Apps driving traffic to remote locations

QUEEN ANNE'S COUNTY, Md. (FOX 5 DC) - AAA says Memorial Day will be the worst travel day out on the roads once everyone heads home.
Highway 50 coming back from the beach will be jammed with traffic, but transportation officials and law enforcement officials are warning drivers to stay off the side roads on the Eastern Shore in an effort to beat the delays.

Drivers have been warned to leave early or stay late, but congestion is the end result all the same.
Memorial Day backups began early heading westbound over the Chesapeake Bay Bridge.

And many drivers rely on traffic apps like Waze to find routes that circumvent the worst congestion.

The Memorial Day weekend holiday means traffic nightmares for communities like Stevensville in Queen Anne's County, where beach goers are inundating neighborhood streets, causing safety concerns.

This year, Deputies came out in full force in an effort to keep drivers on US 50, and off of local roads like Route 18.

"On heavy traffic days…all these apps are taking everybody on all the side roads. What they don't realize is the side roads become clogged very quickly. We are on an island down here, there's only one way off and one way on. And when the side roads get clogged no one can go anywhere and we become totally gridlocked," said Sheriff Gary Hofmann.

The sheriff added that the congestion impacts first responders and volunteer fire department personnel that need to get to stations.

Meanwhile, residents who moved to remote locations to escape, are once again inundated with the kind of traffic they'd hoped to leave behind.