Every driver has felt that sinking feeling: Waze pings, suggests a shortcut, and before you know it, you’re on a road that looks like no one has used it since the Eisenhower administration.
A viral TikTok from a snowstorm captures that exact moment of regret. Viewers piled on with stories even worse.
The post from creator Félix (@felix.grbt) drops us behind the wheel of his car, which is trapped on some snowy, dark back roads with other motorists pulled off with their emergency flashers on and no intention of trying to press on further. The message is clear: a traffic jam on a clear and safe highway would’ve beaten another traffic jam where snow is piling up quickly.
"Almost saw God instead of Santa Claus," Félix notes in the caption of the clip, which has been viewed more than 2.1 million times.
Drivers Relate to Being "Victimized by Waze"
If the video wasn’t dramatic enough, the comments section reads like a support group for GPS-traumatized motorists. One person wrote, "Raise your hand if you’ve been personally victimised by Waze and a country road." Another joked that their navigation app once routed them "through a farm" while driving to a popular amusement park. Others described being led onto muddy rural roads, near lakes, or into narrow mountain switchbacks that had clearly never been meant for passenger cars.
The stories span continents. A user in Portugal reported being directed straight into an abandoned vineyard. Another said Waze put them on a hiking trail. And one viewer swore their navigation app brought them "literally into a wildfire."
Some of the most frustrated comments came from drivers who trusted Waze or Google Maps in bad weather and wound up stuck in mud, ice, or deep snow. One person wrote, "Dirt road that was just mud—almost ended up in a lake." Another said their car became immobilized on an unpaved road after their GPS insisted it was the fastest route.
While exaggerated in tone, these stories line up with known routing issues. Navigation apps often prioritize speed above all else, even if that means directing drivers toward roads that may be less safe under certain conditions. As the weather worsens, the risk increases.
Apps like Waze and Google Maps rely on a combination of user reports, aggregated GPS data, historical traffic patterns, and municipal road information to provide accurate navigation. However, winter storms introduce variables that these algorithms often struggle to handle effectively. Road surface conditions such as ice, slush, and deep snow aren’t consistently captured or weighted in routing decisions. Even newer systems that utilize AI-enhanced traffic modeling prioritize time savings over surface safety.
Waze, in particular, is designed to find aggressive time-saving shortcuts. The company’s own documentation emphasizes its reliance on community inputs and live driver reports to adjust travel times, detect closures, and recommend detours. When those reports lag, or when conditions change faster than updates come in, the app may route drivers onto secondary or rural roads that appear clear "on paper" but are dangerous in reality.
Fuel-efficient routing modes, introduced widely by Google Maps in 2021, can also skew results. The setting prioritizes lower speeds, gentle grades, and reduced braking, which can unintentionally steer drivers onto sleepy rural roads that look efficient to the algorithm but are impractical or unsafe in winter weather.
Winter weather also reduces data accuracy. Snowstorms hamper traffic speed, obscure lane markings, and create conditions that don’t match historical averages. A road that’s normally fast may become slow due to weather conditions, causing the algorithm to seek alternate paths without understanding that those alternatives may be unplowed or unmaintained.
Why Staying on the Highway Is Usually Safer
AAA’s winter driving guidelines make one consistent point: the safest place to be during a snowstorm is almost always on a major highway. State transportation agencies prioritize plowing interstates and major corridors first, and they continue to do so throughout storms. According to the Federal Highway Administration, more than 70 percent of US roads are located in snowy regions, but highway departments consistently plow major routes first because they carry the highest traffic volumes and emergency access demands.
Secondary roads, especially those in rural or unpaved areas, can remain unattended for hours or even days without being cleared. They may lack guardrails, shoulders, or lighting, and once a vehicle slides off or becomes stuck, tow trucks may not be able to reach it until conditions improve. Emergency response times also increase significantly on smaller roads.
On a highway, even if traffic grinds to a halt, rescue services have better access, plows return regularly, and stranded drivers are more visible. Multiple state Department of Transportation (DOT) agencies, including those in Colorado, Minnesota, and New York, explicitly advise drivers to avoid leaving major roads during storms unless directed to do so by law enforcement.
Drivers can take a few steps to avoid being misled by well-intentioned but incomplete routing data. Most winter driving experts recommend reviewing alternate routes manually before accepting them, particularly if an app proposes a dramatic shortcut during an active storm. Cross-checking with state DOT map sites, nearly all of which show real-time weather-related closures, is another effective safeguard.
Disabling fuel-efficient routing or avoiding "shortest route" preferences can also prevent unwanted excursions onto smaller roads. Waze users can limit unverified or community-reported roads in settings, reducing the likelihood of being sent down unmaintained surfaces. In severe weather, some transportation agencies recommend ignoring reroute prompts altogether unless you can visually confirm that the alternate route is plowed and safe.
The biggest lesson may be the simplest: when conditions deteriorate, human judgment still beats machine logic. A navigation app may know which road is technically faster, but only the driver can tell which road is actually safe. That’s why winter survival guides from AAA, NHTSA, and state DOTs still emphasize the basics: stay on main roads, slow down, and resist the urge to outsmart a storm.
Motor1 reached out to Félix via direct message and comment on the clip. This story will be updated if he responds.
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