All of that grief for 3 minutes of savings. It's just nonsense. So I deleted the app after a week of annoyance.

It's nothing against you but is this a common opinion in the US? People in neighborhoods "own" the streets? As a Frenchman saying this is astonishing as I would naturally consider that I do own the street just as much as they do and it's my right to use it to cut traffic as I see fit.

I would go so far as saying they're abusing the system by having unwarranted traffic stops and outsized speed bumps placed around their property. It's like having their cake (single-family home with a parking space) and eating it too (avoiding traffic nuisance which they impose on others).

Just a cultural difference that I had not spotted before

In the broader sense, I think this relates to the tragedy of the commons. There are certain societal conventions that tend to make life better on the whole. Keeping traffic to main streets is one of them. Yes, I might gain a minute or two by cutting through your neighborhood, and you might make up a little time cutting through mine. But I don't take that shortcut, because I know it's determintal to the neighborhood and my benefit will be very small. Part of that comes with the expectation that others will in turn do the same for me.

Maybe this is a USAian way of thinking, but I believe that if everyone behaves in the most selfish possible way ("you don't own the street, so you don't get to complain if I use it to save 15 seconds"), life becomes worse for everyone.

I don't believe that they are "underutilized" by being used solely as neighborhood roads -- that is, in fact, all they were designed for.

I guess you and I have a different definition of "problem." No, you're not breaking any law. And no, I don't have any standing to make you change what you're doing. But you ARE increasing traffic in front of my house, which is a problem for me. I believe that voluntarily avoiding creating problems for other people is part of living in a civilized society. Especially when the benefit I get from creating those problems is relatively small, as it almost always is when I take a shortcut through a neighborhood.

I think it’s important to acknowledge that the decisions we make do have impacts on other people. Legality shouldn’t be the only factor in our decision making.

And yes, I agree with chrisbennet that people are probably less likely to drive responsibly when they’re not in their own neighborhood (i.e. where they don’t feel the direct effect).

"you don't get to appropriate the road that I helped fund with tax money and that belongs to everyone"

When Waze sends me off into some neighborhood it's not usually someplace I'm familiar with, certainly not even the same town I pay taxes in i.e. I didn't help fund that road.

"If it's a public road and I drive legally and responsibly then there's no problem."

The thing is, people often don't drive responsibly except in their own neighborhood (and maybe not even then). I saw a sign once that said something along the lines "Please drive like your own kids play here." The people who take a short cut to save time are probably not the ones who are willing to go 20 miles an hour looking for kids on bikes, house cats in roads, etc.

This is the problem.

Where I live, people taking shortcuts roll thru stop signs and bomb down side streets, peering at their phones, speeding up as needed to validate their choice of this time-saving shortcut.

The local cops (LAPD) have bigger things on their plate than traffic scofflaws, so it leaves residents with little recourse.

The abstract principles here ("it's a public road") don't translate well into what is in reality a complex situation.

I only bring that up to point out a cultural difference that other cultures might see this differently

https://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20101116164518A...

However, it is common in Sweden to respect unwritten laws and social conventions. Many neighbourhoods also have neighbourhood watch and such things. I haven't lived there for over ten years but I'd imagine not taking shortcuts through neighbourhoods with children would be a convention most swedes will respect.

There is a traditional free right to roam, but it does not extend to gardens and areas next to houses. Outside of that, it is rather permissive.

Back on topic but still in Sweden: more or less all shortcuts in residential areas are closed, either by physical barriers, or more commonly by official signs forbidding pass-through traffic, and they are typically respected.

Well, isn't it what NIMBY is about?

Yes, but it's nuanced. Own the streets in order to control the environment of our mini-castles (our homes), but know that we don't have a legal basis to stand on.

Neighborhood streets weren't organized in a manner to accommodate high traffic patterns, and it ends up being a real issue for local residents. It's not too much of a stretch to be upset that your once quiet neighborhood is now a major traffic jam because of a mobile app.

> It's like having their cake (single-family home with a parking space) and eating it too (avoiding traffic nuisance which they impose on others).

Multi-family units with multi parking spaces cause significantly more traffic issues than single family home.

> As a Frenchman...and it's my right to use it to cut traffic as I see fit.

Is this why people in Paris don't clean up after their dogs on sidewalks? I know Parisians don't represent all the french, but it definitely was a culture shock seeing all that excrement.

I lived in France for several years and overall it was great, but this part puzzled and somewhat annoyed me.

What we should have is better infrastructure on the main roads. The whole point is that they go faster than neighborhood side streets; and if that's not working then something isn't right. More or better public transit, more or better bike friendly roads, homes closer to work or telecommute. Or maybe the cauliflower neighborhood design, where basically the neighborhood is a maze, there's a mandatory 90 degree right or left turn ever 3 blocks, so it's totally pointless to use such a neighborhood for rat running. And it's not super expensive to retrofit a neighborhood this way; certainly it's more pedestrian and cyclist friendly. Plus it also slows people down automatically, no one is going to rip a 90 degree right going 20mph.

So you take all the acrimony, regulations, fines, speed bumps, dips, ugly signage away and just design the thing to be driven the way the neighborhood wants, and not designed for rat running.

If the intention is to scare vehicles away, it's unlikely that they come out specifically for one type of vehicle.

I'd rather take the straightforward road and share with cars, thank you. (Yes, think Toronto, not Atlanta.)

One part of the issue is being addressed by restricting traffic (e.g. forbidding left or right turns, etc.) but it also inconveniences the locals. I think a part of a better solution would be if the streets and roads were graded with more nuance in the maps Google/Waze/others use. As it is now, there is little distinction between a proper street or a small back street that's really just a single lane split for both directions, or something that's basically a glorified driveway.

To some degree Google and Waze seem to have caught on to this and are directing these trucks to take a left prior to the overpass. Now we have signs that disallow trucks on these roads since they are residential and nobody wants a truck running children over.[1] The last of these streets contains the local elementary school.

My point is that it's more complicated than it looks. Increased traffic is one thing, but large vehicles represent and entirely different issue. In this case, Google and Waze aren't really serving anyone at all.

[0]: http://www.masslive.com/news/index.ssf/2014/11/northamptons_...

[1]: https://www.google.com/maps/place/Bridge+Street+Elementary+S...

Not by anyone who understands how roads are paid for.

Interestingly enough, WAZE does not pay for those roads.

Should tobacco companies have any responsibility for the effects of it's products?

However, those costs are subsidized by the public.

The community has organized with the city to add in more stop signs and is attempting to get speed bumps put in place that would control the speed of the traffic. Everyone understands that they cannot legally stop someone from driving down the street but they can add in traffic controls to lower the risk to those who live in the area and make it less appealing to leave the main road designed for higher traffic.

In our case, it isn't about owning the streets, but rather is a matter of safety.

Yes. In many suburban neighborhoods (especially predominantly white ones) people will give you dirty looks if you are a stranger walking around. If you are black many white people will call the police.

"A woman told police someone rang her doorbell but when she called out to ask who it was, no one answered. Police responded and determined the visitor had delivered a package. A resident called police to report that someone had tipped over his recycling containers. A man was reported to be lying on the ground, possibly writing. A person reported a man tried to hide his face, then turned and walked away."

The issue is that the street was built for 10 cars an hour and now it's getting 300. Why is that important? It determines how wide the shoulders are, whether there's stop signs or roundabouts or traffic lights, whether there's on-street parking, whether there's just painted lines or botts dots' or physical lane barriers, etc.

It's not about ownership, it's about a street that was designed for X now being used for Y.

While I have a parking spot on my own land, in some neighborhoods you get to take a public asset and make it private for either free or 1/10th the market rate. Some are even audacious enough to put cones in front of their houses.

Does France not have differently-sized streets for different traffic needs? You don't have highways there?

Not only that, but coming to a complete stop frequently is bad for fuel economy. I'd rather be able to configure the app to maximize fuel economy (within reason, I also want to use highways where available even though I get better economy cruising at 50 than at 70). Saving 10 seconds just isn't worth the trouble.

The other problem with this kind of overly-aggressive routing is that it's frequently just plain wrong. You can get routed onto some single-lane country road where you can't pass; if there's no one else on the road, then great, you can go fast around the curves and make decent time. But you're also likely to get stuck behind some slow-ass, and that means you'll end up taking more time than if you had taken a more mainstream route on a 2-lane road. I use Google Maps (in combination with my built-in nav based on HERE) and even though it's not as aggressive, it does this to me a lot and it's annoying.

I'm curious if there is some threshold of traffic at which these algorithms can no longer be accurate. If so, Los Angeles has long passed this threshold.

I've stopped using Waze or any comparable apps long ago.

That said, one thing I've noticed is to actually save time on these empty side streets, you have to disregard the speed limit and stop signs. I suspect you have enough people blasting through at high speed, rolling through stop signs, that Waze learns time can be saved. Because in my experience, if you stay under 25, and do full stops, you're losing time not saving it. Waze probably knows this, and chooses not to fix it. IMO, that's the real moral dilemma at hand: you've got an app recommending routes that can save time, but only if you choose to drive recklessly.

GPS also has no notion of speed traps or potholes, but Waze does because they crowdsource it. They could add a way for people to report routes that are undesirable for other reasons.

It's doing half its job.

My dad would always drive maddeningly slowly through residential neighborhoods, and he'd explain it with kids are irresponsible and unpredictable. I didn't understand then, but I do now.

Sometimes when late I rather save a few minutes and I don't care which route I take.

Maybe they should let one pick whether they want an aggressive route or not. There's always google maps for slower highway mostly routes.

Mostly, I'd rather sit in the traffic on the main thoroughfare and just chill out listening to music or the radio. Not to mention, the increased mileage, wear and tear and fuel consumption from the back roads and constant turns (and disrupting otherwise quiet neighborhoods).

Waze also doesn't seem to grasp the "cost" of a left turn, particularly at a busy intersection when there's a fair bit of traffic (and no traffic control). I know Waze monitors the transit time for road segments, but I don't think it includes time waiting to turn or maybe it averages it over the day and thus ends up underestimating.

At this point I ignore Waze re-routes unless I have a good indication that the backup is severe, and I have some reason to believe that the alternate route is reasonable. This means that I have gotten stuck in traffic a couple of times unnecessarily, but it has also saved me the trouble of numerous dubious "shortcuts."

These days, if my system has me get off the main road, take small streets for a while, then get back on the main road, I'll ignore it unless the traffic it shows is really, really bad. Occasionally I regret this, but I regret it less often than I regretted obeying the machine before.

In Boston, where I live, the side streets are often narrow, one way, and labyrinthine. A lot of times, I'd rather just drive the extra minute through the traffic light rather than zig-zag around it.

I don;t think you need even go that far. All those extra corners, braking and such aren't great for the car. They have a cost in terms of maintenance. Lots of "city miles" driving is why cop and taxi cars fall apart so quickly. I doubt so many people would follow Waze so closely if they new it was going to cost them a couple hundred extra every year in parts.

It feels like a classic probability problem. A shortcut has a low number of samples and high variance. The main thoroughfare has lots of same and low variance.

Maybe they could show confidence intervals "This route is 2 minutes faster ±5 minutes" :)