A spokeswoman for Waze said in an email on Thursday that the company was committed to helping drivers navigate efficiently and safely.
“In light of this week’s snowstorm and changing weather conditions, Waze Community Map Editors continue to keep our maps updated with the latest real-time routing information,” the spokeswoman, Caroline Bourdeau, said. “We encourage drivers to exercise caution and to stay alert on the road,”
Waze has a filter that allows drivers to avoid unpaved roads.
Crystal A. Kolden, a geographer and disaster scientist who teaches at the University of California, Merced, said she could not believe it when she saw that Google Maps had suggested Henness Pass and other backcountry roads to drivers seeking alternatives to I-80.
“They’re barely drivable in the summer,” Professor Kolden said on Wednesday. “How reliable do these companies have an ethical responsibility to be?”
Professor Kolden, 44, who was at her home near Sonora, Calif., in the foothills of the Sierra during the storm, criticized Google maps on Twitter. Some commenters mocked her post, saying that drivers should take responsibility for monitoring conditions and that she sounded like a Prius-driving millennial.
“Blaming vulnerable people for going down the wrong road is the same as blaming some of those poor vulnerable people who drowned in their basement apartments in New York City not long ago,” she said in an interview, referring to deadly flooding in September.
On Wednesday, Google Maps showed red dots with dashes in them on the road that Ms. Becktold had taken during her circuitous journey on Monday. The road closure warnings hadn’t been there two days earlier, she said.