I have been discussing this recently with some other guys and we did not find a common recommendation what is better… Those u-turns can be beneficial in one particular situation:
For example you are in the residential area and you are navigating somewhere out from it. Generally, in residential areas, those roads are just little, residential, mostly parking lots… So, there you may practically make u-turn anywhere. In that case, using u-turn as allowed might be good for the following situation: you are heading with your car in one direction. Waze knows the direction you are heading to and wants to navigate you in your direction. But, if you turn around, there might be a shorter road for you. When that u-turn is not allowed, waze will not offer you u-turn and might lead you with a longer road. But when u-turn is allowed there, waze immediately tells you to turn around and you will continue with the shorter road… But this is basically the only case where this is beneficial.
On the other hand, I read that having many of those u-turns allowed might be a problem for waze routing server as it must calculate many different roads (including u-turns)… So, their usage really depends… When I checked Israel, they have them, not so many, but they do. But for example in our capitol city we do not have any - only on places where roads connect to some undrivable segment (pedestrian walk). But for example in Russia, they have them currently on many places, basically as an experiment (but only in residential areas where it is really possible to turn around pretty much everywhere). You may check the attachments of this post to see some areas I am talking about…
So, I basically would like to hear opionions of shmupi and sh-oded and more other experienced editors who read this thread so we might agree how to proceed generally in Jordan.
I just checked a random city, was not really browsing there… Regarding Jordan driving, well, as you for sure know, official laws might be different from what people actually do. I did not have a feeling that majority of people follow the rules there. So, I guess, the locals would say that you may make u-turn pretty much everywhere :lol: … Anyway, I willl wait for your update regarding this topic, thanks
I didn’t said that I assume you’ve misunderstood me.
In my opinion U-turns should be all disabled by default, the ones that should be enabled are the legal ones and the convenient and easy to U turn ones. (easy = one move without reversing )
As for the existing map , when the transfer from Cartouche to WME everything Waze was not supporting U-turns at all , but the map conversion allowed all U-turns by default.
As I was saying about each city in IL and it’s difference…there are AM’s who believe that U-turn should be suggested anywhere that is no sign and it’s legal. My approach is to allow only where it actually good for the driver and easy to make the U-turn…and allowed by law of course.
I agree and I have the same opionion that they should be disabled by default - also WME disables them by default, no matter you have marked “Draw new roads with all turns allowed”.
But then, what about the advantage I pointed out and is also stated in waze wiki?
Some examples where allowing a U-turn can allow Waze to find a better route for a Wazer include: When the drive begins with the car headed the wrong way for the best route, and when a Wazer has made an incorrect turn during a drive. When reversing course is quicker than taking a long detour, allowing the U-turn enables Waze to find a better route.
But my opinion is exactly as yours, disabled by default and enabled only on places where it makes sense (and is legal of course)…
Yes, I know Waze is community thing and also rules are localized for individual countries’ needs. In Jordan we have been considering to go with the "global"wiki rules, but when we find out that it requires change, it would be adjusted for Jordan as well…
Anyway, back to the topic of U-turns. I agree to have them disabled. Also in residential areas, because Waze can still navigate you to make “u-turn” by going in the loop of nearby streets (as I put into the example on the images below).
@Local guys - maybe you can also share your thoughts about this topic?
20+ years ago people used to follow the rules more strictly, nowadays people use them more as “guidelines.” I can’t tell you how many times I saw people go down the wrong way on a one way street and act as if the oncoming traffic are in the wrong…
My suggestion is to turn them on for the high traffic areas like main roads. The rest should be turned off as most people will make U-turns in secondary streets regardless. I’ve seen main streets with signs that you cannot U-turn there. So having U-turns on for those streets and off where it is illegal will provide more benefit in my opinion.
Yes I have had similar experiences here even though I have only lived in Jordan for 2.5 years. My company has had traffic safety briefings from traffic police who have said ‘this is the law but actually it is completely fine to break the law and do x, y, z’ - particularly on traffic circles and some T intersections.
In my opinion it would be better to leave u-turns off by default. In most ‘Streets’ in Amman and regional towns the average street is not wide enough to perform a u-turn without reversing aka 3 point turn. Even in places where the streets are wide enough, it would only be practical to perform a u-turn where there is almost no traffic such as on a Friday morning, not during a typical week day.
As for what is legal, in Jordan there are center line markings including single and double solid lines and also broken lines. As in many other countries, solid lines should not be crossed and broken lines can be crossed when safe (or when concentrating 100% on your mobile phone :lol: ). As siowan said, the solid lines are more of a guideline nowadays. In addition to solid lines, in many streets in Amman there are short concrete barriers in the center of the road which are not visible on the satellite imagery. Many of the recent UR error reports have been due to these barriers preventing turns or crossing directly over streets. I think if we enabled u-turns by default on all streets, this would cause many many URs reporting errors or wrong driving directions. At the moment very few Waze users in Jordan are replying with additional information so it would be very difficult to figure out on which streets u-turns were actually possible. In some cases when I have time I have actually driven to the locations where URs have been reported to actually see what is on the street. Quite often I have found there is a center division/barrier.
Thanks for all the input on this thread so far. Can we all agree to leave u-turns off by default?
as siowan said, and as a Jordanian driver I’m telling you, we only remember law when the accident happen to see whos to blame
personally, I’ll not enter a one-way road but 80% of Jordanians do, as for U-turns, I’ll perform a U-turn in the smallest road even if it will take me to perform 4 point turn
But we’re building maps for humans AND machines (driverless cars :ugeek: ) and we should do the right thing, I’m no traffic expert, but if the global standard is not allowing U-turns we shouldn’t allow it.
But let me ask you a question, in a small road with no U-turns, if I’ve returned won’t it be faster to waze to understand what have I done if it knows that this road allows U-turns? or is it the same? I mean we can allow one or two U-turns on the road :roll:
I am not sure I understand… When you change route (make u-turn for example), Waze will do recalculation of that route, so no, it will not make any problem for the navigation. Basically, the only “advantage” I put on those two print-screens what you can see here in this topic above. If Waze does not know about u-turn, it will still turn you around by using nearby streets…
I think I know what you mean. When I drive to my office, for example, I am driving south along a street. When it is time to drive home I generally drive back north along the same street. About 20% of the time Waze seems to provide a route home which tells me to turn south when I leave my office. It is possible to drive south and loop back around and this route is probably only a couple of minutes slower.
Perhaps Waze remembers the last direction I was travelling (south) before the end of my travel and then for my next trip/route Waze assumes my vehicle is still facing south? If u-turns were enabled for the street, would Waze tell me to drive north instead? (Sorry if I am creating confusion about Waze routing calculations).
I usually drive north because I know that direction is almost always faster. Of course, after a few seconds travelling north Waze will recalculate the route. Even though enabling u-turns might ‘fix’ this routing calculation, I don’t think this a good enough reason to enable u-turns.
I can see in Amralomari’s example that in a more remote areas, you might want Waze to know that doing a u-turn is possible and would allow a much shorter route than driving around the block which is possible in city areas.
also not to forget that we don’t have the exact true data of what turns are allowed or not. a famous example is the Shmeisani area, anyone who drove there knows the tons of not allowed turns for left or right (personally I’ve not driven there with waze yet, but Gmaps is not very good there, plus GAM may suddenly decide to convert the St. into one way), so allowing U-turns may save time :?:
I also think they should be turned off by default. If someone notices a location where there is a sign that says you can U-Turn, you can always turn it on for that particular location.
Well I think everyone agrees u-turns should be turned off by default.
Of course there will be some exceptions. Until there is an official source of information (GAM etc) then editors with local knowledge can add u-turns on streets where u-turns are legal. From previous comments I expect there will be u-turns in mainly rural areas with very few in Amman or other large cities.
Thanks everyone for contributing to this topic, if I had forum rights, I would mark it as closed for other replies :lol: … Anyway, as agreed, please do NOT allow u-turns when creating new segments.
