sketch wrote:cardinals should be used on every freeway and expressway, and those are going to be responsible for 99.9% of every multi-segment U turn.

I'd just state for the record that I believe that there are plenty of divided roads that are not limited access freeways and expressways and that these roads account for more than 0.1% of multi-segment U turns (particularly as there are destinations on such roads that require U-turns to get to and from).

PesachZ wrote:

CBenson wrote:

sketch wrote:cardinals should be used on every freeway and expressway, and those are going to be responsible for 99.9% of every multi-segment U turn.

I'd just state for the record that I believe that there are plenty of divided roads that are not limited access freeways and expressways and that these roads account for more than 0.1% of multi-segment U turns (particularly as there are destinations on such roads that require U-turns to get to and from).

Wouldn't let U-turn on those divided roads be a single segment median though and therefore not subject to the BDP penalty?

Certainly, not universally.
https://www.waze.com/livemap?zoom=17&la ... =-76.69045

Agreed. I'm not pointing to any individual multiple segment crossing with Crain Hwy as there are several. I'm just stating I believe that although a minority occurrence, it is a significant occurrence in the US that non-limited access divided highways have stuff between the carriageways.

I actually do have a more extensive rewrite, but without illustrations. The question becomes whether its an improvement or not: https://wiki.waze.com/wiki/User:CBenson ... Mechanisms

There have been many issues raised in this thread and I wasn't sure how to address them, so this is the first time that I've informed anyone that I've updated my draft page. I'll run through the important issues as I understand them.

1) There remains the problem that the Global wiki page and the USA wiki page set forth different and conflicting information. It remains unclear to me why there should be two pages.

2) Should we use "prevention" or "penalty" in the name. I have no objection to "penalty" as the name predates confirmation that the BDP is in fact a penalty. However, there does not appear to be consensus on this point so my draft continues to use "prevention."

3) Elimination of the single name-discontinuity exception. I think my draft accurately captures that the detour must be more than one segment, but that the name-discontinuity can be for a single segment.

4) Final segment name discontinuity requirement - if I understand correctly, currently the final segment of the possible detour must be part of a name-discontinuity. However, we understand that this requirement is in place to reduce processing requirements rather than to more accurately define when a detour to be avoided exists. Accordingly, we think it is more likely that this requirement may be eliminated in the future. In my draft, this requirement is in a parenthetical statement in the name-discontinuity requirement, which can easily be removed if the criteria is eliminated. However, my draft does not note that this criteria is more likely to be changed than the other criteria. My draft does not suggest that editors should edit configurations (like Edson's example) to make them future proof if this criteria were to be eliminated. My draft also has not addressed this concern of DwarfLord:

DwarfLord wrote:Still, it may be more helpful to reword to something like "If there are two or more ramp segments for the concurrent highway, but even one of the segments does not carry the simple highway name as either primary or alternate, Waze will impose an unexpected detour penalty for continuing on I-1234".

This is because this statement is not completely accurate under the current criteria. Under the current criteria the last ramp segment must not carry the simple highway name as either primary or alternate to trigger the penalty. I'm not sure how to rephrase this without getting into guidance regarding whether or not we should be editing with the idea that last segment name discontinuity requirement is subject to being eliminated.

I welcome all to weigh in on my draft and the above concerns. I'd be happy to have Pesach's proposed changes to the page be made if there is not a feeling that my attempt to clarify the criteria has been successful. However, my concern with only making Pesach's proposed changes is that they do not address the final segment criteria which would mean that the wiki would continue to conflict with editors' experiences with configurations like Edson's example.

Ok, I have taken the absence of objection as approval and updated the USA page as set forth in my draft. https://wiki.waze.com/wiki/Detour_Preve ... anisms/USA

There remain the significant issues that 1) there is no guidance regarding the possibility that final segment name discontinuity requirement is subject to removal and 2) the corresponding global page is inaccurate.

I'm no fan of pedantry. But there is confusion on this topic. For example I have been told sternly that I should not say prevention "failed" in circumstances where prevention did not occur merely because the penalty was overcome.

If confusion persists under the current choice of words, then it seems worthwhile to attempt improvements. I don't think that's pedantry.


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The penalty concept is indeed available from the existing documentation. However, I believe beginning and advancing editors would find the penalty concept easier to absorb if it did not seem to be contradicted by the word prevention.

As I've mentioned, I was somewhat reprimanded recently. I used the word "failure" to refer to an event in which detour prevention did not prevent a detour. Of course, I understand the point. If other factors overcome the penalty, that is not a failure.

My points are only these: (1) despite the existing documentation, confusion persists on this topic; and (2) this confusion could be reduced, especially among beginning and advancing editors, if we stopped calling this a prevention technology, since it is considered to be working perfectly even when it doesn't prevent anything.

I really do believe that the difference between prevention and penalization falls well beyond a pedantically split hair, but I accept that others might not.

At the end of the day, it doesn't matter much what we editors who already have some grasp of the internals think. The wiki is intended primarily to support new and advancing editors. Would they be more likely to understand the concept if we called it Big Detour Penalization rather than Big Detour Prevention? I suspect so, but that's only a guess.

I'd like to invite new and advancing editors to comment on which of those two conveys the concept of a penalty with intent to discourage, but not completely disallow, detours.

P.S. I'm aware the current nomenclature has become habit and will be hard to change. But it definitely won't change if the topic is never raised, so I wanted to raise it and go from there.

[EDIT: clarified "end of the day" sentence and fixed error in this edit.]