Maps with road drivability grading
- By
- Aparna Patel
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- 26 Jul, 2023
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Most maps already do, to some extent. There are different colors and width depending on the type of road, special signs for steep sections, etc. It’s certainly the case of the maps I used in Western Europe. However, you do need to read them carefully and have some basic knowledge about the country to calibrate your expectations.
The main issue is that what you describe (lots of curves, road too narrow to cross comfortably, no hard shoulder and I am guessing haphazard markings as well) just sounds like a typical countryside road in the west of Ireland. It can certainly feel difficult at first, especially at night, but there is really no reason to single that one out on a map.
For people who live(d) there, it’s not “super-duper hard”, it’s called “driving”. After all, it’s asphalted and large enough for a car! You can expect all roads marked with a thin white line and some of those marked yellow on, e.g., the Michelin map to be like that (and you were lucky not to have to stop for a herd of sheep!).
Incidentally, many people don’t like driving on large multilane motorways or through tunnels and bridges (the only way to build a road through a hilly area that is not steep and full of bends) so some unidimensional “difficulty” or “drivability” measure is unlikely to suit everybody. I imagine that if you only ever drove in Ireland, a German motorway can be quite an experience as well.
While I’ve seen some academic research being done toward eventually creating these sorts of maps (I work in a transit-related industry), I’m not aware of any end-user products being available yet.
At the present, I think your best solution is to use a crowd-sourced social navigation community such as Waze. Their system enables you to send chats to other drivers in your area, e.g. “Driving to Cliffs of Moher from Waterford…anything I should look out for?”.
It also allows drivers to post alerts on traffic, accidents, police presence, and road hazards that are geo-tagged to their location and sent as alerts to other drivers as they approach that area.
For example, I used it recently while riding passenger with my brother on Thanksgiving, to notify other drivers of the blissful lack of holiday traffic on our route, and to notify them of an accident we passed on a crossing highway.
I’ve also used it on my commute, which passes through an area heavily populated with deer, to notify other drivers of deer grazing dangerously near the roadway. (My alerts aren’t so verbose, though: “Look out…DEER!” is more like it)
At the present moment, I think this technology is the best solution available.
Note: The design of Waze very cleverly only updates the chats and alerts (and allows typing) in one of two scenarios:
- The device is being used by a passenger
- The car is at a complete stop
This is absolutely the right choice for motorist safety, but it means that for trips that will not involve frequent stops, you’ll need a navigator operating the device in order to get maximum benefit from the alerts, etc.
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