One of the features of Waze is that a lot of the information you can see in the app is crowdsourced. For example Waze gives users the ability to report things like accidents (which other users can later confirm whether or not it is still there), speed traps, police road blocks, and more.Now it seems that Google Maps is getting similar features as well. According to a post on Reddit (via 9to5Google), users are reporting that they are now seeing the ability to report on accidents and speed traps through Google Maps. This comes in the form of a new icon that you can see on the app (see screenshot above) where upon tapping it, users will be able to report accidents or speed traps.
Those are the only two options presented to users at the moment and it is unclear if Google Maps will be getting other reporting features similar to Waze. How the feature works is pretty straightforward, where all users need to do is click on the icon and it should show up on the map for other Google Map users.
As 9to5Google points out, this isn’t exactly a new feature as Google has been working on and testing out this feature since at least last year. However based on the roll out, it seems that Google could finally be done with it (or are expanding the testing in a larger way), so keep an eye out for it on your phone.
Image credit – askthepoolboy/Reddit
Filed in . Read more about Google, Google Maps and Waze.