Waze acting up recently? If you’ve noticed, the app no longer shows the fastest route to your destination anymore. Instead, it makes you take unusual routes and small side roads, even though major roads aren’t congested. Because of this issue, it has made travel time for some Waze users twice or even three times longer.

The reason for this is because of a new update which lets vehicle owners avoid number coding in certain areas. In fact, when choosing a different route, aside from the one initially provided, users can see red below the routes which say ‘via license plate restricted area’. This means, if you are ‘coding’ on that day, odds are you will be flagged down and ticketed by using that route. But what if you aren't coding at all?

To work around this issue, Waze users can do two different things. The first is to change your vehicle type from ‘Private’ to ‘Taxi’. The other option is to input the last two digits of your license plate to the Waze app. To do both of these changes, simply go to Settings and click on Vehicle Details. 

Depending on where you’re going, there is also a notification that pops up saying ‘Ticket Alert!’. It warns the user if the destination is part of a ‘license plate restricted zone’, and gives users the option to choose to continue to the chosen destination or add their license plates if they haven’t. 

While the update is indeed useful for those trying to get around the city, it is also kind of pointless considering most of Metro Manila falls under the no window hours coding policy already. In fact, drivers should know better not to bring out their vehicles when it is coding. Nonetheless, its good to know that Waze is looking out for us. Thanks, Waze.

Anyway, try it out and let us know how Waze works with the new settings.