Waze adds snow and ice alerts to keep you from skidding off-road
Waze's newest reporting feature will bring relief to anyone struggling with frosty commutes this winter.
The crowdsourced traffic navigation app launched its snow reporting feature Tuesday for drivers across the U.S. and Canada. Along with real-time traffic conditions and other potential safety issues, like road construction or a broken traffic light, snow conditions will now also come up in the app. For users, it'll function much like flagging a red-light camera would. And, no, this is not some new feature that'll send you off on a treacherous snowy route.
Waze worked with the Virginia Department of Transportation to create an in-app option to report snow (or ice, freezing rain, hail, heavy rain, and unplowed roads). This will allow other drivers to see where snowy conditions are a bit rough. It can also help transportation agencies, like the VDOT, assign snow plow teams, dispatch emergency crews to certain areas, and even help with signage for drivers who might need to re-route or put on tire chains.
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Here's how that new snow reporting feature will look in action:
Thanks to the 130 million monthly active users who crowdsource information and report it, Waze can give you all sorts of information about road hazards. Snow-related alerts now join as many as 25 other reportable hazards, including oil on the road, potholes, roadkill, missing signs, and even tornadoes. Please don't drive into a twister, folks.
Now, when it's freezing, you'll know what's on the road ahead. Spoiler alert: It's cold and wet.
Sasha is a news writer at Mashable's San Francisco office. She's an SF native who went to UC Davis and later received her master's from the UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism. She's been reporting out of her hometown over the years at Bay City News (news wire), SFGate (the San Francisco Chronicle website), and even made it out of California to write for the Chicago Tribune. She's been described as a bookworm and a gym rat.
