Waze has unveiled a new feature on its crowd-sourced navigational app to remind drivers when they’ve gone over the speed limit.

If you think that sounds almost exactly like the function your speedometer performs, you’re correct.

The idea – which, a spokeswoman said, arose from user requests – is that Waze will offer you a reminder when you might have drifted over the speed limit or even forgotten what the speed limit is, either because you’re in a new place or you’re on a long stretch of road and there aren’t a lot of signs to remind you what the limit is.

“Whether you’re driving on new and unfamiliar roads or a place where speed limits change with the season, you’ll no longer be in the dark. Waze will keep you aware of your speed, reminding you to slow down and drive safely,” the developers say on their Web site. “To see speed limits you don’t need to change a thing. If you’re driving over the limit, a visual alert will appear on the Waze speedometer. It will stay there until your speed drops below the limit.”

You can also customize the alert to fit your speed habit by setting the alarm to go off at the speed limit or a certain percentage above it.

For now, the new feature is available in a bunch of European countries, Latin America, and New Zealand, but it’s on the way to the United States in a city-by-city rollout, Kim Kirchner, a spokeswoman for Waze, said Wednesday. Meantime, Waze editors are verifying the speed limits as plugged in by its users – a number that has reached 360,000 worldwide. She said it will likely focus at first on longer stretches of road and then smaller segments.

Developers have also been mindful not to make the feature any more of a distraction than the average GPS device, Kirchner said – or, I suppose, a speedometer.

So be it. It’s not as passive as a speedometer, and there’s nothing wrong with having a machine to do what a backseat driver does. It might even open up a new front in the excuses people can make when they’re in traffic court trying to beat a ticket. But here’s what I want to know: when Waze is going to come up with something even more useful — namely, an app that tells you where all the speed cameras are?

(c) 2016, The Washington Post · Fredrick Kunkle