Seams silly since waze has started putting alerts to all the railroad crossings we clearly have a focus on safety isn’t a school zone a safety issue?
Further we have alerts for red light and speed cameras, police visible and hidden as ways to avoid tickets, why are we choosing then not to provide this valuable asset for regular speed traps. they used to have a speed camera here in fact but speed camera was for school hours of 20mph and then in theory off during non school hours. they had a little issue with the speed cameras issue tickets outside that window and subsequently the whole program got cancelled.
So the precedent of high enforcement exists. Would you have done a speed camera here for 20mph if that was still existing despite the fact that the speed limit is 30mph by your definition?
Adjusting school zone speed limits for school times may be difficult as they can be quite variable throughout the year. On the other hand it probably wouldn’t be too difficult to have a school zone alert for weekdays since schools are already mapped and don’t move frequently.
There are too many issues with school zones to make it practical for us to add them:
Not all school zones have speed traps.
School zones are usually only a few hundred feet, which would force us to cut roads up to add those school zones.
They vary with time of year, holidays, weather, etc, as was already mentioned, and there would be no way for us to keep up with all those variations.
Some in my area turn on and off 3 or 4 times a day.
In my opinion, mapping school zones would cause more problems than it solves and would be very difficult to keep accurate, which could lead to a lot of user complaints.
The idea of adding school alerts was in lieu of trying to adjust speed limits for school zones. Since schools are mapped already, an alert at roads that intersect a radius of, say, 300 feet from the stop point should be doable. It could work somewhat like the hazard alerts. Roads would not need to be cut and I don’t think editors would need to be involved except to check for exceptions as they arise. It also wouldn’t be too intrusive to the driver to be notified from perhaps 0600 to 1800 on weekdays, regardless of whether schools are in session.
Whether this is worthwhile is a different issue. It was just an idea to address potential speed traps and variable speed limits.
Remember despite what Waze does or does not alert you about, it’s still your responsibility as a drive to pay attention to your surroundings and posted signage. If Waze says the speed limit is 35 mph but there’s a sign that says 25mph during a certain hour, it’s your responsibility to make sure you reduce to 25 mph.
I get this but Orange Signs are advisory and not legally enforceable, such as signs about railroad crossings. So the addition of these to the map plus the fact that there is a different depiction of this type of road is purely for safety informational purposes.
School speed limit signs are legally enforceable, white signs. Also have safety implications. We are choosing to provide warnings on Long Island that the railroads exist which have large signage, gates flashing lights, bells, but not provide notification of a legally enforced speed limit?
Further I am not asking for an exception for ALL school zones and recognize not all school zones have speed traps. I am noting a specific location with almost daily speed traps that has one direction recognizing the school zone speed limit and the opposite direction is not being observed, despite the fact the speed trap targets both directions.
You appear to have the speed cameras in NYC mapped… But here is a funny part on that, those are also only limited to school hours (or technically 1 hour pre to 1 hour post) which is less than 50% of the year. Why are these being mapped and included? They represent a variable condition for most of the year?
My confusion here is the logic being applied to the school zone speed limit is not being applied to other scenarios with similar implications: speed cameras, railroad crossings.I am also confused on how would mapping a speed limit in a school zone generate more problems than it solve. Do you really get lots of complaints that the school zone is only enforceable x number hours a day or are we ignoring the fact that the largest volume of end users are probably driving through these zones during school hours.
First and foremost we are regular app users such as yourself not Waze employees so we do not have the ability to add new features.
Secondly the railroad crossing hazards are added by CCP partners such as the MTA not us.
Third as previously stated we can’t add school speeds as they constantly change on a weekly basis. Such as holidays, weather, school functions. Changing a speed limit in the editor requires a tile build to go through to push the update to the app which can take as quick as 1-2 days or as long as several weeks sometimes. This would defeat the purpose of updating the school zone speed limit. As far as the speed traps, drive the speed limit and you won’t have to worry otherwise you can always flag the police officers in app to alert other drivers.
As for why mapping a speed limit would cause more problems is because people are going to flag reports that “schools out today” or “it’s a holiday” or “it’s XYZ vacation” but they’re getting told to slow down when they don’t need to.
Fair enough but I was under the impression that the community got to make their guidance and variances for local states needs. I will bring this up at a national level.
The state’s write their guidelines on how to edit the map, not creating features in an app. I previously explained as to why we don’t map changing speed limits for schools, in detail.
I wasn’t asking for a feature, just for the road section in question to reflect a 20mph speed limit all the time instead of 30mph since it is so actively enforced, on almost a daily basis.
That goes against our current statewide guidelines. As a reminder as a driver you are fully responsible for following all state and local laws while behind the wheel despite what your app may or may not display. All official signage and law enforcement personnel supersed your app.
I recognize that the guidance was to map the 30mph, but we all encounter scenarios where exceptions to rules might be warranted. I was trying to build a case for that based on high enforcement and the history of speed camera.
While I get what you’re saying, we don’t change temporary speed limits because police sit there. As mentioned previously if you pass by and there is a police officer running radar enforcement, feel free to submit a POLICE report to warn other drivers. If there is an active speed camera we can add that which will alert drivers.
It’s been considered in the past and this decision is what was made with the tools were given by Staff.
This is the New York thread though, if you’re looking for New Jersey you can reach out to them here.
otherwise you can always flag the police officers in app to alert other drivers.