How to map Key:smoothness

I took this picture with the intention to use it to replace the smoothness=very_horrible picture on the smoothness wiki. It’s very hard to find tracks with such horrible smoothness, and the one on the wiki and this one are about as bad as it gets without being completely impassable. I think the main disadvantage of the one currently used is that you can’t clearly see how deep the ruts are because they’re filled with water. I don’t think it’s surface=mud though because the surface is still firm enough to cause damage to a vehicle with insufficient clearance. The surface needs to be quite soft for these ruts to form anyway.


I think the picture proposed here shows clearly that the distance between the top and bottom of the rut (red lines) is more than 24 cm (green arrow). Maybe it should be cropped more to hide the fact that you could probably drive around it with a " heavy-duty off road vehicle" and get through. It requires good driving skills, which should not be a requirement if I conclude this correctly from this thread.

I propose this one for surface=ground smoothness=bad

I took this photo, I hereby license it as CC0 (feel free to upload it to Wikimedia Commons - let me know in such case)

taken somewhere between OpenStreetMap and OpenStreetMap

note to self: filename is IMG_20240707_103106.jpg

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Acceptable, though I think it’s on the “good” end of bad. I’m comparing it with the photos of the asphalt with potholes and the washboard unpaved road on the main smoothness wiki page table, which I think are worse than your proposal.

How about one of these:


(you should keep right here to avoid the stones)(there’s a beginning of rut formation, but not so much that you need high clearance, so still usable with a normal car though driving carefully)

first one is OK to me, second seems really hard to pass with a regular car, and likely impassable at all for it

(but maybe I underestimate driveability there)

Maybe, but I’d still prefer one from How to map Key:smoothness - #63 by Mateusz_Konieczny (better perspective and all)

Sure, but I find that not only fine but desirable.

I.e. it is much better then the other way around (picture being at “worse” part of the bad would be worse solution).

Because e.g. if some user:

  • marked as intermediate track which should really be marked bad is much worse (regularly leads to user annoyance and even possibly unpassable ways / having to backtrack) than:
  • user marking as bad track which is actually intermediate (which would lead to mere “oh it was not so bad afterall” comment and perhaps some missed marginal opportunities)

I would prefer to have multiple photos, both from better and worse segment of given value

Sure, in that case both How to map Key:smoothness - #63 by Mateusz_Konieczny and first image from How to map Key:smoothness - #64 by rhhs can be used for surface=ground smoothness=bad IMHO.

Revision of Smoothness Gallery proposed many changes and some were protested, so it should not be applied wholesale

But one that seems to have support is removal of File:Very bad sett.jpg - OpenStreetMap Wiki from very_bad

I plan to apply it, please protest if you disagree.

(as reminder, this would apply change to Key:smoothness/Gallery - OpenStreetMap Wiki )

Also, I have a proposed image for bad for grass. Or is it intermediate ?

Is it possible for surface=grass road to have reasonable passage for “city bikes, motorscooters, sport cars”? Is there such thing as surface=grass smoothness=intermediate?

note to self: it is IMG_20250503_161027_opt_trawa.jpg

(I have few more images but I expect it is preferable to give people chance to comment rather than posting flood of images)

I see that at the “bad” end of bad

For city bikes at least, absolutely it can be intermediate. The picture is hard to judge as that kind of grass can hide small bumps, rocks and wet spots, or unexpectedly turn into mud under your tires if it’s been rainy or be absolutely wrecked by heavier vehicles… But in the pictured conditions, it should be absolutely fine.

I think this kind of surface would be worse for motorscooters (smaller tires suffer more) and sports cars (this is basically a dual track road, so low ground clearance can become an issue) than for bikes.

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I taken picture of this one as with grass cut short you can see that ground is nicely flat.

I guess that would push it to intermediate ?

I may be interpreting the image wrong, but to me it looks like the grass is worn down where the wheels of a car would go, and is longer in the middle (with the dandelions and their seed heads).

I would generally expect that on this type of road, the ground under car wheels gets worn and compacted at a higher rate than in the middle. Or at the very least, that the longer grass in the middle may hide rocks.

yes, but ground is nicely flat

and I expect that even fragile overexpensive sport car will manage contact of undercarriage with grass and dandelions

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this one was not heavily used so it has not happened yet
I hope that it is clearly visible at the image, I guess that hunting for more clear one is on (help welcomed!)