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Post by HandofMadness
therubinator wrote: So I think there's room for improvement. This approach is black-and-white whereas some amount of discretion could be used. jhfronz's example points out a short-term restriction which, in that case, perhaps makes sense. However, if a more nuanced approach were taken say, given certain conditions then it might avoid confusion (and also make Waze more useful, rather than less, in those situations). For instance, what if the recommendation were to allow the turn if the restriction were:
  • not during rush hour (defining rush hour being slightly fuzzy, but based on the area and the volume of traffic - assumes the editor knows the area well)
  • not more than 4 hours long (for example)
  • not cumulatively more than 12 hours of the day
  • not a turn on a single-lane road (just spitballing now)
I'm simplify it to the following:
- Disallow the turn if most drivers are likely to encounter the turn while it is restricted
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Post by HandofMadness
chunkmonkey wrote:Well it seems this is a mixed bag on this issue. In this case I restricted the turn even though its allowed 21 hours a day. My reasoning being that it's one block off a HWY, and there is a safer 24hr left hand turn with a turn lane 2 blocks up.

My next question is, should I just mark this as solved any time UR error pops there saying this turn should be aloud? or what is the best way to handle this now?

Thanks in advance,
ChunkMonkey.
My experience is that won't happen very often, usually its just system generated errors. The most likely problem will be other editors seeing the system generated error and "fixing" the turn by enabling it.

In LA we put a small landmark over the junction with no name but fill in notes in the description field. It helps, but you still get a lot of new editors with the landmark layer off who turn it back on.

I've started locking segmemts after disallowing the turn.
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Post by harling
kentsmith9 wrote:There are now two questions in my mind:

1. Does the group generally agree with the philosophy of the statement that Waze should give the best route and let the user decide if it is legal?

2. Is the specific wording "to err on the side of caution is to sometimes recommend an illegal turn"?
I strongly disagree that to give illegal (and most likely unsafe) directions is to "err on the side of caution." Waze should only give directions that are guaranteed to be legal and safe. If a local driver knows a "short-cut" that Waze does not suggest, he can complain until Waze implements time-based restrictions; it's better than complaining that Waze cost him a $50 ticket, or a $5000 hospital bill.
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Post by harling
It has just been brought to my attention that the Best Practices document is still reversed, advocating that "the side of caution" is to allow the turn. In other words, it still reads that it is better for a Wazer driving in rush hour traffic to be directed to take a turn that is illegal, than to leave the turn restricted the rest of the day when it can be taken.

Around here, there are intersections where one driver trying to make such a turn (typically a left turn across oncoming traffic) will result in traffic pile-ups and possibly accidents, rendering this recommendation borderline suicidal. I thought we resolved that it should have been put back to the way it read earlier; i.e., that "the side of caution" was to restrict such a turn?
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Post by harling
CBenson wrote:At this point, I would advocate the simplest rule. Restricting the turn seems to me to be the simplest.
The Best Practices page still reads that these turns should be allowed. If there are no objections to changing it back, I will do so.

FWIW, the FAQ also makes a brief mention of how to handle time-based turn restrictions. Perhaps we should start linking from the FAQ to the relevant sections of the BP, for more detail and/or the reasoning behind it.
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Post by harling
I have updated the relevant section of the Best Practices document. I considered the template approach, but I don't know if we necessarily want the same wording in both the FAQ and BP documents; the goal of the FAQ is to give a quick definitive answer, while the BP is (supposed to be) more of a philosophical approach: the reasoning behind the answers in the FAQ, and guidelines for when editors need to use their discretion; i.e., when the FAQ cannot give a simple one-size-fits-all answer. (Whether that is still how the BP is being used is debatable, but that was its purpose when I did a major revision of it, must be over a year ago now.)
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Post by jasonh300
harling wrote:
CBenson wrote:At this point, I would advocate the simplest rule. Restricting the turn seems to me to be the simplest.
The Best Practices page still reads that these turns should be allowed. If there are no objections to changing it back, I will do so.

FWIW, the FAQ also makes a brief mention of how to handle time-based turn restrictions. Perhaps we should start linking from the FAQ to the relevant sections of the BP, for more detail and/or the reasoning behind it.
I thought we had worded it so that if the turn is restricted the majority of the time (6 am to 7 pm), it should be marked restricted. And if the turn is only restricted for a couple of hours (8-9 am, 5-6 pm), it should be allowed.

Personally, I think they should be all restricted so that Waze never tells someone to make an illegal turn.
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Post by kaeoboy
The wiki post that I've been following for turn restrictions guidelines is:

http://www.waze.com/wiki/index.php/Best ... cted_Turns

Unfortunately, there are UR's filed during Giants games when turns into residential areas become restricted, saying "Turn not allowed".
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Post by kaeoboy
The bad part of the UR is that it only tells me the date of the UR and not the time. So I can't tell if the person reporting it is in commute hours or not.

Based on the WeeeZer14's parameters, I would rather have the turns enabled, as sometimes the nearest non-restricted turn is several blocks ahead or in my case right turn - right turn - right turn and play avoid pedestrian dodge ball. Which in either case, with San Francisco drive time, can be 10-15 mins of a drive delay.

If the consensus is to disable the turn, there are so many in SF, that, I would just leave them alone until a UR report comes in and fix as needed, based on the guidelines.
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Post by kentsmith9
That entry was originally worded to "err on the side of caution and disallow the turn". On August 31 user Jhfrontz changed it to "allow" with the justification that the cautious information would be to allow.

Here is the original text:

Code: Select all

Waze currently has no provision for handling this type of restriction, although it is planned for the future.  In a situation where a turn is illegal during certain times of the day (e.g. No Left Turn, 7-10 am, 3-7 pm, Weekdays), it's best to err on the side of caution and disallow the turn.  This way, nobody will ever be instructed to make an illegal turn.
Here is what Jhfronz put in:

Code: Select all

Waze currently has no provision for handling this type of restriction, although it is planned for the future.  In a situation where a turn is illegal during certain times of the day (e.g. No Left Turn, 7-10 am, 3-7 pm, Weekdays), it's generally best to err on the side of caution and allow the turn.  This way, waze will always give an optimal route and the driver can decide (based on local conditions) whether or not to use it.
This change was noticed in October and Jhfronz responded for the motivation in this thread. It appears there was no resolution as to how to update the wording to recognize the group consensus.

I for one was confused by the word that to "err on the side of caution would allow the turn."

There are now two questions in my mind:

1. Does the group generally agree with the philosophy of the statement that Waze should give the best route and let the user decide if it is legal?

2. Is the specific wording "to err on the side of caution is to sometimes recommend an illegal turn"?
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