Enable This Waze Feature For A Safer Drive

Most navigation apps share a single, unyielding objective: shaving seconds off the process of getting you from point A to point B. That sounds fine in theory, but the problem in practice is that, to a routing algorithm, an unprotected left turn across multiple lanes of traffic is simply an efficient mathematical vector on a grid. However, for the humans behind the wheel, those aggressive shortcuts can lead us to dangerous intersections. This is unnecessarily stressful, but thankfully, Waze has a setting you can toggle to help avoid these sketchy intersections.

Algorithms are great at calculating the shortest physical distance, but they historically fail to account for bad drivers and poorly designed road infrastructure. They certainly don't ever factor in a driver's sanity. But buried within Waze's settings is the "Avoid difficult intersections" toggle that explicitly instructs the app's navigation engine to skip notoriously problematic junctions. Once you activate this setting, Waze will favor intersections that have dedicated traffic signals and good visibility over just blindly finding the fastest route (though it helps to know what the various Waze icons and emojis mean, too).

It's a good shift in how apps like Waze evaluate the viability of a route; driver safety and stress levels should matter, too. Even though your journey may take just a hair longer, trading a few extra minutes for a safer and more relaxed drive seems worthwhile. And even though Waze has its issues, this feature isn't one of them; it's a perk for local commuters and road-trippers alike.

Activating this beneficial routing adjustment takes only a few seconds. To enable the toggle, open the Waze app, tap the menu icon to access the main dashboard, and head into the Settings menu with the small gear icon. Scroll down to the "Navigation" category, which houses all of the app's core routing behaviors. Locate the option labeled Avoid difficult intersections, tap it, and change the preference to Always. Waze then instantly updates its routing logic to permanently factor this preference in on all of your trips going forward.

What makes this updated routing so effective is how Waze defines a "difficult" maneuver. This feature is actually powered by hyper-local user knowledge. An intersection isn't flagged simply because cars move slowly through it — instead, dedicated volunteer Waze Map editors from around the world manually audit maps in their own neck of the woods. When a specific intersection is known for always having terrible visibility, missing street signs, or a dangerous blind corner, these local experts tag it themselves in the system. They add a much-needed layer of real world context that a routing algorithm alone would never have; it makes sense, as these are the people having to drive on these roads and see near-accidents regularly. It's one of the things that make Waze better than Google Maps; this crowdsourced touch absolutely upgrades the driving experience. That's something we can all be thankful for.