[clamprecht]

Why doesn't Google Maps (or Waze) offer 3 choices:

1. Fastest route

2. Shortest route

3. Safest route <-- this is the big one

The insurance companies would love it, and I'd love it. The data is out there... I've been asking this for over 10 years.

[maxbond]

Speculation, but probably their legal department feels like that'd be a sort of implied warranty, and if the route wasn't appreciably safer (what does that even mean? Surely reasonable people/people with a different set of strengths & weaknesses will differ), they might open themselves up to lawsuits?

Possibly a similar situation if they claim they can tell one route is safer than another, but then don't give you the safer option?

[tonymet]

Also the "least stressful route"

[IshKebab]

They have started suggesting routes with fewer turns.

[tonymet]

which i like, but "least stressful" for me would be avoiding busy intersections, or road construction, areas with lots of accidents, crime-ridden areas.

I frequently take more complicated back roads to avoid areas like the above.

[alsodumb]

When the total distance traveled for the shortest vs fastest option is very high, Google always shows both the options (or at least, some versions of them).

I think safest route is hard to define, especially given that the data is not dense and may not be relevant (e.g., an intersection had a lot of historical accidents so its technically unsafe based on data but it has been rebuilt recently and there has been no accident since so its currently safe).

[stickfigure]

Don't forget "most fun route" which is probably contrary to #3.

[pontilanda]

I badly need a "tour" mode

[agumonkey]

Interesting, as a bike commuter, it's something I gradually did manually. And it never occurred to me that they could compute it.

[NotYourLawyer]

4. Safest route + don’t send me through a bad part of town

[batch12]

> don’t send me through a bad part of town

Microsoft's attempt was branded as racist[0]. I don't think any of these companies are likely to touch this feature in the US. I did see an article about Waze doing this in Brazil in 2016, but not sure if that's still happening.

[0] https://www.npr.org/2012/01/25/145337346/this-app-was-made-f...

[NotYourLawyer]

This is why we can’t have nice things.