
Drivers followed a Google Maps detour and ended up stuck in an empty field - erentz
https://edition-m.cnn.com/2019/06/26/us/google-maps-detour-colorado-trnd/index.html
======
hirundo
Travelling from Durango Colorado to Reserve New Mexico, Google Maps routed me
to a "road" that was simply a dry stream bed, in the middle of a large Indian
reservation, in high desert wilderness, many miles from any human habitation.

It happened gradually. First I was directed to a well maintained gravel road,
then to dirt track, which slowly faded away to nothing.

I was driving a 4x4, had an almost full tank, a load of groceries in back and
plenty of time, so I went with it for quite a while. There are lots of long
dirt tracks in this area and I kept hoping that it was still a short cut. The
shortest alternate route was around 90 minutes longer.

I think most travelers would have bailed at the first turn off of the
pavement. I waited until the stream bed sand was getting deep before turning
around. But for some optimistic, mobility impaired person, it could have been
a death trap. I've adjusted my expectations of Google Maps accordingly.

~~~
planteen
I just tried to get Google Maps to route me over a difficult and dangerous 4WD
road in Colorado and got it on my second try:
[https://goo.gl/maps/FWU1jANHAPA487D37](https://goo.gl/maps/FWU1jANHAPA487D37)

This takes you over Hayden Pass Rd. Here are some 4WD driving tips for the
route: [https://www.dangerousroads.org/north-
america/usa/3939-hayden...](https://www.dangerousroads.org/north-
america/usa/3939-hayden-pass.html)

"It’s a real challenging road and a true test of your vehicle and your stamina
because the road abounds in twists and turns with wheels sometimes hanging
above the precipice."

"There is a very narrow section of shelf road before you get to the top that
is very dangerous if icy. There are no rocks to stop you from sliding off the
side. This section should not be attempted if there is any ice at all."

I'm a little surprised that Google gave this route to me with no warning. It's
also comical to say you can get the drive done in 30 minutes.

~~~
ineedasername
Also: what are those circular things that look like giant petri dishes about
14 miles south of the pass?

Edit: nevermind, I saw more further south that looked like crop fields, a bit
of google-fu revealed them as center-pivot irrigation systems. Interesting
trade of resources-- some loss of arable land due to the circular arrangement,
presumably in return for lower costs of the irrigation setup. Still looks like
some weird biohazard outbreak from the aerial viewpoint of google maps.

~~~
planteen
Yeah the San Luis Valley is full of center pivots. It's a very dry and cold
place, but has an aquifer that gets reliably replenished by snow melt.

------
Alupis
What happens in the Utopian future of fully autonomous cars (level 5) which
heavily rely on GPS for route mapping and positioning?

Isn't the dream to be able to sit in the back seat and read a book or take a
nap? The human occupant might not be aware anything's wrong until the vehicle
is running out of battery or gas, or gets stuck in the sand (from the parent's
experience).

There's a pass through the mountains near me that gets shut down during the
winter due to snow every year. I go up there usually but don't need to go all
the way through - and was surprised this year to see an official CalTrans sign
saying:

"Your GPS is lying to you! The pass is closed! Turn back!"

I suppose enough people every year ignore the road closure signs and continue
all the way until they get stuck... how would an autonomous vehicle know any
better either?

~~~
bdamm
Definitely this will be a failure case. Another failure will be "loops" where
the car ends up driving the same few miles repeatedly - I've seen this failure
mode in Google Maps as well. However, the navigator and the driver are
separate components, so even if the navigator says to drive off the gaping
hole in the bridge, the driver will hopefully recognize the fault and bring
the car safely to a stop.

But definitely we will see the "German family dies in death valley due to
navigator failure" headline.

~~~
derekp7
Is there any way to report corrections to Google maps? On more than one
occasion, I've had a route that called for a left turn at a traffic light, try
to route me into a right turn and an immediate (illegal) u-turn. In another
case, my route would have logically had me cross a road (again at a traffic
light), however Google maps wanted me to turn either right or left, drive for
a few miles, turn into a subdivision to turn around and retrace the route, and
then finally continue on the original road. Not to mention that it always
wants me to cut across my backyard to get to a road running behind my house,
instead of backing out of my driveway onto the road I live on.

It isn't that I can't easily solve these problems if I'm looking at the map,
but since it is incapable of having me make a left turn it will often plot an
"optimal" route that is 15 minutes longer than it should be, because the real
optimal route looks like it takes longer due to the routing error. Not to
mention that it often confuses delivery drivers. Note, that the incorrect
route typically comes from the Android version of Google maps, but if I go on
the web interface the route will be ok.

~~~
JetSpiegel
> Is there any way to report corrections to Google maps?

Sell all your property, move to India and get a job on their equivalent
version of Mechanical Turk.

Or you can install OsmAnd and use the OSM dataset, which is not as
comprehensive, but it doesn't many lies. At most, outdated data.

~~~
aidenn0
I had OSMAnd try to navigate me to a wrong-way street (taking the offramp
rather than the onramp when trying to get on the freeway on a parclo. FWIW,
the data was corrected before I could get to a computer though.

------
devchix
Years ago around the Apple Maps fiasco, I read a very good article titled
(paraphrased) "Why people follow GPS into very obviously bad places". At the
time there were reports of people driving into empty fields, lakes, despite
very obvious visual cues that they were about to drive into fields, lakes. The
reasons were primarily the implicit trusts people have in computers, and
secondarily, the ur-map on which all maps were built had roads marked but not
necessarily their usability. A map would contain a secondary road which would
be closed in winter due to snow, but path-finding software will not know this.
The article detailed a case of a couple (I think?) following such a path to
their deaths - by the time they began having doubts about the GPS, they were
too far enmired in their situation to turn around and save themselves. I
regret not being able to find that article again, I thought it was at Wired or
The Atlantic.

~~~
ken
The trouble I see is in _how_ these GPS based driving systems give directions.

Even when the directions are accurate and the pronunciation is good (ha) and
the turns are correct, they're completely mechanical. Every turn is given with
exactly the same precision and urgency as every other turn. If I were telling
you how to get where I'm going this afternoon, I'd start by saying "get on I-5
north". My phone would say "go 50 feet, then take a left onto X, then go 200
feet, then take a right onto Y", and so on. I don't know until 5 seconds
before I hit the on-ramp that I'm just supposed to get on the freeway.

Worse, often it'll be the case that the instructions are given late enough
that if you wait to consider or second-guess them, you'll miss the turn. (And
roads are not in general designed to make recovery easy, so missing a turn can
add quite a bit of time, especially if it sends you into a tunnel, across a
bridge -- or worse, waiting in line for a drawbridge.) There's many places
where it will say "take a right ... now take a left", and I've got half a
block to get across 4 lanes of traffic. Get moving _now_! (Lane sweeping is
legal in California but nowhere else I know of.)

In essence, it's treating me like a computer, and feeding me literal
instructions one at a time. It's training me to blindly accept and immediately
act on them. It's not surprising that people do.

I care less about improving the (comically bad) pronunciation of local names
than I do about getting instructions that are phrased like a human being does.
"Get on I-5 north -- it's just like you're going to
${other_place_you_go_every_week} but you'll turn right on ${other_street}
instead of ${normal_street}." Then there could be a giant button for "Break it
down for me -- I need more details".

~~~
mjevans
I'd like them to keep all the turns within the next 10 min of driving without
stoplight waits on the display at all times.

Little in GPS navigation is worse than not knowing which lane the phone wants
me to be in on a freeway exit that has 5 lanes at the first light and traffic
jams for the next 4 lights next to the freeway because civic planners just
haven't been able to get the flow moving away from the injection site fast
enough.

~~~
kalleboo
If you use CarPlay, the map is shown on your car display and your phone
display gets used as a secondary display with a list of upcoming directions.

Here in Japan I use a local navigation app called NAVITIME and it has a mode
to show a list of upcoming turns normally as well. On the highway it also
shows upcoming rest stops and what facilities they have.

------
drone
This happens more often than not on my trips through more rural areas (once,
it sent me through a muddy corn field to avoid a traffic jam on Christmas
night in rural Louisiana -- fortunately I understood what I was getting in to
and had a vehicle equipped to handle it), and I've noticed it seems to have
more to do with people who have google maps keeping their phones with them.

That is to say, it tracks where people drive, and when people drive in the
same place often, it flags it as a common route and therefore must be a road!
I have a hunting lease in rural Texas, and the most common trails within the
property are all highlighted as roads in Google maps. In fact, as I cleared
out a trail a year ago and started using that trail as a way to reach one
point on the ranch, it has now also become highlighted!

You'd be a fool to cut someone's locked gate to take such a route, but it does
offer them as routes to me were I to ask how, for example, to arrive at the
entrance gate of the property north of us. The only legal (and passable) route
is actually to go south, then east, then north, then west. However, google
maps says "Hey, just take this trail straight north."

~~~
notatoad
>That is to say, it tracks where people drive, and when people drive in the
same place often, it flags it as a common route and therefore must be a road!

do you know this to be true, or are you just guessing?

~~~
jerf
Well, between "Google is tracking people with cell phones to look at their
common patterns and doing AI on the data", "Google actually sent out a
surveyor to a hunting lease to track this guy's new trail", or "Google
purchased someone else's survey of the new hunting trail", I find the first
one most plausible by quite a bit.

I live in a less rural area but I've still noticed a handful of things in my
area marked as more complete roads than they should be. Nobody in person would
mistake them for even the lowest grade of official road in use around here.

~~~
notatoad
I find "google purchased a set of map data that said this creek bed was a
road" to be much more plausible than any other scenario

~~~
cowsandmilk
Google regularly sends surveys to people showing they are tracking their
movements. Like you’ll eat at a restaurant and get a survey about it. They
don’t even hide this fact that they do this:

[https://support.google.com/surveys/answer/6315313?hl=en](https://support.google.com/surveys/answer/6315313?hl=en)

They ask you questions about train rides and bus rides as well. Google doesn’t
buy data any more, they collect it.

Why wouldn’t they be tracking where people drive and building maps about new
roads from that?

~~~
notatoad
>Google doesn’t buy data any more

again, is this something you know to be true, or are you just guessing?

------
gnrlst
Reminds of a scene in The Office where Michael blindly follows the SatNav into
the lake.

In all seriousness, unless I knew the area very well, it would have happened
to me as well.

~~~
blang
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DOW_kPzY_JY](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DOW_kPzY_JY)

------
maxxxxx
Happened to me in Monza, Italy after the F1 race. A whole line of cars went
down ever smaller roads until it was so narrow that only a bike or pedestrian
could fit through. Getting 100+ cars to back up took a very, very long time.

~~~
jstarfish
When Atlanta iced over a few years ago, there were many similar predicaments
made all the worse when the driver of the last car in the stack would get
themselves stuck trying to do a three-point turnaround and trap everybody
ahead of them.

------
bdamm
I just had this happen the other day, but with Google bicycle directions. It
looked like a good shortcut, until I was deep in the woods hiking up a trail
with my bicycle over my shoulder, and only then did I realize what a lemming I
had become. It was the hope that there was a good shortcut (and it would have
been if it had worked out) that kept me going.

~~~
nradov
Unfortunately Google Maps cycling directions don't reliably differentiate
between flat paved bike paths versus steep dirt single tracks that only a pro
mountain biker could handle. It would be nice if there was an option to limit
routing on that basis.

~~~
kalleboo
Google cycling directions don't exist in my country but does it really not
show/optimize for elevation changes? I use a local navigation app and the
options you select between all show an elevation curve, I thought that was the
whole point of a cycle route option!

~~~
bdamm
Yes it does, but there are cases where a steep single track through a
hazardous forest is “better” than a steep and longer paved alternative. And it
may be better... in daylight.

------
freetime2
I really wish Google and Apple maps had better support for planning trips in
advance. I live in an area where weather conditions in winter could make it
potentially deadly to blindly follow GPS instructions, due to road closures or
steep grades that Google has no qualms about routing people through. So if I’m
heading somewhere new in winter, I always make sure to plan the trip in
advance on the desktop version of Google maps - making sure to stick to main
roads wherever possible.

The problem is that there really isn’t good support for planning and saving a
precise route in Google maps (and I assume Apple maps as well). I can sort of
hack it by setting a bunch of intermediary destinations along the way to force
certain roads, and share that trip with my phone. But that’s clunky and even
then Google has a tendency to want to change things on me at the last minute.
I also live in an area where there is no support for downloading maps to use
offline, so there is a risk of going out of cell service range and losing GPS
support.

Maybe I am asking too much of free software and should be using paid
navigation software. Does anyone have any suggestions? Particularly something
that has good map data in Japan?

~~~
kalleboo
I don't think it has the detailed advance trip planning features you're
looking for, but for general navigation in Japan I can't recommend NAVITIME
enough.

For _years_ after the Kumamoto earthquake, Google Maps would still try to take
you down closed roads. Meanwhile NAVITIME will even warn you of road
construction where traffic has been constricted to one lane with alternating
stoplights. Their data is fantastically detailed.

It also has built-in rain/snow precipitation maps, and shows road closures
from VICS data in realtime.

~~~
freetime2
Thanks for the suggestion! Looks like NAVITIME makes a whole bunch of
different apps of varying purpose and quality. For driving navigation, their
"Drive Supporter" app seems to be the best option that I found. (I gave a
quick test of their "Car Navi" app and for whatever reason it was off on my
current GPS location by 500m - where their other apps didn't have this
problem).

It is definitely far less aggressive about routing me down narrow back streets
than google maps - which is a major gripe I have with both google and apple
maps. I tend to prioritize a safe, stress-free drive over saving a minute or
two. It also has support for bike paths, which google does not support in my
area (although you need to be vigilant as one test tried to route me down an
unpaved road which is definitely not accessible by bike).

I wouldn't say it's a perfect solution, but I can see the potential benefits
over google. I'll give it a try for a bit!

------
fluffything
I ride a road bike for 200-300km each week. Sometimes I don't know where I am
and need to use Google maps. I use it only for finding out where I am, and
then navigate myself. I have zero trust in the recommended routes.

I always choose "Car" as a vehicle so that Google Maps only shows me roads,
but you wouldn't believe the number of times that Google maps has recommend me
short cuts through 5km long dirt roads or longer. It happens a couple of times
per month. With a car those shortcuts might have worked, but with a road bike
5km dirt road is a no go.

Every time I choose "Bicycle" I essentially get recommended 100km of dirt
roads. The app is completely useless for road cycling.

Earlier this year I had to travel 1400km with the car each week. I always used
Google Maps in an advisory role only - listening to the radio was always a
better advisor than Google Maps. Its fastest route algorithm was always
reliably wrong. I had the feeling it was always getting stuck in local minima,
and it had zero foresight for how traffic works. Just because there is a 10
min traffic jam near to a big city at 5pm when I am still 300 km away does not
meant that the jam will still be there in 2-3 hours (7-8pm), and that taking a
completely different route that's 50km longer and has a much lower speed limit
is going to be faster. No human would make that mistake, but Google maps
reliably does.

I wish the App would allow you to select the fastest route independently of
traffic, and I wish it would give you the reason for the traffic jams (was
there an accident? did they close the highway? etc.).

What I don't understand is how the Navigation apps of other manufacturers
(Daimler, VW, BMW, ...) do not have these problems. While driving, I'd see the
navigation device in the car telling me a meaningful route, and Google maps
telling me to do something completely absurd.

At the end of the day, you are the driver. It's your job to pick up your
information sources, and weight them accordingly.

------
wwweston
A GPS app is not just a convenience, but a _fantastic_ convenience in a major
metro area like Los Angeles where good routing through traffic conditions can
save a half hour or more.

But even here, where you'd think the map coverage would be near strongest,
I've occasionally had an app attempt to route me down a private drive or a
fire road. In fact, if you look for hiking trailheads frequently enough, I'd
be surprised if it _doesn 't_ happen to you.

That's a class of cases where I'd hope most users are keeping their head about
them as they travel; hiking as recreation requires that of its participants.

Still, edge cases matter, and the closer we get to a world of autonomous
vehicles, they matter more.

------
sdfjkl
Heh, you have no idea how lousy Google Maps data really is until you go
somewhere away from big cities and countries which Google cares about. In the
remote corners of Greece for example, it's completely normal to find nothing
in a spot that has a supermarket. It's either in the wrong location,
mistranslated, closed 5 years ago or never was there and is just maps spam.
Often squinting at the satellite data offers more of a clue where the paths
are and sometimes you can glean a shop sign from above. We've had similar
experiences in thinly populated areas of Galicia (Spain), Sardinia and Sicily.

~~~
theon144
Local map apps would probably fare much better.

Can't speak for Greece, but I've had a really analogous experience in Czech
Republic - as a city dweller, I've used Google Maps for all sorts of things
around Prague without issue. Once you move past the Central Bohemia region,
however, the data gets just as spotty and unreliable as you described. Mapy.cz
saved my ass and has impressive detail even in quite rural areas (then again,
OpenStreetMap is frequently much better than Google Maps as well.)

------
frogpelt
I've taken a Google Maps detour before and I'm amazed at the number of other
cars that are also apparently following the same route.

It can be hard to not follow a crowd in those situations.

------
chillwaves
I had a terrible experience with Google maps recently. Re-routed me (and
dozens or hundreds others) into a neighborhood that could not handle the
traffic. Literally we are now in bumper to bumper gridlock in the tightest
residential streets, with no shoulders (imagine being stuck in your driveway
due to this). What's more, the "short cut" ultimately ended up feeding into
the main traffic jam anyway so even in best case scenario it would not have
saved time.

The real problem with the short cut is it was not announced or optioned in my
g maps via Android Auto, instead given as a primary route. I noticed it was
different (but started on a major highway) and didn't realize what was
happening until it was too late.

Also G maps had me cross over 4 lanes of traffic in rush hour over a 50 foot
distance to make a left turn. Their algo has gotten more aggressive and not
for the better.

~~~
hnick
It frequently wants me to turn across a 4-lane road near my home here in
Sydney. This is fine on Sunday morning or at night, not so much at other
times.

It also wants me to spend >$10 on tolls to save 2 minutes over a 30-minute
drive on some routes. I wish there were a way to make it ignore tolls unless
it saves a significant amount of time.

~~~
erinaceousjones
On the maps app, when on the route planning screen ("from" and "to" with the
map showing candidate routes), right of the "from" box there's one of those
triple-dot menu buttons. "Route Options" modal lets you check "Avoid toll
roads". On web maps, there's also an "OPTIONS" link that expands to show the
same stuff.

It has some useful features that can go completely undiscovered because
they're hidden in screens you wouldn't go on if you're sitting in your car
getting ready to drive.

Waze has the same options and in my opinion are better presented, since it's
much more tailored towards driving navigation.

Also, reading this HN thread, I'm glad I'm on a small island with exceedingly
well-documented road systems (UK). I think you'd have to be in the
northernmost parts of Scotland to really have an issue with dumb route
planning here. Had a fun experience when exploring the island of Gran Canaria,
where maps wanted us to drive our small rear-wheel-drive rental car down what
felt like a 60 degree hill, what was essentially a riverbed with tree roots
sticking out of it. Some people on quad bikes had to wait for us to crawl down
it with foot constantly on the brakes. Maps had marked it as not even a trail
or a small road or whatever but a bonafide 2-lane road!

~~~
hnick
Yes I know about avoiding tolls and do use it sometimes - the trouble is, I
forget to turn it back on next time! I'd like an option 'ignore tolls for this
trip only' or a setting where saving 2 minutes is weighed up against spending
$10. But that's probably not so easy.

Speaking of the UK, I drove around The Lake District and I have so say some of
those narrow village roads almost made me feel like I'd taken a wrong turn :)
I've heard stories of trucks getting stuck between houses.

------
stcredzero
What Google Maps has done to me, personally, over the years:

1) Sent me back across the San Mateo bridge unnecessarily while driving to a
date.

2) Sent me to a different building on the opposite side of the highway, 1.4
miles away, while driving to a job interview.

3) Sent me to a different building on a different block while walking to a job
interview.

~~~
axiom92
>1) Sent me back across the San Mateo bridge unnecessarily while driving to a
date

Woah. I felt bad for you just reading this. That's at least a hit of 30 min
(if you have to go to cross the bridge and come back). If this happened during
commute hours, this could be a 1.5 hour delay!

EDIT: I guess it happens a lot to people unfamiliar with the area going to
Foster City via 92 east. If you miss the last exit, you _have_ to take a 14
mile U turn!

~~~
phaedrus
When I was a poor college student I had a GPS map (probably a Tom Tom at that
time) do the "route you in a cycle" glitch over a _toll_ bridge multiple
times. I was already down to my last dollar(s) so I had a bit a of a "Charlie
on the MTA" moment wondering if I was going to end up stuck on the wrong side
of the bridge without enough money to leave the island it led to.

------
jpindar
This doesn't look like the road to the airport.

[https://www.google.com/maps/@39.8127579,-104.7167676,3a,75y,...](https://www.google.com/maps/@39.8127579,-104.7167676,3a,75y,67.21h,85.11t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1ssswaKKvsDbpN4k9v9BgPSw!2e0!7i13312!8i6656)

Google Maps shows that the road ends there. There's a parallel paved road a
mile south, which even has signs for the airport. Both routes are about the
same length.

Edit: Hang on, Google Maps is using some (at least) five year old imagery in
their satellite view, and possibly for their routing. The roads in that area
were a bit different then compared to later images from Google Earth, so the
dirt road would have been about 0.8 miles shorter. I wonder if this sort of
thing accounts for many GPS glitches?

------
anm89
I drove a motorcycle from northern Colombia to Central Peru on a motorcycle
and some of the absolute best and worst moments of my life came from bizarre
and non existent roads that Google sent me on.

Many of them ended of being goat and cow trails that google mistook as roads,
ironically most of the time there was a perfectly good highway nearby but
Google would notice some dirt path directly through a mountain pass looked
just a little bit closer.

I documented one of these sidetracks:

[https://andrew-
max.github.io/adventure/2017/03/24/huamachuco...](https://andrew-
max.github.io/adventure/2017/03/24/huamachuco-cabana/)

------
hodgesrm
Errors in GPS systems are common enough that various US state and local
departments of transportation have developed special warning signage. Here's
one for the Mormon Emigrant trail in the California Sierra Nevada:

    
    
      https://www.facebook.com/eldoradonf/posts/morman-emigrant-trail-two-wheel-drive-and-all-wheel-drive-vehicles-are-prohibite/912508805550215
    

Even so, every year people still drive past the sign trying to get through to
Carson Pass.

~~~
tom_
[https://www.facebook.com/eldoradonf/posts/morman-emigrant-
tr...](https://www.facebook.com/eldoradonf/posts/morman-emigrant-trail-two-
wheel-drive-and-all-wheel-drive-vehicles-are-prohibite/912508805550215)

~~~
hodgesrm
Thanks. I thought HN has having an antibody response to the Facebook URL. It
seems more likely that indenting caused it to render as code.

------
macandcheese
As a counterpoint, I was once driving across the country with my Father in a
rented Kia Forte, heading West to Oregon. Neither of us had a smart phone at
the time, having lived in a rural area on the East coast with little cell
phone service - so we relied on an old paper map, a Rand McNally or something
like it, to deliver us to the West Coast

As we were driving West through Nevada, we reached Winnemucca - and faced a
decision. We could detour severely south via route 80 to Reno, and head back
North, or take route 49, which looked to be on the map an improved road, in
more or less our direction of travel. Turns out that this "Jungo Road" was
really nothing more than a heavily rutted dirt road past some seemingly
abandoned mines, that skirted the Black Rock Desert and served as an access
road to where Burning Man is held. A few hours of skull rattling bumpy road
and one super dirty rental car air filter later, we finally emerged back onto
a nicely paved road near Gerlach.

------
Digit-Al
I've had both good and bad experiences of Google map routes.

On the bad side, one time when going to a small festival I got routed down
this tiny narrow lane that ended up at a dead end leading into a couple of
fields. Luckily there was just enough room to turn round (though it was a
squeeze) and I was able to find signs to the festival.

On the good side, the first time I ever used it to plan a route to my mum's in
Wales it took me a a very odd direction, and I was paranoid that I was going
the wrong way, but I got to my destination perfectly and a lot more quickly
than the old routes I planned myself using a map.

I've also once or twice used it to plan a cycle route and it's found little
cycle paths and back ways that I never knew existed and were a bit quicker
(and a lot safer) than going along the main roads.

------
dzhiurgis
Can someone related to Google answer me - why doesn't Google have an option to
"Avoid unpaved roads"?

------
ulfw
I use Google Maps mostly because I really like the look and feel of the maps.

But god heavens is it useless outside the US. I can list numerous examples
from Asia: roads not existing anymore, new ones not listed, POIs generally so
out of date they’d better not even be on there, WRONG bus routes all over Hong
Kong with stops and lines not even remotely correct, walking directions don’t
take pedestrian walkways and bridges into account (telling you often to walk
over half a mile/1km whereas a direct walkway used by thousands of workers a
day is only 40m), names of POIs sometimes translated, sometimes not making it
hard to find a branch of a line of stores because they all have different type
of names now and and and.

They look nice though.

------
cjfd
Well, the map is not quite the territory. I remember a time on holidays where
we were not really trusting the street that the TomTom had selected for us. So
I walked ahead a bit... turned out we were supposed to drive down some
stairs.... really steep stairs too...

------
mattbee
Haha yup, on the way back from a beach in Kefalonia, Maps took my family & our
hire car onto a track that a goat would have thought twice about - gradually
going from tarmac to gravel to dirt on the side of a very steep hill.

The car ended up bouncing hard into several craters - if we hadn't been going
verrrry slowly we could have ended up sliding down it.

I wondered when we arrived why the hire was 300EUR for a week, and the car was
still a terrible old piece of junk ... so when I handed it back and pointed
out the dent in the bottom panel the hire guys grinned and said "have a great
flight home!"

Thanks for the holiday memories, Maps!

------
aidenn0
Google Maps directed me off of a plowed mainroad onto a non-plowed side road;
in the middle of summer it _still_ would not have been faster than the main
road. As it was, one of the other cars redirected was not carrying chains
(despite giant "Chains required at all times" signs on the way up the
mountain), and there was insufficient room to pass. Adding insult to injury,
they passed me while I was chaining up. Fortunately a local with a bucket of
rock-salt was able to get them unstuck and back down the mountain. Cost me
about 45 minutes though.

------
mannykannot
For better or worse, Google probably has all the data needed to avoid routing
a lot of vehicles down a little-used dirt track, even if it is not explicitly
flagged as such in its database.

------
adrianolek
There's a rather entertaining video[1] of a Codewise[2] CEO getting lost in
Costa Rica mountains because of Google Maps directions.

[1]:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kDNURhBS998](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kDNURhBS998)

[2]:
[https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/codewise](https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/codewise)

------
trustfundbaby
I have to say this has happened increasingly over the last 2-3 years ... or
lets just say I've only just noticed this then, as I moved to a new city and
was a digital nomad for a bit, so I had to rely on google maps in new and
unfamiliar cities more often than I normally would have.

Before that I could pretty much rely on Google maps to get me to my
destination without any trouble at all.

I wonder what changed? or if its been this way all along.

------
chishaku
Could be worse...

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_by_GPS](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_by_GPS)

------
raverbashing
Yeah... a GPS is not a substitute for awareness and your brain.

Recently I've been to some places with GPS, it is a major help, but sometimes
you need to stop, see that it's leading you into a wrong path (it can be for a
multitude of reasons like city works or you did something wrong before) and
correct course.

~~~
pdonis
Satellite view can help with this. I always use it when I'm trying to figure a
route in an area I'm not familiar with; it's a lot easier to tell that
something's fishy from a photo.

------
Tempest1981
It _is_ tempting to "follow the herd". I guess sometimes optimism gets you in
trouble.

------
reedlaw
I wonder what OpenStreetMaps shows for the detour. I find OSM often more
detailed than Google Maps.

~~~
jakecopp
At least if it's wrong you can change it!

------
gerbilly
Google maps simply does not know what it's talking about.

I never rely on it or any GPS.

One time in Martinique, it sent me down a road that had been closed for five
years.

I bought a Michelin printed roadmap after that, it showed that the road in
question was closed!

------
zebnyc
Whenever I use Waze to try to get San francisco from the east bay / north of
golden gate bridge, I am routinely routed through San Jose. Luckily, I use
Waze on my wife's phone and it routes me correctly.

------
upofadown
The root problem is that some roads are weather dependent. We know where the
rain and snow end up (weather radar). We just need a model based on
drying/melting to know when the road exists again.

------
dsfyu404ed
I really hope some of the people who crap up 4x4 related web forums with
comments like "lockers are way too harsh for a daily driver" got stuck in that
but that would be too good to be true.

~~~
HeyLaughingBoy
Unlikely. And they're wrong: I had a locker in the rear end of my Toyota for
years and it was my daily driver all that time. Barely noticed it.

------
geggam
As a note in Arizona _MOST_ of the roads on google maps are going to be barely
improved or not improved dirt roads / washes where people drive

You have been warned :)

------
segmondy
When watching a movie, hackers would hack the traffic lights to cause chaos. I
can't wait to see a twist, hack Google maps instead.

~~~
geggam
Plot twist : Google is doing it on purpose

------
Angostura
It seems like an extra option 'Avoid dirt roads' \- an option that TomTom
offers - would be useful here

------
alistproducer2
Was rv'ing in utah and Google maps tried to take me through some field via a
dirt road in the middle of the night.

------
stunt
I had a similar experience when I was traveling in Bali Indonesia rural areas.

------
human20190310
It's like a Stanley Milgram experiment where people just do what the
authoritative GPS voice tells them to do.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milgram_experiment](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milgram_experiment)

~~~
behringer
One of my favorite scenes on TV:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DOW_kPzY_JY](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DOW_kPzY_JY)

The title of the video really ruins it, but it was amazingly funny when I saw
it the first time not knowing what to expect :D

------
m3kw9
The first instinct of moderners will be to snicker at the Pokémon fad

------
egl2019
It's called "Death by GPS".

------
Biba89
It happens every week to me in Serbia.

------
yohann305
Could be the starting plot of an amazing "Black Mirror" episode!

------
trdtaylor1
_deleted_

~~~
bryanlarsen
And then go to jail for 30 years because you get charged with "hacking" rather
than going to small claims court for Fraud under $5000.

------
mywacaday
I just got offered google Maps beta this morning, this could be fun.........

------
isostatic
Google may send people the wrong way, but the choice to drive in a muddy field
is the driver, and driver's alone

~~~
3JPLW
I'm more sympathetic. I can imagine being in that situation — going down a
dirt road — and laughing at the absurdity of it all and yet needing to get to
the airport to catch a flight and not having any better options.

I'd wager it didn't get muddy immediately upon starting down that road. Once
it did, though, it was probably too late with a line of cars behind you and
nowhere to go but forward.

~~~
_nalply
Once it happened to me that it got too sandy too sudden and I got stuck. It is
easy to make fun of such mishaps but hey shit happens. It happened even
without Google Maps.

------
gk1
Title is borderline clickbait. Google Maps routed people through what turned
out to be a dirt road. It just so happened that recent rains made the road
muddy and impassable for smaller cars... Then once a few cars got stuck, a
traffic jam formed behind them.

~~~
elicash
Title describes very literally what happened. It's a fun story.

It's also a private road and it's unclear whether it's supposed to be open to
the public.

~~~
shereadsthenews
Article doesn't indicate the road is private. How do you know?

As a backcountry motorcyclist I'm accustomed to coming upon roads that are
"private" because some rancher decided to hang a sign but in reality it's a
public right-of-way. Also as a backcountry motorcyclist I'm smart enough to
not drive a Prius down a mud trail. Not sure what is wrong with people today.
We have more information than ever, we should be making better decisions than
ever, but the truth is the opposite.

~~~
bradstewart
Be careful ignoring those "private" signs though. I ignored such a sign in
south Texas, took a dirt road (in a 4x4) that was mapped as a public road
(both on paper and Google), only to have a rifle shot cross my path about 5
minutes later.

Ended up having a fairly civil conversation with the "owner" before turning
around, but he was adamant that I was on private property and would not be
allowed to continue.

~~~
cardiffspaceman
Curious whether the owner thought that shooting across car hoods was going to
get Google to stop routing cars across his land.

Did the owner know it was Google's "influence" causing people to trespass? If
so had the owner informed Google?

~~~
geggam
In Texas the castle doctrine is very much alive. As was stated most folks are
very nice but it is within their right to stop that one trespassing driver
from ever driving again.

Not sure they care about Googles influence at all.

~~~
alistairSH
Texas Penal code specifically uses the term "habitation", not "property" when
discussing the use of deadly force. If some jackass is shooting at strangers
who wandered onto his property, he's committing a felony.

See Texas Penal Code §9.31 (castle doctrine as it relates to trespass and non-
deadly force) and §9.32 (castle doctrine as it relates to habitation and
deadly force).

~~~
geggam
The castle doctrine does apply to living areas. True.

There are other codes however allowing for the use of deadly force

 _is also justified in using deadly force if: (1) he reasonably believes that
it is necessary to use force to prevent or terminate the trespass; and (2) he
reasonably believes deadly force is necessary to prevent the trespasser from
committing certain crimes, such as arson, burglary, or robbery._

Just stating a word of caution. Life is different than the city and laws vary
but landowners have significant rights.

~~~
alistairSH
That it's considered acceptable in Texas (and much of the west) to leap
straight to "there's somebody on my property; if I don't shoot'em, I'm a dead
man" is bonkers to me.

~~~
Frondo
It's really not. The one guy in this thread who keeps trying to say that is, I
think, either mistaken (from movies or whatever) or is trying to paint an
exaggerated portrait of rural life such that it seems extreme to urban-living
folks; either way, it's not the case.

You don't go around shooting people you see on your property. "You did WHAT
Jim? Because you saw some guy out in the cotton?"

(Now watch that same individual in this thread come back and say, "well, it's
not like that in cotton country, but where they're ranching..." and...no.)

~~~
geggam
No where did I condone shooting or state it was a preferred method of dealing
with people in rural areas.

What I am cautioning some people about is living in southern AZ (and I am sure
TX) there are specific dangers and police are sometimes over an hour away. (
most of the time at least 30 minutes)

Drug runners and coyotes do operate out here and if you interact with someone
who lives in an area like this they see that stuff.

Following your GPS and ending up in a wash you shouldnt be in can create a
situation where a landowner, who knows police arent coming anytime soon to
protect him, can be a bit nervous.

Most people have guns in their trucks out here too.

It is not the same as a city but nowhere did I say folks out in the country
are gunning to shoot someone.

I did say be careful. Not all of the news about bad stuff on the border is
dramatized.

 __Edit

Not to mention you might run into the drug runner or coyote who is already not
following laws

