Police reported ahead

More topic drift... CDMA has extremely precise ranging.The phase shifts are a fundamental part of how the signal is processed, using incredibly complex math. This even allows the phone to listen to two different cell sites at the same time, and mathematically combine the signals to correct errors. When e911 was first mandated for cell phones, CDMA systems initially had the advantage, since CDMA systems could locate phones more precisely in locations where GPS didn't work, like indoors. But CDMA and GSM are on the way out. I don't know how this all works for LTE.

 

I have a Nuvi50LM. No traffic on that one. Generally, on long trips with my wife, I'll have the Garmin set up for guidance but my wife will also be running GM to look for traffic alerts. We made the mistake once in TN or KY of ignoring the Google Maps and stuck with the Garmin. Cost us about 45 minutes. But we did get an interesting view eventually of a semi on its side.

Edit to add: I occasionally think about getting a 7" one with traffic. But I haven't even looked at prices yet.

 

Google map is not as smart as we thought...
Man Creates Virtual Traffic Jam On Google Maps By Carrying Around 99 Phones - LADbible

 

There's one in every crowd.

 

Same here, I use Waze religiously for the same reason (avoid accidents), and it drives my wife crazy. I think it is the best Nav app, and it also seems to be the most economical on data compared to Google or Apple Maps, last I checked.

 

Two weeks ago, as we were heading out for a ski trip to Banff (in the tail end of a major snow dump), a pre-departure check of road reports discovered NINE! highway segments along our usual and intended route to be closed by avalanches and avalanche control work, landslides, and flooding. Some quick alternate route planning was required, quickly finding that the three most obvious alternates also had weather-related closures.

It turned out that Google and Waze did not agree with each other on just what portions were closed and what alternates were best. Nor could they usually agree with the BC and Alberta official provincial websites, though at least those provincial sites agreed with each other on their cross-border roads.

For a while, Google was also showing just one choice, but clearly showing a segment of it closed with no alternate suggestions.

Then Waze suggested a major detour to avoid a particular US-Canada border crossing that wasn't closed. Then still getting back to that segment that Google was showing as closed, except Waze didn't mark it as closed.

So it seems that Google and Waze are not yet fulled aligned on their underlying data sets. Though this could also be related to time lags in a rapidly changing situation.

We ended up making it a two day journey, skipping I-5 and the Trans-Canada Highway altogether. We took I-90 to Spokane, turned north to Radium Hot Springs, and then across Highway 93 to Banff. For that route, only the RadiumHS-Banff segment was closed as we set out, and it finally opened a couple hours ahead of us on the second day.

The take-away: in adverse weather, check multiple road report sites if possible, and don't rely on either Google or Waze to have the latest information, or even matching information.

 

An update:

Phone carriers face $200 million in fines for not protecting consumers’ location data; T-Mobile fine would be the highest

"The Federal Communications Commission has approved a proposal to fine T-Mobile, AT&T and two other cellphone carriers more than $200 million for selling customers’ location data to companies that allowed it to be misused by rogue law enforcement officers and others. ...

In notices sent to the carriers, the FCC said it would seek more than $91 million from T-Mobile, $57 million from AT&T, $48 million from Verizon and $12 million from Sprint. The agency found the carriers had violated a section of the Telecommunications Act requiring them to protect the confidentiality of customers’ call information. ...

To protect privacy, the carriers relied on a system of contracts that required location companies to seek customers’ consent — by responding to a text message, for example, or pressing a button on an app. But the carriers failed to catch multiple companies and people following customers without their permission. ...

... But in early 2019, the technology website Motherboard showed that carriers were still selling data, ..."