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.
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
"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.
A couple of years ago I did a drive from Port Headland (Northwest Western Australia) to Perth. When we got onto Nanutarra road (Near Paraburdoo), the maps decided we should take a road that was actually the Lyons River - if we were foreign tourists it would have led us into a spot where we could easily have died.
Unfortunately in outback WA, many tourists have experienced this and succumbed to it.
A few years ago we followed Google Maps directions, and it took us into the middle of a farmer's field in Victoria, Australia. I don't know how it happened, but somehow Google had picked up a very informal sheep track, and it was most definitely not a public road.
Google also sent thousands of tourists to a small residential street in the middle of the Australian Blue Mountains. It wasn't until a major masthead picked up on the story[1] that they bothered to do anything about it, despite the dozens to hundreds of requests to make a change.
I've been over that route--32 minutes is absolutely laughable, in my case (stock height IH Scout 80) both ladders and winch were required, and is absolutely not a road to take unprepared. Plus, the detour required after an unsuspecting traveler realized this could easily cause them to run out of fuel.
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.
That's... rough driving. It does appear to significantly cut down on the distances involved, but I'd think it takes at least as much time as the less direct route.
I've followed lines on paper maps near Moab that eventually turned into rock crawling (regular road maps, not trail maps). On the road trip when I moved to Colorado, the paper map we had showed Rollins Pass as being drivable over the top...I'm glad we didn't try to go that way.
Four or five years ago, Apple Maps routed me to Smugglers' Notch ski area through the notch, which is closed in the winter. This past winter, it routed me through the notch on a dirt road which is not maintained year round, then I followed another road that looked like it went through until I got to a locked gate at a farm.
Interesting how maps are just data, and the level of trust we put into them is up to us. I don't trust Apple Maps any more. Waze is usually pretty good, possibly due to the real-time data from other users.
Personally I love the adventure of following lines on maps where I haven't been before, as long as there aren't any time/other pressures.
They have had a huge problem with tractor trailer drivers following their gps through there and getting stuck. There are now 3-4 electronic signs on each side warning truckers.
Yeah, Google Maps does this kind of thing routinely in my experience. I've had it direct me down muddy dirt roads because they were 2 minutes faster than the paved road, or direct me down forest roads that didn't exist anymore or were only for loggers.
I've learned to approach the directions it gives me with skepticism.
Interesting that Waze has an option to avoid unpaved roads, but Google Maps app doesn't.
Last weekend Waze directed me onto a private airport's runway. On the return trip, I switched to the Offline Maps app, and it led me to a dead end. Haven't ever seen 2 screwups by 2 different apps on 2 different routes in one day.
Have you noticed in these instances if the web version of maps is better than the Android app version? I've seen that, was trying to use the web page to reproduce the problem so I could report it. But the web app was correct, whereas the mobile version wasn't.
My experience is it isn't really. I used the web version to plan a trip across Mojave National Preserve once, and it came up with a totally innocent looking route using some unpaved roads, which was supposedly faster than going around using the I40 and route 95. The road was ok for the first few miles but anything over 30MPH would be asking for trouble, and not even nearly halfway in I had to turn around because the road was so bad a 2WD would definitely get stuck eventually. The longer route using freeways would have added 30 minutes to the 2:30 hour trip time according to Google, but in reality continuing on the dirt road would have taken at least 4 hours at the speed I was able to go, if I had even made it.
We recently had this issue on holiday in Devon (south-west UK). We’re used to narrow country roads where you need to slow way down when passing someone coming the other way, but Google Maps was constantly trying to direct us down single-track lanes with high hedges and totally blind corners, because they were 5-7 minutes faster.
I’m not even convinced they were faster; the speed limit is technically 60mph on those little lanes but you can’t safely get above ~25.
Meanwhile there’s a slightly less direct but far less stressful route along A-roads, where you can comfortably do 40-60 and don’t have to reverse 300 yards to a passing point if someone is coming the other way.
We found ourselves in desperate need of an “avoid routes via unnamed roads” option.
It's crazy seeing Reserve, NM mentioned on HN! What you experienced is so common around here, I encounter travelers a few times a year in the Gila NF that need assistance after following their GPS nav on the "scenic route" ...most are calm, some are in panic mode and happy to see someone.
Did you happen to follow a road in to the Acoma reservation in the El Malpais?
Yes. I go though there on the 117 every few months. That has some of the most beautiful scenery in New Mexico in my book. At around dawn in particular, with elk herds helping out. We usually take a dog break at Sandstone Bluff, or stretch our legs on the Continental Divide Trail off of the picnic area at The Narrows. It helps me find my calm before dealing with the chaos that is Albuquerque.
I couldn't agree more! We drive 117 frequently and always enjoy seeing elk and pronghorn. Sometimes see deer around La Ventana Arch early in the mornings too.
If you don't mind, could you shoot me an email (in my profile)? Interesting to find another HN'er in this area of the world.
My favorite personal Google Maps whoops is when I was looking for a Chipotle in Mountain View around 2009ish, and Google Maps directed me... onto Google's own campus. (Sadly, I didn't try to go to the cafeteria and demand a burrito.)
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.
Same thing happened to me near Lancaster, California. You make the turn because it looks like a road, and eventually you're in a place where you can't turn around spinning your wheels on sand with a "Transmission overheat" alert on the dashboard.
A similar thing happened to our support driver in rural Greece when we were walking London-Jerusalem. road gradually gets worse until you realise some AI or human has mistaken a stream bed for a road!
> I think most travelers would have bailed at the first turn off of the pavement.
That's the reasonable thing to do if you were on your way to the airport. I've ignored GPS directions that were far less dubious than this simply because it didn't feel right.
You would think they'd take cues from traditional (paper) maps where primary, secondary, tertiary and seasonal road categories were labeled (via map key/legend) appropriately and you could make a determination if you wanted to take that kind of road. Another pet peeve is not labeling tollways and toll bridges.
I miss those. In my area google ignores them, for sure -- I happened to cross check a few months back. For Google its always about 'time' rather than categories.
I can imagine an autonomous Google car suffering to drive through a remote dry stream that comes back after half a year full of scratches from believed to be extinct dinosaurs.
It's even worse for trucks. In my country (Oz) trucks using Google maps are very much gambling. Just near my family business is a back road that google always sends traffic down, even though it's almost only one car wide. Two locals will pass through the narrow hairpins easily, but tourists and uncertain drivers are a problem, often forcing near misses with them or the cliffs.
There are signs indicating that trucks should not travel that road... And yet there are no options on any gps product that causes the correct 'take the main road' to occur for them. Ironically, only the Bing truck maps api will route around it if you put in the truck's length (because of the hairpins).
I know of many truckers (we call them truckies) who've had tickets issued because of being on the wrong road due to Google.
Having seen two bridge strikes at Monty happen live, both of which hit the warning gantry approaching the bridge prior to actually hitting it, I have very little faith that a Google Maps warning about bridge height would achieve anything.
Not that I'm aware of, but would definitely explain it!
The problem with trucks are that they also require: minimum turning circle (eg hairpins), maximum load (old timber bridges and old roads), maximum widths (narrow roads or extra wide loads), residential zone exclusions (eg no trucks via certain suburban streets). In my country there are also statewide maximum truck speeds making Google time estimates inaccurate. There's also no consideration for the slower acceleration time of a truck, meaning that heavy (/city) traffic for a truck can add loads of time to a trip due to the stop/start.
Wow this happened to me when I was a teenager. Drove out to a mountain on what was a dirt road turned river bed.
I had less luck, got stuck, and had a very panic-inducing experience leading to me hike a mountain to get reception to call 911 (the only # I could dial) for a tow.
To be fair, people with disabilities walk a very different life than able-bodied people do. For the mobility impaired, every trip requires careful forethought and planning. The mobility impaired are far less likely to hop in a car, drive into the high Rockies, without a very, very solid plan.
The sentence holds true even if you remove "mobility-impaired." Healthy, active people have died after breaking down in places they shouldn't have been driving, like the Death Valley Germans. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_Valley_Germans
We were discussing the dangers of bad GPS. Person A said bad GPS could kill disabled people, person B said a disabled person wouldn't get into that situation, I'm saying that's true, but bad GPS can kill able-bodied people as well.
The point for me is that bad GPS is a potential threat to human life; exactly which humans are in most danger is an interesting side discussion.
Except that this is Google we are discussing, but your question still stands about reporting to Google; I am very interested in how responsive they are to things like this which can be potentially life threatening. While cars aren’t held to the same certification standards as airplanes, it might seem that auto GPS applications might be held to some heavier scrutiny or at least providing a standardized (and auditable) means for correcting these kinds of issues. Now, it seems that Google just black holes correction requests. I live about .5 miles from Google and my home address is still wrong in Google Maps after a year of me reporting it. Apple Maps on the other hand, had my issue fixed and updated on their Maps within a few days.
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?
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.
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.
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.
The desktop and iOS apps have feedback reporting which I've used for that before. I got an email from them noting that my correction had been accepted and within a week or so noticed far fewer people making an illegal left turn on a major road near us.
Yes (at least, on desktop there is). Right click on the map where you want to fix something and select "Report a data problem". The UI will walk you through the rest.
I would guess that a modern equivalent of that German family will have a mobile phone with them. And my instinct is that SDR makes it practical for phones to be able to become 406MHz COSPAS-SARSAT beacons when they need to not far in the future.
A 406MHz beacon is going to be relevant to a lot of scenarios that people get into in large sparsely populated countries like the US or Australia, because it means somebody knows where you are and that you need help, and then all they've got to do is come help you.
Google would be wise to do their due diligence with routing. They have street view, routes should be scouted and scoured for areas that might be tricky to negotiate for a self driving car. It would be worth it, I imagine after a while there won't be any majorly unique routes so the effort would scale down. Plus you'd have the best quality routing data on the market.
If the argument is that it's OK because the driver will be there to stop the car from doing something fatally stupid, then that sort of defeats the purpose of not driving the car yourself; this isn't a "self-driving" car, it's glorified cruise control.
Simple, we only allow autonomous vehicles to have 40 inch tires, a winch, front and rear lockers, and giant battery. Good to go through Rubicon!
But seriously this is a pretty dangerous situation, especially in the snowy mountains. I remember reading an article about a Tesla engineer getting stuck on a trail in the Sierra's and his Jeep eventually being buried in 10+ ft of snow.
Hopefully the state DOT will have a way of communicating with self driving vehicles directly without needing to go through a company like google first.
It is unlikely that fully autonomous cars will uese any GPS at all.
All evidence is that the market will be dominated almost entirely by Tesla. In April Tesla presented[1] their state of the art in autonomous car vehicle design.
Elon repeatedly emphasized that GPS was inadequate and systems relying on it will fail. The Tesla full self-driving computer, already currently installed in nearly all Tesla vehicles, does not use GPS data to compute the driving solution.
P.S: Keep in mind that GPS is a positioning system, not a navigation system. Navigation comes from the mapping data used by GPS devices, and as for that autonomous vehicles needn't rely on the low quality map data from Google Maps other any other provider. A massive fleet of Tesla vehicles are providing constant validation of navigable routes right now.
(edit: updated link time to a couple of particularly relevant questions and answers in the same video)
They won’t use GPS to figure out which lane they’re in or to know how much to steer in order to take the next curve. They’ll still use GPS to determine which roads to take.
No they will not, or at least it won't be the primary source for positioning.
They will use mapping data, and that is not a problem because the mapping data they have comes from their fleet of cars on the road which upload that data daily.
If any car encounters an incorrectly mapped route all cars will know it. And I expect you will not be able to create an autonomous route that a Tesla car has not already successfully traveled.
The problem of reporting issues to Google Maps is removed.
I’m highly skeptical of this. Local info will probably be used to refine things, but GPS and maps are still going to be the primary inputs driving things like “which exit do I take?”
Since you mentioned Tesla’s current systems, note that this is how they work now. Lane keeping is entirely local, but decisions about which lane to be in or which exit to take to reach your destination are done with your GPS position.
All I can say is watch the presentation. These systems don't work the way many people seem think they do, they are much MUCH more robust.
The op's assertion that autonomous vehicles rely "heavily" on GPS data is false. The problem he presents will not occur.
This won't happen because the computer does not use GPS to determine drivability and will not drive the car into underivable conditions, and the computer will have selected a drivable route to begin with because it can select from routes that have previously been driven. If a route that was previously drivable becomes underivable due to local conditions, the car simply re-routes.
Neither the apparent drivability of mapping data, nor position within that data as computed by GPS effect the car's ability to travel autonomously from point A to point B.
Watch a Tesla using Navigate on Autopilot today and see how it decides which lane it needs to be in and which exit to take.
It's certainly not reading signs. The system doesn't currently have that capability. It's a combination of GPS (to know where it is) and maps (to know how to go from where it is to the destination).
I 100% agree with you that the problems presented in the original comment wouldn't be an issue. The cars will use local data to determine whether a surface is drivable. They won't drive into sand or deep snow just because the navigation says that they should.
But that's not the same as your statement that they won't use GPS at all. And your statement that Tesla currently doesn't use GPS in their systems is plainly wrong.
You really do need to watch the presentation I linked. They go into excruciating detail on what data is used and how it is used.
I did not say Tesla's don't use GPS, they do. I said "It is unlikely that fully autonomous cars will use any GPS at all". My argument is not that you can't get google maps in your car, my argument is that the autonomous cars of the "Utopian future" will not need google maps to function, much less leave you stranded in an incorrectly mapped location.
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.
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".
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.
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.
> 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.
Also, it will often recalculate with the assumption that you can immediately follow its directions, even though by the time it's finished saying them you're already past the next turn (and then the next, and then the next...).
In the Western US there is a huge variation in roads from very well-maintained gravel to high clearance 4WD with experienced driver to impassable because of rain or snow. The distinction is mostly lacking in the ur-databases. Somewhere like Death Valley Google Maps seems pretty good about not taking you on silly shortcuts even if you try to force it. I’m sure it’s less good in less travelled areas.
Somewhere like Death Valley Google Maps seems pretty good about not taking you on silly shortcuts even if you try to force it
From personal experience, Apple Maps is more useful in Death Valley than Google Maps. But the National Parks Service is very clear that the only maps that should be used in that area are paper maps, and not GPS of any brand. I agree.
Oh I do as well. But I was curious if Google Maps would take me on a “shortcut” over the mountains and I couldn’t seem to make it even if I stacked the deck. Agree you need a map and current knowledge about anything off-road (and the right vehicle).
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."
>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?
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.
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:
I know it to be true. Outside of the textual example I posted in my original post, here's a visual example: https://pasteboard.co/IloR6Hv.png
The highlighted tracks are private, mud-ridden trails on private property. If I'm sitting in that house, and ask Google to direct to me to the address directly north of my location, it will direct me to take that trail to the north. Which, BTW, will lead me to a locked gate and another trail on the other side of the fence. The correct answer is to send me south to the county road, east to the next county road, north to the next county road, and then west via county road due north of where I am. Those trails are not roads that google would otherwise know about.
I've also had this happen to me- driving from Boone, North Carolina to Charlotte, I usually avoid highways because the interstates are a bit overwhelming to me. I took one different turn as I was trying to avoid downtown in a rural city I was driving through; they were having a block party and the usual route was blocked off. It's routed me through that turn ever since, so saying Google is learning from where people drive even enough to start making routes, that doesn't seem too farfetched for me.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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!
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.
For me it once turned out that a short ~25m connecting path between two roads was an old overgrown flight of stairs in the side of a hill, inclined by about 45 degrees...
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?
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.
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!
I don't know about Japan but I've used Furkot (furkot.com) a few times and it has worked ok. It can calculate how many days your trip will take based on how much you want to drive per day and suggest places to stop for sleeping/gas. Saving it for offline use is a premium feature, though.
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.
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.
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.
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.)
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.
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.
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!
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.
I'm not posting to complain but I was sympathetic to the neighborhood that had a flood of cars being directed by google. At one point, someone was either moving in or out and had one side of the road blocked and this caused a major problem for the hundreds of cars in the google short cut caravan.
Google Maps managed to find me an apartment building in Bangkok which vaguely resembled the airline office it was supposed to be sending me to, just in time for a very nice guy to exit and offer me a lift to where it actually was, over a mile away :)
>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!
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.
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?
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.
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:
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.
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.
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.
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...
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!"
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
...yet needing to get to the airport to catch a flight...
You could leave a little earlier.
But, more generally, I agree. It's hard not to follow the GPS and road conditions can change rapidly.
My own anecdote... driving along 495 outside DC, there's a crash on the Woodrow Wilson, and the GPS says "take some side roads" to all 10,000 of us on that stretch of interstate. Massive gridlock ensues, not just on the interstate, but also all the surrounding neighborhood roads as cars tried to pass through parking lots and alleys to get home.
The choice can be less obvious in northern places. In some countries there are permanent roads and temporary roads through frozen rivers and lakes. The proposition of crossing a muddy field maybe does not trigger any alarm in this areas if the road is opened in winter season and closed in summer.
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.
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.
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.
That sounds extreme, but does indeed play into the stereotype of a Texas rancher. I'm in Canada, and if you shoot someone on your land who's not threatening you with a weapon - chances are you will go to jail because it's not reasonable force.
It is certainly a bit extreme. To be fair, it was clearly a warning shot fired a "safe" distance ahead of me. Most of the folks I've met in rural Texas aren't itching to shoot anyone and everyone, but they do value privacy to an extreme and will go to great lengths to protect what is (in their mind) theirs.
Google didn't actually route me down this road. I initially found it on a paper map, and I confirmed it's continued existence/public status via Google Maps as my paper map was a few years old.
It was ~15 miles shorter than the highway route, but I can't imagine its actually a shorter travel time in anything short of a very well equipped 4x4. I just happen to like dirt roads.
I also did not press him for details, so I don't know if this was a recurring issue or not.
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.
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).
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.
In the West most "ranchers" are just running herds on BLM leases. It is not "their property" by any definition. By contrast virtually all ranches in Texas are on private holdings.
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.
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.)
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
With the constant trickle of folks who do illegal things around you and on your property. Who shoot at you if you get close to a car they abandon on your property.
How is it hard to see ? Ever been shot at walking around what amounts to your extended backyard ?
IMO that's the issue. People get so overly confident that the source of that information is never wrong so they blindly trust it. It's if the more info someone has the less critical thinking they will do.
A front wheel drive car at speed is actually pretty decent on a lot of terrain that I think you'd be hesitant about on your motorcycle - loose sand, mud, etc. The problem is when it stops and settles in, it's done moving on its own.
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.