I recently had a route created that would have had me do an illegal turn into a street designated as local traffic only (Melbourne, Australia). While it’s common for people to ignore these signs, you can get a ticket for doing so.
I have tried reporting the issue but it seems there is no mechanism for restricting navigation down the roads. Is this something that could be built into the app perhaps? Similar problems may exist for no turn between certain times.
How do I tell Waze that I cannot take a turn it is asking me to do other than ignore it and take a best guess for an alternate route until it recalculates? I used to do this all the time with Garmin GPS units and it was super handy.
Hi there,
Local Traffic Only areas can be quite challenging for many reasons. If the specific area in question has clearly posted signs at every entrance to the “Local Traffic Area”, then there is a potential solution that can be reliably implemented.
If this is not the case, then doing anything would be detrimental to routing for any Wazers that live in that particular “Local Traffic Only” area.
There have recently also been some extensive discussions as to whether turning into a “Local Traffic Only” area is constituted as legal, and the consensus was that this is not consistent across Australia.
While I don’t advocate driving in “Local Traffic Only” areas unless you are headed to an address in that area, what makes you say that it is an “Illegal turn”? I cannot find anything in the Victorian Road Rules that identifies this scenario. Is this a local government thing?
If we have something specific to work to, then we can implement some sort of restriction scheme.
Lastly, if you can identify the location, then we, as volunteers, can look at updating the map to rectify the situation.
Regards,
JohnB
So I did some digging and it seems I might have been somewhat misguided, although it seems a bit unclear as to whether they are enforceable or not. I guess I based my view on seeing the police pull over people pulling into a side street during rush hour a few times that had “Local Traffic Only” signs, but perhaps they were just doing so as a deterrent and checking rego, etc?
I did raise it as an issue at the time, but the response was that it’s a public road so routing cannot avoid it. Either way it might not be an issue worth worrying about… I will keep digging to see if I can find the answer as to the legality or otherwise of driving through those roads. Perhaps some councils have by-laws? (even less likely to get enforced).
I believe “Local Traffic Only” signs are only advisory, and that they cannot be enforced by police, unless they are backed up with a sign that they can enforce (Like a ‘No Left turn 7-9am Mon-Fri’ sign).
At the moment, Waze supports private roads, which Waze will not use for routing unless your destination is on a private road. And I believe private roads should only be used for major roads on private property (like large, gated industrial estates), or for housing estates on private land, such as housing commission or retirement villages.
It’s up to the councils to strengthen their LATM (local area traffic management) strategies if they wish to soften the impact Waze is making to their neighbourhood streets, as has been reported regularly in US news outlets.