
Waze Data Can Help Predict Car Crashes and Cut Response Time - nsoonhui
https://www.wired.com/story/waze-data-help-predict-car-crashes-cut-response-time/
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melling
“Here’s the thing about car crashes: They are blessedly pretty rare. In the
US, nine people are injured in motor vehicle crashes for every 100 million
miles traveled in cars, according to data from the National Highway Traffic
Safety Administration.”

There are 6 million accidents every year in the US alone. 90 people die every
day.

I suppose it’s just a matter of which statistic you choose. However, in my
view accidents are not rare.

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AuthorizedCust
The best statistic will account for exposure. Also look at fatalities per 100
million miles traveled over the past few decades: incredible reductions!

~~~
melling
“The number of deaths per passenger-mile on commercial airlines in the United
States between 2000 and 2010 was about 0.2 deaths per 10 billion passenger-
miles.[1][2] For driving, the rate was 150 per 10 billion vehicle-miles for
2000 : 750 times higher per mile than for flying in a commercial airplane”

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transportation_safety_in_the_U...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transportation_safety_in_the_United_States)

~~~
Retric
Commercial Aviation is the equivalent of US buses which have a dramatically
better safety record. School buses for example are about 70x as safe as
driving your kids to school.

The vastly more deadly general aviation compares more closely with the
automotive fatality rates. GA has 16 fatal accidents per million hours, that’s
horrific.

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jnty
It's slightly unfair, but I read this as Waze deciding to route a bunch of
cars down a narrow residential street to divert around a congested highway
then going "whoa, that's gonna be chaos! Watch the sparks fly!"

More seriously, I hope they're using this accident data - particularly
involving pedestrians - to avoid making routing decisions that increase their
risk.

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mikece
Cross-referenced with time of day and weather conditions (rainy and foggy in
an area where it's typically neither) I would think Google (Waze's parent
company) could estimate that the chances for accident-based delays are
elevated and recommend a sooner start to a commute. Maybe cross with
Facebook's social data (users who were at a bar last night and for how long)
combined with known start/end points for commutes and historical times that
people make those commutes, the ability to guestimate the chances for an
accident could be increased even more. Yes, it's very big-brother but if it
saves me 20 minutes to 2 hours waiting in traffic...

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adrianmonk
Even if they had that data, how do they apply it usefully?

Let's assume that, even when the odds of a crash are elevated, they're still
relatively low. Perhaps the chances of a wreck along your route jump from 1%
to 10%.

If a wreck happens, there's also a lot of variability to how much delay it
could add. If it is minor, it could be cleared or moved to the shoulder in 20
minutes. If there is a fatality or a big truck flips over, it could close the
whole road for hours.

You also don't know how critical it is to the user to arrive on time. Maybe
tomorrow the first thing on the agenda is to do an important presentation to
management, but the next day the first thing on the agenda is to do some code
reviews and catch up on email. So do you need 99% confidence that you'll
arrive on time or would 80% confidence be good enough? The answer to that
question will have a big effect on how early you have to tell them to leave.
(I guess you could just explicitly ask the user, though, which might be nice.)

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mannykannot
With Waze directing streams of phone-watching drivers onto roads they are
unfamiliar with and which are unsuited for the traffic, I can also predict
there will be crashes.

~~~
mjlee
It's at least possible that putting drivers on to roads they're less familiar
with could decrease the amounts of fatal accidents.

For example - [http://roadsafetygb.org.uk/news/end-of-the-road-for-white-
li...](http://roadsafetygb.org.uk/news/end-of-the-road-for-white-lines-4868/)

~~~
mannykannot
Even if that is valid in its limited domain - and I doubt that it is, given
that no consideration seems to have been given to the dangers of increasing
variance in driver behavior - there's no reason to believe it applies where
roads gain a lot more traffic than they are suited for (and especially when
most of the increase are technically lost, in that they, personally, do not
know where they are or what they will encounter next.)

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dsfyu404ed
Other than having the new and shiny veneer of technology making political and
management buy in easier to obtain (which is valuable) how is this any more
effective asking the EMTs and tow truck drivers where the problem areas are?

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lightedman
Waze can't even get the traffic conditions right ON TIME. Every time I've ever
used the app it tells me either way too late (as in that accident up ahead
doesn't even exist and hasn't for two hours) or not at all. I'm curious as to
how they honestly think Waze can be helpful when it's this slow.

