Google Traffic

I am stealing a page from the local news and old western movies for this one. And yet it's about traffic.

Here's the deal: The local news always goes to their traffic guy or girl who, these days, seems to stand in front of a computer map fo the roads they're talking about. There are arrows moving along the roads which indicate how fast or slow a freeway is going. It's terribly hokey and based not on how fast the cars are actually going but instead based on how fast the guy behind the computer thinks they're going. That's the old western movie thing. Remember the fake fronts of buildings to make them appear taller and like real buildings? That's all that map behind the traffic person is. It's supposed to make them look high-tech.

Well what I want is an actual computer generated map, with moving arrows, that accurately depicts the speed of passing cars and relates it to MPH. And take it away from the local news and put it on the internet, powered by google. I mean, this is shit I could use. The sporadic radio and TV reports that use names of freeways I've never heard needs to go. There isn't any point. The information isn't accurate nor timely enough for me to change my commute plans. Oh, and maybe use this to calculate the fastest route. I type in my destination and origin and it processes a few different ways, including backroads, and tells me which is the quickest.

I think the technology for this exists right now. I mean, they have cameras that can tell when eyes are looking at them, so why can't we make this happen? So yeah, Google, figure this one out.