Police want Waze to remove cop-spotting feature

How else am I supposed to find the nearest cop in case of an emergency?

Is the ability to whine like an insufferably spoiled child something they test for when selecting spokesmen for police and police-interest organizations, or does it just come naturally?

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Thatā€™s what seems extra crazy about their complaint: unless the police in your jurisdiction have entirely stopped bothering to answer the phone, a hypothetical malefactor who needs to know where some cops are can just call 911 and summon some. They might have to wait longer; but itā€™s not terribly tricky.

I can only assume that crying about how it endangers vital speed-trap revenue would be too tacky, so they need something else.

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No, they would supposedly want people to drive the speed limit everywhere, not just slow down at the speed trap. So, I think the rationale for not wanting radar detectors and the like is they encourage people to speed everywhere else, selectively slowing down at speed traps, rather than, never knowing where a speed trap may pop up, keeping their speed within the limit all the time.

When that happens on a given road, traffic surveys reveal that the average traffic speed has gone down, and the speed limits are reset accordingly.

Well, yeah, I was devilā€™s advocating an ā€œif they really want to improve public safetyā€ rationale on the part of the police. If that were the case, speed traps could be useful as a means to keep everyone more likely to drive within the designated ā€œsafeā€ speed limit, and I could see where radar detectors and this app could be seen as actually reducing public safety (assuming the designated safe speed is really safer, but thatā€™s an entirely different topic).

In the real world, though, as you say, cops are often not at all interested in public safety, and simply want to generate revenue, adjusting the speed limit not for safety but for their desired quota. In which case detectors and such are a useful means of thwarting what amounts to extortion.

Then again, I often see speed traps set upā€“in front of schools and suchā€“that ARE serving a public safety need and indeed result in less people speeding through the zone. I have seen the result right next to my house, in fact, We have one set up once a month or so and Iā€™m happy to see them pull over the people going 40 in a 20 mph zoneā€“and since they started doing it I have seen that the incidence of speeders is significantly smaller. In this case, I donā€™t love the idea that some people might be getting a little ding from their phone telling them to pull back on the speed just on those days the cops are there. Not that I think it should be blocked, or made illegal. Just that a speed trap can serve a purpose other than providing money for the police dept.

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Of course, those numbers arenā€™t just violent deaths. They also include traffic accidents and being struck by vehicles- something that this feature could help prevent by alerting people to the presence of a stopped police car in advance so theyā€™re less likely to hit it.

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Bwaahahaha. Way to show your hand policeā€¦

wtf are you talking about?

Please explain, Iā€™m confused?

Only an idiotic or suicidal malefactor would call 911 from their mobile or land line since it can be tracked back to them.

well you donā€™t use your mobile phone, clearly. theyā€™re all over the place! and you donā€™t even need to unlock them to call emergency services.

By posting numbers, which may be the badge numbers of officers in the field, you are providing a stalking tool for cop-killers.

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Oh I see,

Youā€™re the one whoā€™s confused.

Those numbers are called statistics, no badges numbers were used in the creation of this data. Hope that helps clear things up for you.

O! Wow! I did not get that! Statistics, you say? And these are made from ā€œnumbersā€?!

I did not know such a thing was possible!

And here I thought all numbers were enabling cop-stalkers. You learn something new everyday!

Iā€™m so glad I got up this morning!

O, brave new world that hath such symbols inā€™t!

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This is the point where you go, ā€œoh. He was making a joke by partially quoting the original source material.ā€

He could look around for the nearest distinctively-liveried vehicle with red and blue lights on the roof and the word POLICE plastered all over it.

Or futz around with an iPhone app, hypothetical malefactorā€™s choice really.

To be clear, I thought your numbers were a good addition to the conversation.

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Textual subtleties are hard to pick up sometimes. Especially since I just skimmed the op.
Sorry for being a douche.
Letā€™s hug it out.High five!

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At least it sounds as if Waze isnā€™t caving in:

Real-time traffic app Wazeā€™s police spotting feature is a deterrent for dangerous driving, not a tool that can ā€œtrackā€ police officers, company officials said in response to concerns from the Los Angeles police chief.
The police-spotting feature allows users to drop an icon on a map indicating the rough location an officer was spotted, but it cannot ā€œtrackā€ them or give an exact location, she said.

Waze to police: App canā€™t ā€˜trackā€™ officersā€™ movements - LA Times

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