We all knew it was only a matter of time before police would start their “war” against Waze.
Although I partially see their point, I highly doubt that waze location is precise enough for what they say it might be used.
Anyways, here’s the article: Sheriffs Want Popular Police-Tracking App Disabled
And another one: Cops want Waze to shut down its police-tracking feature
Your thoughts?
http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2015/jan/26/police-pressure-google-turn-off-waze-app-feature or http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-waze-google-lapd-response-20150127-story.html
So heres my thoughts on this and what waze can do to keep the feature but yet help improve “officer safety.” As a police officer myself, with the growing number of attacks on police these days, the concerns by law enforcement are legitimate, however I think a compromise can be reached per say to make everyone happy. If Waze is forced to make a change, My solution, keep police reporting functionality exactly the same along with alerting for them, however just remove the icon for them on the map. That way people can’t just “scan the map” to find police sitting somewhere and will only receive an alert if they are driving on a road where police have been reported. That way, us wazers still get what we want, and the police get what they want.
Related threads:
Do Not Remove Police Locations
Police against waze news story
Why are they only targeting the Waze app when there are plenty of other community based apps out their that will tell you where the speed traps or police in general. Why aren’t they going after these. Is it only a matter of time before Big Brother steps in? :roll:
They have no point. It’s not like it’s hard to find a cop. It’s not like they don’t drive around in clearly marked cars. Also they show up if you call them and every town has a police station. It’s all about the money, if it wasn’t they would happily mark themselves in the app because it would slow people down knowing there was a cop in the area.
Nail on the head. The police see Waze as revenue reduction. If Waze users are notified of their presence, they lose the advantage. If the police were truly concerned about safety, they would embrace the app. Anything to alert the motoring public of their presence will cause the motoring public to pay attention, something that is severely lacking on the highway. I love the feature as it alerts me to police activity and allows me to find another lane earlier, if needed.
Indeed, the cops could have their own Waze icon on their vehicles if they really thought about road safety.
That would defeat the WHOLE PURPOSE of using that feature.
It is a long time since I suggested Waze to change this function: we do not have to advise about police in general, so Waze must take off the police icon! Instead we can advise about police with speed camera: so Waze should not have police icon and should only have fixed camera icon and mobile camera icon.
Not all of us are against it. I use Waze A LOT at work. I post up wrecks and directions for wazers to help us get around them. This usually consists of which lanes are blocked with pictures. Traffic updates are another no brainer. I do business checks on gas stations so the gas prices I post are always accurate for all grades. One of the best updates was during a manhunt for a guy that had shot at officers during a traffic stop. We had officers everywhere along and on a stretch of interstate where this ARMED individual was trying to evade us. My map chats advising motorist not to pick up or stop for any hitchhikers was very well received. The positive comments from the fellow Wazers in the area was amazing. Now, I’m sure you are wondering, yes I do report my location when I working traffic. Sometimes I cannot resist having just a little fun with it too:
http://i1280.photobucket.com/albums/a485/ThatGuy6271/Waze%20Screenshot_zpsyqsymd27.png
Click the link, the pic is too big for this forum.
Be careful judging LEOs by what the brass says and releases. The admin types in LE don’t like Waze because they cannot control it. They love to control any and all information that is released. The benefit is there though. The manhunt example is the best I can think of off the top of my head. That was directed information to people on the road in that area in real time. A media release could not be that timely and directed.
^^ it’s a pointless change. if you see a “speed camera” marked on the highway, you know that’s not true and it’s a real cop in a car/bike. If you see one not near an intersection, it’s also not likely a camera…and even easier to spot in cities that don’t use photo radar like where I live. Again, you’ll know it’s a cop.
In the end, it’s pointless. Anyone hunting down a LEO doesn’t need to use WAZE. They are easy to spot. The entire media hype over this is just opportunistic “noise” on the part of the media and law enforcement.
Agreed a pointless change, any mechanism in place to advise of the police presence is going to have the same effect. Best to avoid the confusion in general.
This is it, cops nowadays are on the streets to make money, not for people´s safety but to write tickets and you just have to watch the news to confirm that, Waze and the others apps should take a stand and defend our rights to share information
Police officer safety is important. This is just a obvious smokescreen tactic. I wish no harm to the ones that are most at risk protecting public safety. The locations they are at are public and their presence at particular place is public knowledge. It is meant to be as well. Places that I know of, that police officers post up at to arrest speeders has a general affect on the public. Guess what effect it has? I GO THE SPEED LIMIT. That was the intended goal. If going the speed limit is a positive effect…well then, kudos to your strategy officers. Since the location of officer camp out locations was made public knowledge by word of mouth and now keeps people from speeding through a particular area was the intended result. This is just irritating enough for police to make a claim that this affects officer safety; to which I cant say much about to diagree otherwise. For if I was to disagree, I am conceivably (by their accounts) jeopardizing their safety…what a load of pip.
I work in Government Transportation Safety and Law Enforcement, not a police officer but I am in and around them with Commercial Vehicle Enforcement.
Read carefully the mentality of some Law Enforcement Officers here. Some are supportive of Waze, they are reasonable with what they explain,… those are the Good Cops. THE JERK COPS are the ones demand Waze to do what they want, and use terms like “Forcing Waze” to change.
We are in the information age, I live in a Free Country as an American, it’s unconstitutional for anyone in American government to force a change without due process… all you JERK Cops would do so well in a Communist State, move to China.
To me it should encourage LEO to move more. At least on the interstate if they the LEO are using waze and see themselves on the map maybe they should move. Keep people guessing.
By the way I am a Federal LEO and a EMT. I work in both fields.
