Research conclusions on Waze won't surprise anyone

A waze's great popularity is due not only to the platform's capabilities to update in real time the most efficient route for drivers, but also to functionality allows leaving warnings to other drivers.

These warnings can go from pointing out the existence of accidents, obstacles on the road and cars parked on the side, as well as the existence of police on a certain route. Well, a new investigation indicates that this ability to alert the presence of authority forces is being used by drivers to avoid fines.

The conclusions will be no stranger to anyone who has used Waze in the past and realized that it is possible to choose alternative routes as soon as a police presence route is suggested.

The investigation was carried out by the University of the Sunshine Coast, located in Queensland, Australia, and indicates that drivers only slow down to avoid fines and not because of the speed limit imposed by the authorities.

“Drivers do not slow down because of the speed limit”, writes one of the investigators, Levi Anderson, according to the digitalTrends site. “Slow down because the phone tells them that the police are ahead”.

Researchers base their conclusions on the observation of drivers’ behaviour at 33 locations in the Queensland area, noting that the police presence alerts took about 14 minutes to start being exhibited by Waze.

In areas where the speed limits were about 100km/h, the number of drivers driving in excess of speed decreased between 61% and 12% as soon as the police presence alert was issued in Waze. The study was fully shared in scientific journal Journal of Experimental Criminology.

While commending Waze's alert system, researchers consider that functionality may harm “road safety as drivers feel encouraged to drive at high speed if the app does not alert them to police presence”.

Police presence alert does not appear in all countries

It is worth remembering that the ability to leave this type of alert in Waze is not presented in all territories where the application is present – with Switzerland and Liechtenstein being two of them.

“The functionality of reporting the police was disabled in Switzerland and Liechtenstein in August 2026”you can read this one official Waze page. “ Currently, this functionality is no longer available in these two countries. All other features of the application continue to function normally: navigation, real-time traffic information, road hazard alerts and route calculation”.

Waze goes so far as to explain that the blockade was made on legal basis and notes that in Switzerland, the law “prohibits devices intended to hinder, interrupt or render ineffective official road traffic monitoring and warn road users about such checks”.