It is so much fun whenever the winter season comes up. You can play different outdoor games, enjoy a cold night out, or make a classic snow angel-- whatever you like.
However, one thing that is not fun at all whenever winter comes in is when you're about to leave a place, and you will see your car all covered with the white and icy bits of snow. What's worse is that the road you're about to partake in does not have a clear path for you since the snow was all over the place.
How Dangerous Winter Driving Can Be
Aside from the fact that there will be times that you cannot easily get your car out of its thick covering of ice, snow driving is dangerous in a lot of ways. Once you drive on a winter season, you can encounter snowstorm on the road, see black ice forms around the corner, or the most common out of them all: roads unplowed. In fact, according to a report on CNN, at least six people injured, and over 60 cars were piled up in an accident that happened at Spokane, Washington, on Nov. 27.
If winter season is that bad for drivers out there, is there anything you can do to prevent being a victim of dangerous winter driving? For starters, you can download an app. Interestingly, there are only a few mobile applications out there that do inform drivers on which alternative routes to take whenever snow comes in. But did you know that the world's largest community-based traffic and navigation app Waze has a new feature that will help you with your winter problems? Here's how.
Introducing Waze's Snow and Ice Alert Feature
Technically, you can only use Waze if you're traveling in a car to know whether there's traffic or accidents along the way. However, since the winter season is stopping by for some countries, Waze decided to provide assistance in helping them reach their destinations even in the midst of winter chaos.
The new feature of Waze called 'Snow Warning' was built-in with the collaboration of the Virginia Department of Transportation (DOT) that aims to help citizens from winter countries to update other people when a snowstorm, unplowed roads, or snow accidents happened along the way.
"One of the primary reasons we created the Waze for Cities Data program was to provide public agencies with data and insights to reduce traffic and improve the safety of their roadways. Our work with the Virginia Department of Transportation on the development of the 'Unplowed Road' feature perfectly exemplifies what can be accomplished when we collaborate with public sector partners to meet community needs," said Dani Simons, Head of Public Sector Partnerships at Waze.
'Snow Warning' Available For Over 185 Countries
Waze's Snow Warning feature is said to now be available for over 185 countries around the world on where Waze is already accessible. In order to go to this feature, users can found it under "Hazards -> Weather -> Unplowed Road."
To check the places on where this feature is available, users can go to https://waze.com/wazeforcities.
