4 ms·

The flip side of that is that if you ask your GPS to provide you a route and it sends you somewhere that you can't pass then chances are that a shorter route wa

The flip side of that is that if you ask your GPS to provide you a route and it sends you somewhere that you can't pass then chances are that a shorter route was available if the GPS had known that you couldn't go there, so that information is useful to have in the system (for rail crossings you might have a point, but the max height on a particular segment of a route is useful even assuming people do pay attention once they arrive at the problematic part of the route).

rplst8 10y ago
This is the crossing in question. https://www.google.com/maps/place/34%C2%B011'49.6%22N+119%C2%B008'32.2%22W/@34.1971529,-119.1427312,105m/data=!3m1!1e3!4m5!3m4!1s0x0:0x0!8m2!3d34.19712!4d-119.14227?hl=en https://www.google.com/maps/place/34%C2%B011'49.6%22N+119%C2... I don't think it was a situation where the driver couldn't get past the crossing. I think they are saying he parked his truck across the rails when it broke down. Had the GPS warned him, "hey this is a railroad crossing" he might not have chosen that spot. IMHO, that's a stretch. If you are too out of your wits to notice a railroad crossing - you shouldn't be driving at all.
- manarth 10y ago
  I think they are saying he parked his truck across the rails when it broke down The article isn't really clear on the events, but I'm interpreting it a different way. "he would have been less likely to misinterpret the visual cues and mistakenly turn onto the railroad tracks" It sounds like he was driving along the main road, when the GPS instructed him something like "turn left", and displayed a junction with a 90º left turn: he turned left 10 yards too early, onto the railway track, rather than 10 yards later, onto the road running alongside. He had abandoned it on the tracks with the headlights and hazard lights on and the driver’s door open. It suggests that rather than breaking down, once on the tracks, he was stuck (maybe "beached" on the rails), and couldn't get the truck off the track.

rplst8 10y ago

This is the crossing in question. https://www.google.com/maps/place/34%C2%B011'49.6%22N+119%C2%B008'32.2%22W/@34.1971529,-119.1427312,105m/data=!3m1!1e3!4m5!3m4!1s0x0:0x0!8m2!3d34.19712!4d-119.14227?hl=en https://www.google.com/maps/place/34%C2%B011'49.6%22N+119%C2... I don't think it was a situation where the driver couldn't get past the crossing. I think they are saying he parked his truck across the rails when it broke down. Had the GPS warned him, "hey this is a railroad crossing" he might not have chosen that spot. IMHO, that's a stretch. If you are too out of your wits to notice a railroad crossing - you shouldn't be driving at all.

manarth 10y ago
I think they are saying he parked his truck across the rails when it broke down The article isn't really clear on the events, but I'm interpreting it a different way. "he would have been less likely to misinterpret the visual cues and mistakenly turn onto the railroad tracks" It sounds like he was driving along the main road, when the GPS instructed him something like "turn left", and displayed a junction with a 90º left turn: he turned left 10 yards too early, onto the railway track, rather than 10 yards later, onto the road running alongside. He had abandoned it on the tracks with the headlights and hazard lights on and the driver’s door open. It suggests that rather than breaking down, once on the tracks, he was stuck (maybe "beached" on the rails), and couldn't get the truck off the track.