the same as “Give Way”. There’s a good argument that being told to “continue” might be seen as implying right of way - so giving that instruction where the opposite is true is problematic.
If you want to argue that an instruction is needed when there are clear road markings and signs to indicate a give-way/stop, then how far do you want to take it? Should there be a “continue” instruction at all traffic lights when you’re going straight on? If you’re passing a side road, do you need a “continue” to drive past it? Should every motorway junction say continue if you’re not exiting? IMO Waze’s job is to provide brief concise instructions when the driver needs to make a routing decision and otherwise shut up and let the driver concentrate on their own responsibility - looking at the road in front of them and responding appropriately to road markings, signs, other vehicles etc.
Consistency is another major problem. If you think that using continue at rural junctions is correct, then where do you stop? How rural does it need to be. Even if there was a very clear-cut borderline, we’d still end up with a clearly inconsistent map where some junctions have continue instructions and some don’t - and however clear we think the boundary is, the users will not understand and will complain either way.
How valid are user complaints, really? This is a common complaint, although I’d say nowhere the top 5-10. But the majority of URs are, frankly, rubbish. Users will complain the speed is wrong because the app is 2 seconds late in changing. Many postcode complaints are misunderstanding the fact that a postcode is always an area and never a point. They raise URs because of traffic. They raise URs at home because they’re trying out the app (the sign of a new Waze user used to be a UR, a speed cam, a dummy cam and a RLC all on top of a residential building). And that brings me to cameras - before camera reporting was removed from the app, the map was constantly littered with incorrect speed cameras - for CCTV, Trafficmaster cams, speed-activated warning signs, signs about speed camera. The point is that URs are not a terribly reliable justification. 10 users reporting the same junction as a problem - that’s real. 1 user isn’t worth more than a quick GSV check to see if there’s a real issue.
Lastly, there’s a problem involving WME itself. Simply put - TIOs are invisible in standard WME. I know we probably all use scripts to highlight their existence. But even then, you need to click on every segment connected to a junction to see what TIOs are there. Some situations are pretty obvious: when you have a Y split, or a street exit from a highway, or a complicated little one-way system, you know what the TIOs are doing there. But at a crossroads, it’s less obvious. Is it a difficult junction of some sort? Did one user complain? Has a new editor overridden the L/R instructions manually because he doesn’t know any better? Is it the idiot I dealt with a couple of months ago who added several hundred TIOs throughout London & Eastbourne? Every TIO is either an invisible change to otherwise clear routing, or a visible change that takes time/effort to check.
I won’t deny it - I do remove continue instructions that I consider entirely superfluous. But I do tend to trust the experienced editors we have here and leave those ones alone, even if I don’t agree with them being there. My advice would be, that if you think there’s a clear justification for a continue at a crossroads, leave a map comment there. Not only does it highlight something that is otherwise invisible without scripts, it also demonstrates that you have made a considered decision to alter the default instructions for a reason. That is something much more likely to be respected by other editors.
And, of course, if it’s too much effort to add that many comments, then I would suggest you’re adding too many continue instructions. :lol:
, I am