Garmin to introduce crowd-sourced Ride Hazard Reporting
This is perhaps the least exciting post of mine of the year. I’m just going to have to abandon the pretence of trying to write a paragraph and use trusty bullet points. Let’s go…it won’t take long.
Garmin is about to introduce a crowd-sourced list of hazards including ‘slippery’, pothole, obstruction and animal.
- I’m just not convinced that’s going to work. If Garmin alerted me about potholes in London/Surrey it would be a continuous, monotonous tone. They are everywhere. This country is falling apart even more than my body appears to be.
- Animals won’t be ‘there’ by the time you get ‘there’. Wherever ‘there’ might be.
- Obstruction – could be useful for planning purposes providing the road is actually completely closed including the path.
- Slippery – I guess oil or ice on the road would be useful to know about. But might only be there for several hours or a day.
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Hahahaha. You’re very right!
I clicked on trusting it wouldn’t be a long story.
Garmin apparently now uses AI; animal is hilarious!!!
They could have used it though in last years women’s Strade!!! Or does Veloviewer have that service already?
Any news on a new wahoo?
nope
I think slippery is more useful than you think. For example there are roads on Mallorca wich are slippery all year around because there are lichens and moos growing on the tarmac. I also know several small streets in the middle of nowhere here in Germany which I like to ride but with loose gravel on the tarmac, especially in Corners where water is running down the hill.
Obstruction needs to be updated much more regular than Garmin is doing on the maps. Potholes its the same everywhere: doesn’t make sense to warn.
yep, fair point
This could be a good feature in less civilized parts of the world, like the US. Dog attacks are a big problem in many areas outside the city due to limited enforceability of the laws.
I think if they leveraged Google maps data for traffic and information this could work. But relying on users to fill in information, no way.