This is clearly traceable to TIGER, the US Census data that most map providers use as the bedrock of their map data in the rural US, yet was never meant for automotive navigation.
TIGER classes pretty much any rural "road" uniformly - class A41, if you're interested. That might be a paved two-lane road, it might be a forest track. Just as often, it's a drainage ditch or a non-existent path or other such nonsense. It's wholly unreliable.
You can see this in OpenStreetMap easily. Navigate to the backwoods and look at the road types. It's predominantly highway=residential, the road type that A41 was mapped to in the TIGER import. highway=residential is usually meant for city streets and suburban residential roads. Not this.
So: help! I've genuinely spent weeks on this but it's a massive job. Paved road? Reclassify it as highway=tertiary (wider with centreline) or highway=unclassified (narrower, no centreline). Gravel or dirt graded road? highway=unclassified, surface=gravel (or =dirt). Rough, not recommended for most cars? highway=track. Genuinely a paved residential road? Keep the highway tag as it is, but delete the tiger:reviewed=no tag. Nothing there at all? Just delete it.
(My particular interest in this is bicycle routing. Bike routing usually prefers the smallest paved roads in the grid. It breaks if those "paved roads" are impassable desert tracks in reality. I take a very conservative view for my site, http://cycle.travel/map, precisely because I'm anxious about situations such as that described in the Ars article.)
Oh wow. That seems like a horrible state of affairs. I've worked in bicycle routing before (Germany) and we had a very good, curated mesh of bicycle paths, tagged for suitability for certain bike types. We also used OSM and previously Navteq for roads to also use for routing and at least in Europe the tagging seems to be mostly useful.
But I can see now why navigation breaks so horribly when all you have is an essentially uncategorised road network.
Another issue: In my experience, in north america, navigation is more focused on compass points (take Road XYZ north, southwest, etc) whereas in Europe it is more focused on semantic directions (turn right on highway towards Groningen). The european way allows for easier verification if the road is actually the road you want to take (as in: do I really want to drive to Hobbington? The street sign says I should take the second exit, so I go with that.
As a cyclist I've been looking for a way to get cycle routes that avoid unpaved surfaces (in the UK). Does/can your site do that? Is there an android app that can do that?
> So: help! I've genuinely spent weeks on this but it's a massive job.
I'd love to help, but how? Is the only option for people to go driving all these "roads" in person to see which ones are actually roads, or is there another source of data that can be used to compare against?
I travel by tiny backroads whenever possible - often dirt, frequently by motorcycle, and sometimes in third world countries. I love the GPS because it allows me to have a reasonable expectation that these crazy little roads will go through.
I've found one "master" secret to not getting lost: Get rid of all that 3D garbage and put the map in overhead view, north up. It takes a tiny bit of practice getting used to the dynamic meaning of Left and Right but you build up a geospatial awareness and can usually tell when the GPS is getting stupid.
> put the map in overhead view, north up ... you build up a geospatial awareness
Totally agree.
I think the other thing that helps in an unfamiliar area is to pre-scout the route.. basically just look at the map around where you're going, while you're stopped. Honestly I don't always do this, but I should and it usually helps.
> can usually tell when the GPS is getting stupid.
The key to this is how you respond.
I used to just decide to go the way I think makes more sense, then often find out there was a reason: a one-way or closed street, no left-hand turns intersection, only one on-ramp to the highway (in the opposite direction I'm trying to go), construction, etc, and then I'd have to loop around.
Now I just become more vigilant. I always pay attention to the road names (and not just "take next left"), but I also really keep an eye out for extra signage (like signs showing the route to get to a highway) or closures.
One of the problems with current GPS tech and the maps is they're really damn good -- but still not perfect. The fact they work so well most of the time makes people complacent.
I live in a rural area where gravel and dirt roads outnumber paved roads by an easy 100 to 1. The issue with these roads is that they change with the season, the weather, the stage that farmers are at and the health of the county road department. Those nuances are known to locals but cannot be expected to be known by gps. I travel gravel and dirt daily by paying attention to butte landmarks, the location of the sun, certain farms and barns but most importantly, local gossip. I recall Los Angeles friends visiting and exclaiming "oh my gawd how in the world do you drive these roads -- no signage, no businesses, no gps?" I said all you have to do is look and listen very well and I can drive roads here I have never been on. Look ma..no gps..just eyes and ears.
I also prefer the navi using fixed orientation; if the map rotates, it becomes very hard to track myself in my mental map. I'd imagine once you lose tracking in mental map you tend to blindly follow whatever the machine tells you.
Some people can't read a map in North view, that's where customer interviews get interesting - they even need a 3D view or the speech. Actually in my IT-engineering school a subgroup couldn't read the technical blueprints at all (drawings of mechanical parts in left/right section), and it was all the students from Morrocco - even if both their parents were French immigrants with servants and wealth. The only possible explanation I've though about is that they may not have been exposed to Lego when young.
I live in the northern hemisphere, and wish more maps supported "South up." Maybe I'm weird, but in my mental map I expect the light (the sun) to be at the top of the page.
I spent several weeks exploring this very area--Jarbidge, NV--last summer in my old Land Rover. It's no joke. There are many Forest Service "roads" that are completely impassible, even by a very capable 4WD vehicle such as the one I drive. I spent over a year planning routes before I took my trip. I had plotted out a route from Jarbdige to Silver City, ID that's completely on dirt and--incidentally--probably crossed some of the same roads this couple took. I was traveling with other trucks and we ended up driving through ankle-deep mud and thick tamarisk trees before giving up. What looks like a passable route on USGS topos and Google Earth doesn't always pan out.
I was following a GPS at night just across the border in Mexico near Laredo. After driving for 5 minutes or so down a highway, I stopped because it seemed oddly dark and quiet. Checked the GPS for another route, and when I pulled a U-turn to head back, my headlights shown over the end of the road 20 feet ahead of where I'd stopped. The pavement just ended with a 15ft drop to a creek gully. I would have driven straight off it at 60 mph if I hadn't stopped.
Makes you wonder how autonomous self driving systems are going to handle cases like these. How far could a self driving car "see" to realize the navigation data it has is incomplete and should instead improvise?
This happened to me in the U.S. (Virginia), not long ago. Google maps tried to have me drive straight through a river. It may technically be true that the road crosses the river, but the crossing is impossible for most vehicles unless the river is VERY low. Reported this issue to the Google Maps team months ago, but it's still there...
https://www.google.com/maps/place/37%C2%B029'34.7%22N+79%C2%...
This happened to me, in Guatemala. Was using a rental car Garmin GPS whose map had some serious errors. The worst was, driving at night, thanks to my brights being on, I saw the road drop off ahead and slowed us to a stop. It was a sheer cliff into a ravine. The actual road had been knocked out and a replacement road had been built 100 feet away. We had to backtrack to find it.
I had one of these experiences when I was driving from Hungary to Austria. I was just blindly following the GPS, which started taking me down some very small roads with lots of turns. Since I had no idea where I was going I didn't question it.
I eventually stumbled upon a sign, in German, that was big and red, and I knew I was on the border between Hungary and Austria. I wasn't sure what the sign said, and at the time I didn't realize the two countries had an open border. I looked around for police like cars, and then quickly crossed the border, eventually reaching my destination just inside Austria.
As it turns out the sign just said "no vehicles over two metric tons", and that somehow I had gotten of the highway which had a very nice border crossing.
But a few years earlier and that mistake would have gotten me arrested!
Does anyone think this problem will get any better if/when we allow the GPS to actually drive the car?
I'm waiting for the day that someone tells their iCar to "Drive me Home" and they wake up stranded 7,000 feet up "Mt. Home". It's not the GPS that is the problem. GPS does exactly what it was designed to do. The problem isn't even in the mapping software. The problem is that the human is too ready to give up decision-making to a machine. That should inform many autodrive enthusiasts who think humans cannot be trusted with their own navigation.
I'm reminded of a principle from aviation, "always fly the plane". Student pilots are taught to never allow their attention to drift from the basics of flight, even if they're dealing with mechanical failure or confusing instrument readings. The first priority is always to maintain situational awareness. A large subset of aviation disasters could have been prevented if the pilot had simply looked out of the window.
1. aviate (physically fly the plane, or more fundamentally, fly the wing)
2. navigate (know where you're going/situational awareness)
3. communicate (tell whoever needs to know)
Actually, I ran into a situation you all might like on this topic. I was visiting a friend staying with someone in a shady area somewhat between OK areas and The Hood. Easy route to get there on a major highway that keeps you away from harm. Now, I have to see another friend in Middle America (aka "the burbs") which can be reached same way with one exit leading to Interstate. Just use the GPS to find last, odd roads on the route. Results surprised me.
Route 1: Turn left here, right here, right here, left here, highway here, odd roads here. 30 minutes.
Route 2: Get back on highway, drive a while, Interstate, drive a while, odd roads. 33 minutes.
Thing is, I recognized each street in route 1: The Hood(s) with about 300 cops a shift who can't keep up with the amount of stuff that goes down. The other was a straight, safe shot. I thought, "Is Google really trying to send me through all the worst areas of my city... areas where you have to stop right next to potential carjackers and killers... just to save three minutes?"
Now I know why people coming through think my city is just a shithole. It's a mix of great, good, OK, bad, and ugly but Google keeps sending people through The Hood. No wonder they think it's nothing but poverty and crime. So, then I got the idea for a movie or TV show where there's a serial killer that, SAW-style, makes people kill themselves. By Google Maps instructions they follow blindly into the worst areas. You might see it on TV but you heard it here first.
Yeah, don't trust the GPS's until they know the difference between an armed robbery and an Interstate. At the least, they need to realize we won't take that kind of risk unless we're talking about saving 30min to hours, the interview is too important for Interstate traffic, or she was one bad-ass lady. Not over three minutes, though. ;)
What's the alternative? Google taking social backgrounds of certain areas into account when calculating routes? That sounds like a recipe for a discrimination scandal and public outcry - I can already see the headlines: "Don't want to be murdered? Google Maps with SafeNav now tells you which areas to avoid!"
I have a somewhat similar situation. There are three routes: A, B, and C from my home to work. A has a lot of intersections, which would mean more time spent in stops. It also has slower moving traffic due to narrower roads. B also has lots of intersections, but wider roads. Between A and B, depending on your luck, one of the routes might be faster.
C has very few intersections. But it has a 1 km stretch which takes 25 mins to cross if traffic is bad. Google maps always shows C to be the fastest. But local knowledge will tell you either A or B will be faster at peak traffic times.
This is a very unfortunate story When I first moved out west I looked up directions with the Alltrails app, presumably based on some sort of map app, maybe google maps, to a trailhead in Idaho that should have been about an hour off the interstate. We drove until we reached a stream crossing that would have been impossible to cross in the car we had. However, we would not have continued up to the stream if the road narrowed to such a point that we were unable to turn the car around, also, it was at worst a days walk to the nearest town. We continued on foot following the directions for a bit, realizing the road was clearly an ATV trail and didn't appear to actually lead to the trailhead which looked to be quite a distance across a valley and a few mountains. We eventually headed back to the car (the scenery was still beautiful so nothing was really lost). We turned back and then re-read the correct directions from the forest service and tried to follow them to the real trailhead, eventually, asking for help from a super-fit cyclist climbing the mountain road alongside our little car. We finally arrived at the road to the trailhead only to find it covered in snow, unsurprisingly, as it was only early June and we were at 6000ft. The first moral of the story was GPS directions to trailheads are often incorrect and you should try and follow the real directions to the trailhead. The second is to know what conditions to expect during your travels.
It's not only blindly following GPS that can lead you to problems. Sometimes road signs can be inaccurate or misleading too.
I was driving on a reasonably remote highway in Victoria Australia. My car was running low on petrol. As I approached an exit there was a sign that said last service for 90km or something like this. I did some mental maths and decided I could make it another 90km so pushed on. The fuel warning light came on about half way through the 90km. When I reached the exit the pump was out of order and station closed (tiny rural station). Now I was forced either to turn back or push on to next station. I decided to push on and ended up running out of petrol I had to call roadside assistance. If I hadn't seen the sign saying the next service was 90 km away I would have pulled in then and there.
After a couple of similar close encounters I just decided it is not worth it. The gas I have must be enough for the trip with a margin. Even if I am late, or if it is inconvenient or any other reason, does not matter, I follow this rule like a robot.
Things that GPS/Waze still don't do a good job of handling:
1. Toll roads - You can either choose to avoid, or choose to take. But I want to avoid toll roads when it will cost me > $x / saved hour. Or how about some optimization between fuel use and the value of my time? Paying $2 to save 30 minutes makes sense, buy not $15 to save 2 minutes. Where's the in-between setting/dial?
2. High-Occupancy Vehicle lanes.
The highway may make a lot of sense with 2 people, but not while being a solo driver.
3. Traffic levels and when to wake up. I wish Waze could integrate with my alarm clock to wake me up extra early when major roads are closed, and I'd be majorly late for work without giving me an extra margin.
4. I'm not a trucker, nor an SUV driver, but something to account for high-height vehicles could be useful for many.
> 4. I'm not a trucker, nor an SUV driver, but something to account for high-height vehicles could be useful for many.
This exact issue causes a fair number of trucks to hit this one specific bridge [0] in Durham, NC. Blindly following a GPS meant for cars when you have a tall vehicle is a recipe for disaster.
Within Arches National Park, my GPS told me to turn left to get back on the main stretch of road towards vegas (we were in a hurry and the park seemed like a good idea at the time). It sent us on a route meant for 4x4 offroading.. in my 4 cylinder lancer. By the time we figured that out, it seemed quicker to just keep going - the GPS agreed. Well, two hours and a havoc'd suspension system later, we finally got back on the main road. Damn you, technology.
These days I have a dry erase board for directions in lieu of a gps and phone. I only need to look at it every now and then, and as long as my notes are correct, it's just about as easy to get there. If I get lost, pulling over and asking someone isn't that difficult to do, either. Not sure I'll go back. :)
Okay, I'll be the one to say it - how does this bode for the future of autonomous cars? If a man drives off a cliff because he was following a GPS and not paying attention then that's not great, granted - but if your car drives you off a cliff whilst you're reading in the backseat that's another matter :)
For a standard GPS head unit, the burden of proof that a road exists and is appropriate to drive on may be some purchased telematics database, itself combined from all kinds of different sources. The burden of proof for a Google self-driving car is that the road recently had every feature (curb, sign, mailbox, lane marking, etc) mapped by a Google employee.
A handheld GPS typically offers a few options: (a) fastest route, (b) simplest route, (c) shortest route. These problems happen to people who pick (c) or worse, pick (c) with an added "avoid major roads" modifier. Which can be a great option if you are hiking or biking or sightseeing and want to see the "real country" and don't care how long the trip takes or how bad the roads are.
The main thing this says for autonomous cars is: don't do that. If the routing algorithm has a bias towards picking highways and major roads and roads you've used before, this problem should virtually never come up.
Well self-driving cars are programmed to avoid obstacles. Hopefully it would stop at the edge of the cliff, dump a segfault onto the nav screen, and then shutoff.
There was an increase in boats hitting buoys when GPS became common, out on the water there really is very little traffic so setting an autopilot is often practical, but if you set a waypoint exactly on the coordinates of a buoy and forget to keep a close watch or proximity alarm, it tracks right into a big iron marker.
I still remember vividly the death of James Kim, the CNET reporter who died because GPS lead him and his family onto a small mountain road that shouldn't have been opened in the first place. I didn't know him personally, but he was a close friend of a friend, and as the events were unfolding, daily I could see the worry and pain in my friend's face, until he was found dead (but his family was miraculously found alive). This happened about 10 years ago in the mountains in Oregon, notoriously treacherous during the winter.
Surprisingly, my neighbor revently described to me how she almost died in the same area by following GPS, just last winter, almost 9 years later. They blindly went up a mountain road in the snow as they were trying to drive to Portland from the Bay Area, and they went to the point where they could barely turn their car around. Had they attempted to stop later, they would have gotten stuck and it would have turned into a similar story.
Unfortunately, GPS needs a setting labelled "follow the safest, biggest roads".
I was using Google Maps to take a shortcut through Kathmandu on foot. Just as I commented on the amazing accuracy of the map, I found myself approaching a dead end that the map showed continued onwards.
I turned around and several small dogs were in the road behind me. No big deal I thought, I walked past them as they barked at the intruder.
I continued in the most promising direction, which turned out to also be a dead end. Behind me the small dogs had been joined by an enormous fierce dog so angry his hair was standing on end. And the only path out was past him.
I stayed calm with my eyes on the exit, walking wide of dogs who were drooling and livid.
Better lucky than smart, I guess. I've never been cavalier about following Google maps since.
I had a fun experience in the Dominican Republic once: There was no official coverage of the island at that time, but I was able to get a map for my Garmin from some shady Russian website. The roads were accurate for the most part, but they were lacking all of the metadata like highway size, speed, direction, etc. We used it to drive from our resort to another town down the coast, and lacking all of that data, the Garmin just routed us through the shortest path, which turned out to be a country road out in the hills that eventually disappeared. Luckily I was able to ask some bemused farmers how to get to the right road - basically drive 20 miles back and get on the highway.
Recently I have been noticing how Uber/Lyft drivers in NYC are "gps sheep". The lack of common sense is astounding to me. They are very often only listening to their gps and nothing else.
One time, a driver chose to circle around after two blocks instead of turning directly right at an intersection, because Waze said it had a lot of traffic and therefore chose that route. If he had bothered to turn his head right, he'd see that the road was empty.
Following the GPS has two benefits: assure the passenger they aren't being ripped off with dubious/scenic routes, and remove the mental load from the driver on each intersection. Any single trip could be faster by couple minutes of done by a local, or longer+pricier if done by a crafty taxi driver. The GPS narrows this variability, pacifies the passenger, and let's the driver focus on the driving vs the routing. But yes, this sound general strategy can be frustrating in a local-maximum situation.
I have a much bigger problem with the driver who is too busy talking on the phone or giving me their card to even take the exits the GPS is telling them to take. I can't wait for self driving taxi services.
A lot of the drivers are opportunists from outside of the area.
They don't know, and in NYC in particular many are fresh off the boat, the yellow cab drivers were no different only slightly better connected to obtain a yellow cab.
[+] [-] Doctor_Fegg|10 years ago|reply
TIGER classes pretty much any rural "road" uniformly - class A41, if you're interested. That might be a paved two-lane road, it might be a forest track. Just as often, it's a drainage ditch or a non-existent path or other such nonsense. It's wholly unreliable.
You can see this in OpenStreetMap easily. Navigate to the backwoods and look at the road types. It's predominantly highway=residential, the road type that A41 was mapped to in the TIGER import. highway=residential is usually meant for city streets and suburban residential roads. Not this.
So: help! I've genuinely spent weeks on this but it's a massive job. Paved road? Reclassify it as highway=tertiary (wider with centreline) or highway=unclassified (narrower, no centreline). Gravel or dirt graded road? highway=unclassified, surface=gravel (or =dirt). Rough, not recommended for most cars? highway=track. Genuinely a paved residential road? Keep the highway tag as it is, but delete the tiger:reviewed=no tag. Nothing there at all? Just delete it.
(My particular interest in this is bicycle routing. Bike routing usually prefers the smallest paved roads in the grid. It breaks if those "paved roads" are impassable desert tracks in reality. I take a very conservative view for my site, http://cycle.travel/map, precisely because I'm anxious about situations such as that described in the Ars article.)
[+] [-] ygra|10 years ago|reply
But I can see now why navigation breaks so horribly when all you have is an essentially uncategorised road network.
[+] [-] data_hope|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] lmm|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] iiiggglll|10 years ago|reply
I'd love to help, but how? Is the only option for people to go driving all these "roads" in person to see which ones are actually roads, or is there another source of data that can be used to compare against?
[+] [-] stickfigure|10 years ago|reply
I've found one "master" secret to not getting lost: Get rid of all that 3D garbage and put the map in overhead view, north up. It takes a tiny bit of practice getting used to the dynamic meaning of Left and Right but you build up a geospatial awareness and can usually tell when the GPS is getting stupid.
[+] [-] gregmac|10 years ago|reply
Totally agree.
I think the other thing that helps in an unfamiliar area is to pre-scout the route.. basically just look at the map around where you're going, while you're stopped. Honestly I don't always do this, but I should and it usually helps.
> can usually tell when the GPS is getting stupid.
The key to this is how you respond.
I used to just decide to go the way I think makes more sense, then often find out there was a reason: a one-way or closed street, no left-hand turns intersection, only one on-ramp to the highway (in the opposite direction I'm trying to go), construction, etc, and then I'd have to loop around.
Now I just become more vigilant. I always pay attention to the road names (and not just "take next left"), but I also really keep an eye out for extra signage (like signs showing the route to get to a highway) or closures.
One of the problems with current GPS tech and the maps is they're really damn good -- but still not perfect. The fact they work so well most of the time makes people complacent.
[+] [-] sunshiney|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] shiro|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] tajen|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] schiffern|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] chrissnell|10 years ago|reply
You can see some photos from the trip here:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/defender90/albums/721576543876...
I also did a detailed write-up with photos:
http://www.expeditionportal.com/forum/threads/146545-The-Owy...
[+] [-] nathancahill|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Mahn|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] pdabbadabba|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bmmayer1|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jedberg|10 years ago|reply
I eventually stumbled upon a sign, in German, that was big and red, and I knew I was on the border between Hungary and Austria. I wasn't sure what the sign said, and at the time I didn't realize the two countries had an open border. I looked around for police like cars, and then quickly crossed the border, eventually reaching my destination just inside Austria.
As it turns out the sign just said "no vehicles over two metric tons", and that somehow I had gotten of the highway which had a very nice border crossing.
But a few years earlier and that mistake would have gotten me arrested!
[+] [-] sandworm101|10 years ago|reply
I'm waiting for the day that someone tells their iCar to "Drive me Home" and they wake up stranded 7,000 feet up "Mt. Home". It's not the GPS that is the problem. GPS does exactly what it was designed to do. The problem isn't even in the mapping software. The problem is that the human is too ready to give up decision-making to a machine. That should inform many autodrive enthusiasts who think humans cannot be trusted with their own navigation.
[+] [-] striking|10 years ago|reply
The implications of that statement, however, are not pleasant.
[+] [-] GauntletWizard|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jdietrich|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] hvidgaard|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] throwaway_exer|10 years ago|reply
It's:
1. aviate (physically fly the plane, or more fundamentally, fly the wing) 2. navigate (know where you're going/situational awareness) 3. communicate (tell whoever needs to know)
[+] [-] nickpsecurity|10 years ago|reply
Route 1: Turn left here, right here, right here, left here, highway here, odd roads here. 30 minutes.
Route 2: Get back on highway, drive a while, Interstate, drive a while, odd roads. 33 minutes.
Thing is, I recognized each street in route 1: The Hood(s) with about 300 cops a shift who can't keep up with the amount of stuff that goes down. The other was a straight, safe shot. I thought, "Is Google really trying to send me through all the worst areas of my city... areas where you have to stop right next to potential carjackers and killers... just to save three minutes?"
Now I know why people coming through think my city is just a shithole. It's a mix of great, good, OK, bad, and ugly but Google keeps sending people through The Hood. No wonder they think it's nothing but poverty and crime. So, then I got the idea for a movie or TV show where there's a serial killer that, SAW-style, makes people kill themselves. By Google Maps instructions they follow blindly into the worst areas. You might see it on TV but you heard it here first.
Yeah, don't trust the GPS's until they know the difference between an armed robbery and an Interstate. At the least, they need to realize we won't take that kind of risk unless we're talking about saving 30min to hours, the interview is too important for Interstate traffic, or she was one bad-ass lady. Not over three minutes, though. ;)
[+] [-] thirdsun|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] lurker_primo|10 years ago|reply
C has very few intersections. But it has a 1 km stretch which takes 25 mins to cross if traffic is bad. Google maps always shows C to be the fastest. But local knowledge will tell you either A or B will be faster at peak traffic times.
[+] [-] chippy|10 years ago|reply
sounds very similar to the beginning to Bonfire of the Vanities
[+] [-] s0rce|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bigger_cheese|10 years ago|reply
I was driving on a reasonably remote highway in Victoria Australia. My car was running low on petrol. As I approached an exit there was a sign that said last service for 90km or something like this. I did some mental maths and decided I could make it another 90km so pushed on. The fuel warning light came on about half way through the 90km. When I reached the exit the pump was out of order and station closed (tiny rural station). Now I was forced either to turn back or push on to next station. I decided to push on and ended up running out of petrol I had to call roadside assistance. If I hadn't seen the sign saying the next service was 90 km away I would have pulled in then and there.
[+] [-] hoppa_liza|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Scoundreller|10 years ago|reply
1. Toll roads - You can either choose to avoid, or choose to take. But I want to avoid toll roads when it will cost me > $x / saved hour. Or how about some optimization between fuel use and the value of my time? Paying $2 to save 30 minutes makes sense, buy not $15 to save 2 minutes. Where's the in-between setting/dial?
2. High-Occupancy Vehicle lanes. The highway may make a lot of sense with 2 people, but not while being a solo driver.
3. Traffic levels and when to wake up. I wish Waze could integrate with my alarm clock to wake me up extra early when major roads are closed, and I'd be majorly late for work without giving me an extra margin.
4. I'm not a trucker, nor an SUV driver, but something to account for high-height vehicles could be useful for many.
[+] [-] peckrob|10 years ago|reply
This exact issue causes a fair number of trucks to hit this one specific bridge [0] in Durham, NC. Blindly following a GPS meant for cars when you have a tall vehicle is a recipe for disaster.
[0] http://11foot8.com/
[1] http://championtrucklines.com/latest-news/11foot8-bridge-cra...
[2] http://chapelboro.com/news/news-around-town/durham-can-opene...
[3] http://www.thetruckersreport.com/truckingindustryforum/threa...
[+] [-] bpchaps|10 years ago|reply
These days I have a dry erase board for directions in lieu of a gps and phone. I only need to look at it every now and then, and as long as my notes are correct, it's just about as easy to get there. If I get lost, pulling over and asking someone isn't that difficult to do, either. Not sure I'll go back. :)
[+] [-] tommoor|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] pkulak|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] glenra|10 years ago|reply
The main thing this says for autonomous cars is: don't do that. If the routing algorithm has a bias towards picking highways and major roads and roads you've used before, this problem should virtually never come up.
[+] [-] hueving|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|10 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] sammyo|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] pfarnsworth|10 years ago|reply
Surprisingly, my neighbor revently described to me how she almost died in the same area by following GPS, just last winter, almost 9 years later. They blindly went up a mountain road in the snow as they were trying to drive to Portland from the Bay Area, and they went to the point where they could barely turn their car around. Had they attempted to stop later, they would have gotten stuck and it would have turned into a similar story.
Unfortunately, GPS needs a setting labelled "follow the safest, biggest roads".
[+] [-] paulsutter|10 years ago|reply
I turned around and several small dogs were in the road behind me. No big deal I thought, I walked past them as they barked at the intruder.
I continued in the most promising direction, which turned out to also be a dead end. Behind me the small dogs had been joined by an enormous fierce dog so angry his hair was standing on end. And the only path out was past him.
I stayed calm with my eyes on the exit, walking wide of dogs who were drooling and livid.
Better lucky than smart, I guess. I've never been cavalier about following Google maps since.
[+] [-] anonfunction|10 years ago|reply
At the bottom of a fairly steep hill there was a huge unchained full-grown Rottweiler.
When we arrived at the flat area he attacked.
We had to hold our boards out to defend ourselves.
A women driver started honking and driving towards the dog causing him to run away.
We rode towards the main road, and I've never used Google maps in that tiny town again. Likely because I haven't been there since that day.
[+] [-] 13of40|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|10 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] wglb|10 years ago|reply
This seems to be an extension of what my family called "the Jeep principle". A jeep, and now a GPS, enables you to get stuck further from help.
[+] [-] omegaham|10 years ago|reply
Yes, it raises your performance. It doesn't magically turn icy, snowy Massachusetts roads into Arizona highway.
The result is that lots and lots of high-performance trucks end up in ditches and smashed into trees.
[+] [-] avel|10 years ago|reply
One time, a driver chose to circle around after two blocks instead of turning directly right at an intersection, because Waze said it had a lot of traffic and therefore chose that route. If he had bothered to turn his head right, he'd see that the road was empty.
[+] [-] e1g|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] nwjtkjn|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] cloudjacker|10 years ago|reply
They don't know, and in NYC in particular many are fresh off the boat, the yellow cab drivers were no different only slightly better connected to obtain a yellow cab.