5 ms·

People are sheep who cant use their goddamn heads to make basic decisions and have to follow whatever the hivemind says

dredmorbius 5y ago
Tech monopolies are callous shepherds presenting themselves as trusted advisors and consistently failing to act with according responsibility. We're well over a decade into mass-market interactive route guidance. Rookie hour is over. The fact that people will follow interactive map instructions along what are clearly inadvisable routes means that those routes should not be suggested. With turn-by-turn directions, most mapping software doesn't even provide an overview of the route, but expects people to simply follow prompts. (I'm old-school, carry paper maps, and a compass, with topos of remote areas as necessary. I've made a few questionable calls myself, but lived through all, never been stuck, and have some amazing memories as a result.)
- ghaff 5y ago
  The failsafe would be to only show routes that an inexperienced driver in a 2WD sedan can handle comfortably across a wide range of weather conditions--and perhaps refuse to route in heavy snowfall across secondary routes at all. Is that what people would want? In the US West in particular, there are a lot of routes that are very dependent on weather conditions, current maintenance, driver skill/familiarity, and vehicle. It's hard for a GPS unit to make the "right" recommendation on a lot of secondary/tertiary routes. And as a friend of mine was noting the other day, road closures are often recorded by public safety officials making phone calls.
  - toss1 5y ago
    The right thing is to have multiple modes, or appropriate warnings on routes. GPS systems already have modes to avoid/prefer tolls, highways, ferries, etc. Why not have an avoid/prefer difficult conditions? Or highlight certain paths as [requires 4WD+chains+off-road skill]? The drivers with the equipment and skill would likely prefer those and think of this as a good fun feature, and the tourists in a rental car would at least be properly warned. Yes, it's additional work and data. Yes, over a decade into society defaulting to active map/route guidance, it is also getting to the point that this should be table stakes, not frequent stories of near-tragedies.
    - ghaff 5y ago
      In my experience playing with Google Maps in Death Valley was that it pretty much resisted routing you on serious 4WD "shortcuts" even where they cut off a lot of distance. The only exception I found was when you gave it an endpoint that required going on such a road. What it's not as good about in my experience is dealing with snow covered back roads. It's too quick to my way of thinking to take you on a back road when it doesn't need to--or a more difficult/longer back road route than it has to (although some of the distinctions may not be made by the underlying data). Which is probably part of the problem. The underlying data sets (such as TIGER in the US) don't really do a great job of distinguishing roads once you get past basic paved roads. And of course recent and current weather can make a big difference. Even an interstate can be difficult driving in a snowstorm. Though that's really on the driver to use their own judgement. ADDED: The article does say that "Waze has a filter that allows drivers to avoid unpaved roads." While hardly a panacea, this seems like a reasonable easy cut even though unpaved roads can be well maintained in good weather and paved roads can be challenging.
  - dredmorbius 5y ago
    I think your proposal, in that first 'graph, would be a good start and a huge improvement over the present situation. I'd like to sit in on the next few weeks' Google Maps team meetings....

Tech monopolies are callous shepherds presenting themselves as trusted advisors and consistently failing to act with according responsibility. We're well over a decade into mass-market interactive route guidance. Rookie hour is over. The fact that people will follow interactive map instructions along what are clearly inadvisable routes means that those routes should not be suggested. With turn-by-turn directions, most mapping software doesn't even provide an overview of the route, but expects people to simply follow prompts. (I'm old-school, carry paper maps, and a compass, with topos of remote areas as necessary. I've made a few questionable calls myself, but lived through all, never been stuck, and have some amazing memories as a result.)

ghaff 5y ago
The failsafe would be to only show routes that an inexperienced driver in a 2WD sedan can handle comfortably across a wide range of weather conditions--and perhaps refuse to route in heavy snowfall across secondary routes at all. Is that what people would want? In the US West in particular, there are a lot of routes that are very dependent on weather conditions, current maintenance, driver skill/familiarity, and vehicle. It's hard for a GPS unit to make the "right" recommendation on a lot of secondary/tertiary routes. And as a friend of mine was noting the other day, road closures are often recorded by public safety officials making phone calls.
- toss1 5y ago
  The right thing is to have multiple modes, or appropriate warnings on routes. GPS systems already have modes to avoid/prefer tolls, highways, ferries, etc. Why not have an avoid/prefer difficult conditions? Or highlight certain paths as [requires 4WD+chains+off-road skill]? The drivers with the equipment and skill would likely prefer those and think of this as a good fun feature, and the tourists in a rental car would at least be properly warned. Yes, it's additional work and data. Yes, over a decade into society defaulting to active map/route guidance, it is also getting to the point that this should be table stakes, not frequent stories of near-tragedies.
  - ghaff 5y ago
    In my experience playing with Google Maps in Death Valley was that it pretty much resisted routing you on serious 4WD "shortcuts" even where they cut off a lot of distance. The only exception I found was when you gave it an endpoint that required going on such a road. What it's not as good about in my experience is dealing with snow covered back roads. It's too quick to my way of thinking to take you on a back road when it doesn't need to--or a more difficult/longer back road route than it has to (although some of the distinctions may not be made by the underlying data). Which is probably part of the problem. The underlying data sets (such as TIGER in the US) don't really do a great job of distinguishing roads once you get past basic paved roads. And of course recent and current weather can make a big difference. Even an interstate can be difficult driving in a snowstorm. Though that's really on the driver to use their own judgement. ADDED: The article does say that "Waze has a filter that allows drivers to avoid unpaved roads." While hardly a panacea, this seems like a reasonable easy cut even though unpaved roads can be well maintained in good weather and paved roads can be challenging.
- dredmorbius 5y ago
  I think your proposal, in that first 'graph, would be a good start and a huge improvement over the present situation. I'd like to sit in on the next few weeks' Google Maps team meetings....