Dealing with drivers on Strava

[Vinileyro]

It's quite common to find people who use Strava to record "activities" while driving. Especially when looking at segments leaderboards, where the top "athletes" have avg speeds tens of kmh higher than the ones that actually did it on a bike.

I understand many people do this because maybe (idk) there is no other app that does this kind of gps tracking specifically for drivers. I always wondered why Waze doesn't do this, since lots of drivers already use it. You can get some stats, but not a record keeping like Strava does.

Another way it can happen is when a cyclist forgets to stop Strava after the ride then gets in a car and drives home or whatever.

I know we can all flag an activity, but this relies on individual finds and input that then has to be individually analised by you.

There has to be a smarter way to deal with this!

One solution is to simply add "Driving" as an activity type. And automatically set it if the speed goes over 80kmh, for example.

I also believe it's quite simple to automatically identify if an activity was done on a motorized vehicle or on a bike. Like, if the speed went over 60kmh and it's not downhill, it was almost surely not on a bike.

And then when the activity is finished, show a message to the user saying it has been identified as driving. If the user disagrees, it's up to them to prove what they did.

Can this be done?

[_JD_]

This is a great idea. Hopefully the powers at be with Strava will look into this. 

[Soren]

Hi @Vinileyro We know that segments are one of the most popular features on Strava and without integrity, their value decreases. We are committed to constantly making improvements to this feature and we do have measures in place to detect when people are moving at impossible speeds and remove those efforts from the leaderboards accordingly. You can read more about recent updates here.

[Vinileyro]

Thanks Soren! Good to know!

Well then my only suggestion will be to add 'driving' as an activity type, so that users can actively choose it or allow the type to be changed if Strava detects it's not a bike ride. Maybe this even boosts the usage of the app, because I really don't know any app that does the kind of activity recording that Strava does but for cars and motorbikes. (ok I confess I didn't try searching much haha) In case you do, just remember to eliminate leaderboards for this type.

[Soren]

Right now, we aren't exploring the possibility to add motorized sports on Strava, but we appreciate the feedback!

[Vinileyro]

Not as a sport, just as utility. But I get it, you won't do it. And I support that 😉 Case closed!

[Frank_C]

I like this idea.  It's often my point of evidence when reporting a segment: is the athlete "running" faster than the world record time?  Yes - most likely in a vehicle. 

A nice little alert from Strava would be good when segments are calculated and exceed current world records - "Congratulations, you might have broken a world record for this run at 80kmh.  We're marking this as vehicle assisted until we hear from World Athletics". 

[Ladonna]

You can use your car or e-bike or whatever you want if you have the simple decency to flag your activity yourself and remove it from the leaderboards (no extra activity types needed). If people don't do this simple thing, you can't expect them to pick the right kind of activity, even if it is available. I see it all the time with e-bikes, posted as "cycling". Enough with e-bikes already!!

[EddieJones2112]

I have a segment where I'd like to compare my efforts to other athletes, but it's close to a popular walking area where people go for a walk then often drive home (and forget to switch off strava ) recording speeds of 1:00 /km.
I can flag 10 per day but its going to take me weeks to flag all these people, there has got to be a way that stava can see that walking speed in excess of even 3:00 /km are unlikely ?