This is why I don't use side streets as shortcuts. Even before I had kids I understood it was a bad idea. I also try to only use services like Google Maps before departing, memorizing key turns. It helps that I'm old enough to have learned how to drive in unfamiliar areas without a computer giving me the turn-by-turn.
Perhaps one day Waze and others will be held liable for any accidents or even public nuisances that occur.[1]
[1] Better that than government regulators acting as gatekeepers for technological innovation, who typically rely on imaginary, fear-based scenarios rather than actual, manifest harms.
> Perhaps one day Waze and others will be held liable for any accidents or even public nuisances that occur.
Waze is sending drivers onto public roads. Public roads belong to everyone, not just the people whose kids play street hockey on the roads.
Don't like it? Then privatize the roads and make the people who live on the roads bear 100% of the maintenance and law enforcement costs. But don't complain about members of the public using a public road.
I'm not complaining about members of the public using a public road. I'm complaining about a company directing its users to take routes which were never designed as throughways; routes which few if any of those users would have taken butfor Waze directing them.
Imagine you own a large parcel of land with a public easement for crossing to a beach. Every day a few dozen people walk across. Now imagine I put together a party and direct 3,000 friends to walk across your parcel all at once. As large crowds of people do, they stray and destroy things. Your mailbox. A small bridge crossing a creek that you own and maintain (thankfully nobody is hurt).
Butfor my party and the people I invited, none of this damage would have happened.
Not only did I create a credible nuisance (actionably by itself), it's not too much of a stretch to say I could be held vicariously liable for the damages. All this even though it was a public right-of-way.
In the absence of relief (self-policing, civil liability), I can tell you what is likely happen with the Waze issue. States will pass laws that require Waze and others to exclude routes upon notice by state authorities. A database will emerge of impermissible throughways. Neighborhoods and towns will scramble to add their streets to the database. Violations will come with huge fines whether or not actual harm occurs, even if the violation was exceptional (i.e. reroutes through blacklisted streets during a traffic accident). Ultimately the only routes you'll be given are truck routes.
This has already begun, it's just voluntary, and Waze doesn't cooperate. That's not going to last long. Waze will ruin the space for everybody else by inviting heavy-handed regulation.
Yeah the "public roads for everyone" point is always the immediate response to the Waze debate, and it's accurate. But really the opposing viewpoints are:
- my "right" to drive to somewhere as quickly as possible
- living on a street without cars zipping by
City planners didn't plan out streets for Waze. We generally have small, slower streets feeding into larger, faster streets. The smaller streets weren't designed to be thoroughfares. And sure there were people who knew shortcuts, but with Waze, it's a magnitude more drivers.
So you can't fault homeowners for being upset by this change. And the folks driving on these sidestreets aren't legally trespassing, but they're probably speeding, and that's the crux of most complaints.
If the re-routed folks were driving carefully at 15-25mph on these sidestreets, I don't think anyone would care. But they're usually going 35mph or whatever is the usual speed limit on the main thoroughfare. Their mindset they just dodged some traffic and now's they need to make up some time.
And as a result homeowners need to ask the city to install traffic calming measures like speedbumps in their neighborhood to make it less attractive for re-routing.
Perhaps one day Waze and others will be held liable for any accidents or even public nuisances that occur.[1]
[1] Better that than government regulators acting as gatekeepers for technological innovation, who typically rely on imaginary, fear-based scenarios rather than actual, manifest harms.