It was noon and I was driving to a lunch tweet-up in Mont Kiara.
Half a kilometre later, indeed there were cops hiding behind some bushes.
Wow! What a clever navigation app, I thought.
Cleverer than my domineering 70-something mother who drives me crazy with her incessant turn-by-turn instructions when seated next to me while I’m driving.
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| New Waze ; Outsmarting Traffic |
Introducing Waze, the amazing social networking navigation app with the tagline “Outsmarting Traffic, Together”.
How does it work? First download the free app to your iPhone or android smartphone, sign up, set your destination and drive.
The app will provide turn-by-turn directions, with an automated woman’s voice telling you where to go.
“By simply driving with the app open on your phone, you passively contribute traffic and other road data that helps the Waze system to provide other Waze drivers with the optimal route to their destination, including live traffic information,” according to Waze in waze.com.
Waze is about “crowdsourcing”.
Here’s how it works: say you are driving 60kph on Jalan Kuching, that information will be sent to Waze via the Internet.
It will analyse that data together with other data sent by Wazers, and it will know the traffic situation on Jalan Kuching.
The fun part about Waze is that you can submit reports on accidents, traffic jams and “hidden” policemen.
There have been times when I wished there had been an accident so that I could report that there was an accident.
A few weeks ago, I was a Waze baby with a cute avatar – a pink quote bubble on wheels sucking a baby pacifier.
After 100 miles (about 160km), I graduated to Waze Grown-Up (I lost the baby pacifier).
The next rank is Waze Warrior, when I reach the top 10% of scorers in my region.
Waze has the inside knowledge of a taxi driver. It will suggest unconventional routes so that you can avoid a traffic jam.
With crowdsourcing, when there is an accident on the road, Waze will warn you not to take that route.
At first I did not believe that Waze was that smart.
Instead of taking a toll road which it suggested, I took the NKVE Highway which on the Waze map was congested because of an accident.
Big mistake. I was stuck in a 30-minute crawl because drivers were slowing down to jot down the licence plate of the cars involved in the three-car pile-up in the other lane.
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| Waze Makes Driving Exciting |
Waze also makes driving exciting. Instead of your habitual route, it would suggest a route that you did not consider for your favourite neighbourhood shopping mall.
It thinks of routes that you’ll never think about. Wonder if there is a Waze app for sexual positions?
As predicted by Waze, I arrived at KLCC at around 12.35pm.
I raved about Waze to my Twitter friends. And I was not the only one raving.
If you have passion for maps, you can edit and update the Waze map.
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