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Quairading shire erects signs telling travellers to ignore Google Maps
- adhesive_wombat 3y agoGood to see that technology-based executive function theft (i.e. "our inconvenient corner case is all y'all's problem not ours") doesn't just affect individuals.
- bell-cot 3y agoReaction: Put up a big sign saying "Dangerous Road", with a few big skulls-and-crossbones added to it...and room left for quite a few more.
- kristianp 3y agoAnother example of google's inability to answer user problems on a human level.
- aiiotnoodle 3y agoAnd users unable to correct the data themselves
- bigbuppo 3y agoGoogle knows best. You must take the most efficient route.
- liquidgecka 3y agoGoogle lets you edit (or more accurately, suggest edit) maps. It just appears to get overwritten by some process after a few days. I have fixed so many things only to have them snap back to what they were before. Its annoying and leads to situations where door dashers end up coming down an irrigation road, nearly crashing into the canal because its "faster" than using the road that goes around the field. I am shocked Google doesn't have MORE lawsuits on its hands.
- pdonis 3y agoGoogle's defense to a lawsuit would be simple: that it makes no guarantee that maps is accurate, and you use it at your own risk. If that defense ever proves to be insufficient, their obvious next step is to no longer make maps available for free. Then we will see how many people are actually willing to pay for actual accuracy. In the case of the irrigation road, since from another post of yours upthread it appears to be private property, it should be signed accordingly to make it clear to people that they are trespassing if they use it.
- photonbeam 3y agoIn some jurisdictions you cant just say whoops when its public safety related
- pdonis 3y agoUnless the jurisdiction has some sort of contract with Google regarding the use of maps for public safety, I don't see how Google could be held responsible. Google does not make any guarantees about the accuracy of maps, and you use it at your own risk. That means the safety risk is on you, not Google. Yes, it would be nice if Google would take steps to ensure the accuracy of maps and make guarantees accordingly, but it doesn't (and I don't see how it ever will unless and until maps becomes a paid application instead of a free one).
- sakjur 3y ago> That means the safety risk is on you, not Google. There could be jurisdictions that disagree with this. The US delegates quite a lot to contract law, but say Germany (I’m not sure if they do, but it sounds like it could be a German thing) could definitely decide that the act of providing a map with navigational assistance is sufficient to make some legal guarantees about accuracy.
- lakpan 3y agoThen Google Maps becomes unavailable in your country and I want to see how long it takes for that to be reinstated with a “Sorry oh Google”
- sayrer 3y agoI sent a correction once, and they did indeed fix it after a couple of weeks. I only knew it was wrong because I had studied the area in non-interactive maps ahead of time.
- csomar 3y agoIt is not the user's responsibility. Google Maps is now a marketing platform (try typing a Hotel name and see how that goes). At this point, we should have an Open Source Open Map that let's people contribute and it's actually free.
- zootboy 3y agoLike, say, OpenStreetMap? https://www.openstreetmap.org/ https://www.openstreetmap.org/
- xbmcuser 3y agoThe moment such a map will have high enough usage assholes will put in incorrect data maliciously. One of the major reasons for google map errors is malicious editing.
- habi 3y agoOpenStreetMap has high enough usage that vandals enter incorrect data [0]. But such vandalism is generally corrected very quickly. [0]: https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Vandalism https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Vandalism
- sneak 3y agoThis could be solved by letting users pay a $20 deposit or something with their edit.
- yjftsjthsd-h 3y agoThat might work for users that are affected (ex. pizza deliveries never get to your house) but will kill users providing fixes just to be helpful.
- thebruce87m 3y ago"If I wasn't towing a caravan, I would have kept going but the wife doesn't like to be upset." I love the phrasing of this.
- Log_out_ 3y agoGoogle send us on a walking tour path that was last used in the sixties. Stubborn as I was, I refused to admit that the forestry road it started out as, had ceased to be some time ago.
- Pxtl 3y agoHah, I had a similar experience crossing New Brunswick, my old Garmin GPS tried to send us through logging roads. Those roads shift like sand, of course, as the loggers' needs change. It was kind of a disaster in a minivan. Eventually we managed to extricate ourselves, but not before mortally wounding the van's suspension and seeing a really cool old covered bridge.
- liquidgecka 3y agoGoogle keeps adding the irrigation access road next to me to maps. This is both dangerous as its totally unprotected and a car could easily drive into the canal, and its private, only the property owners and irrigation district are allowed to use it. I have reported it something like 10 times already and every tie it will be removed for a day or two and then instantly pop back into the map. I don't get how Google even thinks this is a road, or what data it is using to discover it. Its nowhere on any map that I know of!
- trillic 3y ago[flagged]
- pard68 3y agoThey do that to us too. Google wanted me to take a detour over an access bridge that allowed a farmer to cross a ditch (man made creeks in the Missouri Bootheel).
- zoklet-enjoyer 3y agoThere's a semi-maintained road that goes through a farm field between my parents house and my childhood best friend's house. Partway through there's a creek and the road just goes through the creek because it's usually dry or shallow enough you can drive through it with a truck. It gets pretty deep and wide in the spring though. Google Maps suggests that route. Also, I'm pretty sure it's a private road and likely not passable in the winter because it probably doesn't get plowed.
- aaron695 3y ago[dead]
- AlotOfReading 3y agoIt's pretty likely that the road data source (e.g. the local government) marks the road without any restrictions. Data errors are shockingly common with municipal sources. Even if that's not the case and the source correctly marks the restrictions, maps will still route onto it for destinations "along" the road.
- worldofmatthew 3y agoFor walking direction Google Maps is a disaster (More than road directions). 90% of footpaths simply don't exist on there and the ones listed on Google Maps are often completely wrong.
- defrost 3y agoIn other parts of Western Australia | Northern Territory.. If you find yourself unknowingly on the Gunbarrel Highway network surveyed out by Len Beadell [1] .. you're screwed. Even if you plan on driving through them, it's an adventure: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uL44EAyz8Qc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uL44EAyz8Qc Midway thru @5:47 onwards "Let's take the David Carnegie Rd .." [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Len_Beadell https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Len_Beadell Beadell's sense of humour was well known, and he referred to many of his roads as "highways". The description stuck, and maps show the subject roads as highways, despite the reality that they have degraded to single lane unsealed tracks through the remote arid areas of central Australia.
- pard68 3y agoIf you put my address into Google Maps you end up in almost the furthest place from me in the state of Missouri (USA). It's literally 7 hours from me, but Google insists that this is my address. Poor satellite repair man ended up on a dirt road nearly in Iowa when he tried to come out. Google also suggests that the best way to get from one paved road in our county to another is a 25 mile dirt road which _fords_ three creeks, one of which is never below 2' deep. If you are not driving a vehicle capable of making that crossing you will end up stranded in a creek, a 4 hour walk from cell service
- dannyw 3y agoHave you tried editing it? https://support.google.com/maps/answer/10010575?hl=en&co=GENIE.Platform%3DAndroid https://support.google.com/maps/answer/10010575?hl=en&co=GEN...
- pard68 3y agoI tried twice when we moved here, my suggestions were never taken. I gave up and just use my business to give directions now.
- mjevans 3y agoHave you tried E.G. for Google Maps you click on a point and hold it until a pin forms In the pin popup there's the GPS co-ordinates Click the GPS again and it loads the point not as decimal GPS but... 47°26'46.8"N 122°17'51.4"W For KSEA Seattle International Airport's departure's drive
- yunohn 3y agoI have never seen a business accept GPS coordinates instead of the actual home address, for booking at-home services.
- lakpan 3y agoGrab (the South East Asian Uber) lets you place the pin. I did just that when I grew tired of delivery drivers entering the wrong gate because the address’ pin was closer to the other side of my corner.
- dbetteridge 3y agoGoogle and Australian roads are a fun combination. I've on several occasions been routed onto "roads" that were nothing but compacted dirt or an old farm track when road tripping through the Mundaring hills and south-west region in WA. It's great fun if you've got a suitable car and a sense of adventure.
- froglisp 3y agoA lot of gazetted and maintained highways in Australia are just dirt roads, hence the prevalence of utes and landcruisers anywhere outside of the major cities
- dbetteridge 3y agoOh I know, but it throws tourists for a loop for sure!
- SoftTalker 3y agoJust wait until the cars are driving themselves based on this map data.
- kfarr 3y agoShire of Quairading "Take a closer look" Also Shire of Quairading "TURN AROUND"
- kstenerud 3y agoThis August while traveling from Dnipro to Sloviansk, Google maps kept trying to reroute me towards the M03, which would have taken me through Bakhmut. "Bingly-bingly beep! I've adjusted for a faster route! It will save you 12 minutes!" "Goddammit, for the hundredth time, NO!!!" (feeling a bit like Samuel Vimes) Later, I discovered that you can drop fake waypoints to force it to stick to the original (safe) route.
- throw101010 3y agoIf I may recommend OsmAnd~ (https://f-droid.org/packages/net.osmand.plus/ https://f-droid.org/packages/net.osmand.plus/) on F-Droid if you're on Android (unlimited free maps), or Osmand+ (10 free maps) on iOS. It allows setting roads that you want to avoid generally. It's a FOSS alternative to Google Maps, it uses OpenStreetMap for cartography data, in my experience it's pretty reliable and actually much better for certain use cases (like forest paths, in my region). It also has much better offline abilities.
- romwell 3y agoI'm a happy paying OsmAND user, and can confirm that it works great in Ukraine. Drove from Kraków to Kyiv and then to Chișinău Aug-Sep 2023, Kraków to Odesa and back in 2022, and never had a single issue.
- LordShredda 3y agoJust for reference, Bakhmut is an active warzone.
- helsinkiandrew 3y agoTo be fair I don't think many map products have active warzone avoidance.
- kstenerud 3y agoThat was my general take as well. My main issue was that it kept automatically re-routing me every 20 minutes or so without my consent. And so I developed a paranoia, compulsively checking the map to restart navigation again (manually choosing the safe route) every time it betrayed me.
- userbinator 3y agoIf you're going to use Google Maps, I'd strongly recommend to at least use the Street View to see what your route is likely to look like.
- mensetmanusman 3y agoJust today apple maps almost sent me through some farm that had a tresspassers will be shot sign.
- newuser94303 3y agoSome of the Google errors are caused by malicious people doing user-generated nonsense. There is a parking lot next to water in Foster City called boat park. Inside the boat park, there was a dog run. Someone relabelled boat park into dog park and moved the boat park several hundred yards inland. I corrected it but it kept changing.
- palemoonale 3y agoThe only thing GM is good for are their myriad of business POIs. For everything else, use OSMand respective OrganicMaps. (and yes people, contribute adding POIs to OSM!)
- rootusrootus 3y agoI get the flooding part, but I do find the "some people are not used to driving on gravel roads" part a little amusing. City slickers, for sure. I also couldn't reproduce the behavior, Google maps sent me on the main road when I tried several origins east of Quairading and said take me to Perth.
- chris-orgmenta 3y agoI think plenty of people in Broome (also Western Australia), for example, would not have experienced gravel roads (the feel of it, the way the gravel kicks up, the way at certain speeds you will ding the paint work more, the specific 'skid' feel) - It's all fine pindan dirt roads there. So that's just 'down the road' (only 22 hrs drive) from Quairading, and about as far from 'city slicker' as you can get :)
- Zanfa 3y agoGoogle Maps is surprisingly bad with its algorithm when considering gravel roads. I’ve had it reroute me off a highway to small gravel roads with a reasonable speed limit of 30 km/h, just to “save” a few km of highway. It also keeps inventing extra lanes on straight roads and gives directions to either take the right or left lanes, where there’s only one. I don’t know why I keep using it.
- Doxin 3y agoMy personal favorite is when google maps instructed me to sort onto the right-most lane to turn left at the next traffic lights. Never mind that the right-most lane is a bus lane or that there's no left turns allowed at all at that crossing.
- saaspirant 3y agoIt keeps recommending a me path that has been closed for months. No way to report it.
- e40 3y agoGoing through the Caldecott tunnel on hwy 24 causes Google Maps to immediately read all stops on my route. This was on iOS. Switched to Apple Maps and only noticed one minor glitch, getting on hwy 13 from Moraga rd it thinks the light is before the entrance. I always thought Apple was far behind Google in maps but that’s not my experience.
- heads 3y agoHere is my entry, on the way to Cwmyoy in Llanthony: https://maps.app.goo.gl/Q4verMiEmXk4ZZVs9?g_st=ic https://maps.app.goo.gl/Q4verMiEmXk4ZZVs9?g_st=ic There are “not suitable for motor vehicles” signs at each end but I completely missed them. I approached from the other end which is far less discouraging. Quite fun really, and it led me to an invitation to the local history society and some beautiful old homes in the area. Cwmyoy still had a school and a pub after the war as well as, of course, the famous crooked church. The pub fell down, the school is a private home, but the church is still standing. People used to live in the countryside. Now they just sleep there (or drive through it.)
- Schiphol 3y agoI don't drive, but I often use walking directions. Once, in Germany, Google sent me to my hotel through a forest that was the quickest route and a pleasant one in broad daylight, but pitch dark at the time Google recommended it. I got lost, of course, and seriously thought I might have to sleep there.
- lnauta 3y agoFor a moment I thought this was about the Quiraing on Skye in Scotland. My friends and I climbed it using Google maps, which ended up in us climbing some parts with hands and feet. When we realised we were off the path we made sure to avoid dangerous parts and make the best of it. On the way down we could clearly see the normal path, while on the way up we took a path made by animals. The algorithm had recognised this path in the satellite images and steered us in that direction.
- cromulent 3y agoThe sign says "Your GPS is wrong" but technically the GPS is fine, it is the route planning app that is sub-optimal ;)
- kleiba 3y agoThat's why it says "your" - GPS is used synomymously to "sat nav" or whatever you prefer to call your route planning software. It's a common term in some places.
- cromulent 3y agoNo, my personal GPS receiver is correctly determining my position, no matter what you think of my chosen route :) GPS jamming is becoming an increasing problem around Europe, so "your GPS is wrong" has other common meanings. https://gpsjam.org https://gpsjam.org
- layer8 3y agoYeah, I found this confusing and misleading as well. I was wondering which physical effect could possibly distort GPS in that region.
- kleiba 3y agoMy GPS regularly sends me down roads that are not even open to cars. Like, some narrow street across some farmer's field. It's a wonderful experience every time.
- SideburnsOfDoom 3y agoGoogle maps (and route-finding software in general) is notorious for depending on the single the metric "find the shortest route" even when this is counterproductive, e.g. "if you go via the side streets here - instead of straight on the main street, go left, third right, left at the stop sign and second left again, this route is 12 meters shorter. That must be faster!" This is just an extreme example of that optimisation.
- neilkk 3y agoRather than erect signs, they should change the official speed limit on that road to 10 miles per hour. Google takes into account speed restrictions when choosing routes, apparently by assuming that you always drive exactly at the limit. The locals who are using the dirt track will know that the 10mph is not operative and no speed limit on that road is likely to be enforced.
- russelg 3y agoHonestly, 10mph is not far off the speed you want to be going on these unsealed gravel roads.
- defrost 3y agoMaybe people that never drive on unsealed gravel roads. This specific instance is fine at speeds of 80-100 km/hr with reductions down to 50 km/hr or less if there are surface issues | washouts, etc. ( Literally an actual local to this bit of the wheatbelt in W.Australia )
- russelg 3y agoI'm in Perth so yeah I don't get to experience driving on those roads very often, but when I have I'm in a Corolla hatchback and definitely don't feel safe doing above 30km/h LOL
- averageRoyalty 3y agoThat would certainly confuse people, as Australian cars don't have a speedo that shows miles per hour.
- consp 3y agoI wonder how many people will ignore it. This happens with the "turn off adaptive cruise control" signs as well and results in sudden braking for no obvious reason, especially in tunnels.
- Corvus 3y agoFor over a year there was a fake trail that went through a mountain in Google Maps from a ski hill to a waterfall. Local SAR would regularly have to rescue people trying to take the trail; I think at least one person was killed there. People had long been trying to remove the fake trail from Maps, contacting Google, posting signs at the trailhead saying there was no trail to the waterfall, all to no avail. The fake trail was at last removed in November 2023: https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/google-maps-non-existent-trail-removed-vancouver-north-shore-mount-fromme-1.7027120 https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/google-maps-...