Speed camera alerts on navigation apps may be training drivers to speed

Navigation apps such as Waze, Google Maps and Apple Maps offer drivers many useful functions, but one of them is sometimes controversial: advance notice of police or speed cameras ahead.

In new research, my colleagues and I ran experiments to see how these alerts affect driver behaviour in the real world.

We found drivers slow down when they get a warning, which came as no surprise. But the more worrying part is what drivers do when the app stays quiet.

Who gives speed camera warnings – and who sees them

Drivers warning each other about police ahead is nothing new. Whether it’s truck drivers putting out a radio call or car drivers flashing their headlights, giving other drivers a heads up about police presence is often seen as a courtesy.

Today, the warning comes from your phone. Waze, a Google-owned navigation app with more than 150 million monthly users, lets drivers report police and speed cameras with a tap, warning other users nearby. Google Maps and Apple Maps do the same.

A 2020 study found up to one in three Australian drivers used these apps while driving, and this number has likely increased since.

What we discovered

We wanted to know how drivers respond to these alerts in the real world. So we parked an unmarked car at 33 roadside sites across southeastern Queensland and measured passing car speed with a handheld laser device, the same type used by Queensland Police.

After we set up, drivers reported us to the Waze platform as police enforcement in an average time of about 14 minutes. We didn’t check Google Maps or Apple Maps.

We then kept measuring for the same amount of time again. Across more than 9,000 vehicles, the change was stark.

Before the alert appeared, 55% of drivers were speeding. Afterwards, 26% were.

The biggest drop was in 100km/h zones, from 64% of drivers speeding to 12%. We couldn’t see inside passing cars, so we can’t confirm every driver who slowed down had seen the alert. But the alert was the only external change we observed, and the drop appeared consistently at all 33 sites.

This suggests drivers were slowing down because of the app alert, not simply to observe the speed limit.

Even in active school zones, almost two thirds of drivers were over the 40km/h limit before an alert appeared. Even after the warning, more than a third were still speeding.

How speed cameras make drivers slow down – or not

Road policing is built on the idea of deterrence. People are less likely to break a rule if they think they may be caught and punished. Research shows that having a greater certainty of being caught matters more to the deterrent effect than the size of a fine or other punishment.

So speed enforcement works best when drivers feel a camera could be anywhere, at any time. Apps like Waze turn this on its head, so speed checks start to feel like a predictable risk that is easy to dodge.

Every time a driver gets an alert, slows down, passes police, then speeds back up, they learn they can speed and get away with it. Criminologists call this “punishment avoidance”.

People who get away with breaking the rules come to believe they are less likely to be caught next time, so they offend more often. In effect, drivers learn that the alert means “slow down” – but when there is no alert, they have the all-clear to speed.

Drivers who use apps that reveal police locations have described feeling “slightly more invincible”, and they report speeding more often.

In one recent survey of Queensland drivers, more than three in four admitted to speeding, and almost half didn’t expect to get caught.

Why it matters

Driving a few kilometres per hour over the limit may seem harmless. However, even small increases in speed raise the risk of being involved in a crash, as well as making crashes more severe.

Speeding is one of the most common factors in fatal crashes in Queensland, playing a role in approximately one in three of these incidents.

Navigation apps can tell you where police have been reported, but they can’t warn you about a child stepping out between parked cars, or from behind a school bus. The lack of an enforcement alert doesn’t mean it is safe to speed on the road ahead.

What now?

We shared our findings with highway patrol officers. Rather than taking the results as a defeat, they saw them as an opportunity to change how they operate.

Alerts appear quickly and linger, so officers could treat one as a signal to move on and start again with drivers who haven’t been warned. A single speed camera crew that moves often could show up on the app in several places, spreading the sense of risk across a wider area without extra resources.

Our research does not suggest these apps or their alert features should be banned, in the way that radar detectors already are.

Instead, we see it as a catalyst to rethink how road policing works in a connected world – and a reminder to drivers to drive to the speed limit and the local conditions, not what’s on their phone.