Last week there accidents on the main highway between Los Gatos and Santa Cruz. The app routed people onto very small roads in the Santa Cruz mountains in both directions and the road isn’t wide enough for two large vehicles to pass each other. It was dark, raining and foggy and at least 20-25 cars were stuck at one point because of a bus blocking everyone. There is nowhere to turn around safely or even to back up. You could easily slide off a cliff in some places. I’m not sure how this could be prevented but I wanted to make you aware of this issue before someone gets hurt taking this route (Mountain Charlie Rd). Next time I’ll sit on the highway!
corgiluv, I’m local to the Santa Cruz Mountains and am intimately familiar with many of the roads. One-lane roads with poor passing capabilities are fairly common here, but are so lightly traveled, and then only by locals, that we receive few complaints about Waze routing over them.
Waze has no way of knowing the risk tolerance of those who use it. Santa Cruz Mountain locals would be upset if we told Waze not to route over Mountain Charlie; from a local’s perspective it’s a perfectly good road! However, I definitely understand that the risks on Mountain Charlie are quite different than they are on 17 and that it isn’t for everyone. You’re right, there’s no good solution. Your plan of not diverting from 17 even when 17 is temporarily closed may be the best approach. Depending on where you’re going, there are few alternatives to 17 that are not like Mountain Charlie.