[three_seagrass]

>riskier, more stressful, and ultimately not much faster in reality

I used to think the same until we A/B tested it a few times (Maps/Waze) with different cars going to the same destination.

Waze really was faster very time.

[nottorp]

Yep, I use Waze to run around my city at peak traffic because its traffic info is somehow better and it manages to pick a fast ish route every time.

From personal experience, i've regretted ignoring waze because "i live here and know better" every time at rush hour.

[jonny_eh]

I wonder why can't Google Maps use the same routing, even as an option?

[xyzelement]

I had wondered about that before. My guess is that Google considers Waze and Maps users to be different type of "navigators", with Waze being a self-selecting group of folks who want crazy routes to shave a few seconds here and there, while the Maps users are more mainstream and just want a sensible route with options. So they may have hesitated to give the "crazy" option to them.

Another thing, I suspect there's a significant resource cost in constantly re-evaluating these few-second saving opportunities that may not scale well to the size of Map's user base. Could be wrong here.

[sgloutnikov]

I am exactly one of those users which you describe and only use Waze for long trips and Maps for the rest. Waze urban navigation drives me crazy with the route it picks sometimes, hoping of shaving off a few seconds.

[Gigachad]

Because city planners would start blocking off side streets if a huge product like google maps was directing people through them.