It's just so shocking and so baffling to me that Google could actually release this feature without considering that maybe people won't be able to interact with their phone while you know they are driving. I try to give people the benefit of the doubt - but this design seems absolutely braindead to me.
It's TERRIBLE on motorcycle and honestly has probably killed some people. For context, on motorcycle I'll plan out a route beforehand, then I would have Google Maps play through earpiece in helmet, phone remains in pocket.
For some years I was using pebble smartwatch which would vibrate with the turn notification (and I could glance it quickly to verify if I wasn't wearing earpiece or couldn't hear it). In all of those described cases I can't interact with the phone. At some point Apple or Google decided to block the turn notifications from pinging over to my watch, so I had to exclusively wear earpiece to hear directions.
To tie in with the rest of the thread, Google Maps will automatically suggest whatever route it wants and since I cannot interact with the phone on this setup, it will just go with whatever it wants to do, which often leads me onto roads under construction and other potentially dangerous routes. No way to turn off this 'feature'.
Imagine how baffled and shocked you'll be when you realize they did in fact think about this and it's a feature. Every one of these stories of someone failing to prevent this rerouting is a nice little green bar on the PM's adoption chart.
This is an intended behavior to increase uptake of whatever project introduced alternate routes, and will be presented in the team's performance reviews as evidence of their success.
