[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.

[Gigachad]

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