Google Maps will alert you about speed cameras and traffic accidents

Google Maps’ expanded services are starting to include alerts about the location of speed cameras and road accidents

Back in 2013, when the corporate giant Google bought Waze, the popular navigation and real-time information app that, in addition to guiding drivers by GPS signal on road trips, alerts them to traffic incidents thanks to its users’ interaction through the internet connection of their devices, a key tool for using travel time more efficiently, we assumed that Google Maps would incorporate the features that made Waze what it was, thereby giving more power to its own app at the expense of the one it had acquired.

That acquisition of Waze led us to expect what happened at the end of 2018: Google Maps announced it would also start offering instant information on traffic conditions.

Then, in January 2019, Google’s next step in its GPS navigation app was to alert users to the location of speed cameras in Google Maps. Another feature that would reach mobile phones through updates.

And now, depending on the version of the browser itself and available only on some devices, users can add alerts in Google Maps about speed cameras and accidents. This means Google’s app is taking on one of the biggest attractions Waze offers, or rather, offered.

How to add a speed camera or accident alert in Google Maps

In a very similar way to Waze, the user adds, by tapping the corresponding icon on the screen, the accident or speed camera alert that Google Maps will collect and share with other users. For now, there is no option to report a police checkpoint.

As we noted, this availability is not widespread across all mobile devices with Google Maps, since, pending confirmation, the service provider may be testing this new update in a limited way, only on a certain number of devices and in specific locations.

That said, just as we assumed these services would become available shortly after Waze joined Google’s group of companies, which has not happened, we do expect the general rollout of this update in the near future, which will let users find out, almost instantly after it is added to the maps, the location of a speed camera or an accident in Google Maps.