6 ms·

This 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

This 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 ago
If 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 ago
  I'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 ago
Just for reference, Bakhmut is an active warzone.
helsinkiandrew 3y ago
To be fair I don't think many map products have active warzone avoidance.
- kstenerud 3y ago
  That 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.
  - tessierashpool 3y ago
    it's horrifying how much software operates in defiance of consent. huge overlap with how much software provides "conveniences" which undermine utility.
    - apantel 3y ago
      Google search now does this. The only way now to search Google for the actual terms you want matched is to put them all in double-quotes. Otherwise Google will ignore terms you provided even in the first result in order to show you some SEO-optimized content that matches synonyms or fewer terms.
      - b112 3y ago
        Use "verbatim", under search tools. It forces precise word matching, so Robert doesn't match Bob and Ubuntu doesn't match Debian, for example. Google is utterly useless without verbatim. Recently, some asshat at Google munged things up. When I do verbatim searches, I have to do -hotel, otherwise I get ridiculous local hotels. Search for Debian, get pages of hotel advertising... makes perfect sense.
    - sjfjsjdjwvwvc 3y ago
      Few things make me more furious than the constant „computer says no/knows better“ one has to deal with on so many occasions these days, be it mobile apps, websites or other
- onion2k 3y ago
  Many have ways for users to define routes more specifically than a couple of basic options though, and arguably 'user safety' should be a critical feature of all of them. Also, thinking "we don't need this feature because none of our less popular rivals have it" is not how you build a world class product. This is Google. They have the resources to be better than the other ones.
mynameisnoone 3y ago
Wow. Seriously, can't Google add to the route planning costs or gradient vectors to point people away from battlefronts unless explicitly requested to allow it, i.e., legitimate nav uses like ambulances and fire trucks? "No, fucking stupid Google Maps, I don't want to visit any Russian tanks, landmines, or rapist prison conscripts." EDIT: Are you a medic or war correspondent by chance?
- kstenerud 3y ago
  I was just delivering an off-road vehicle. It's a real beauty, too. A souped up '97 Cherokee with heavy duty tires and a monster winch that I bought in Poland, perfect for nasty evacs :) Noisy as hell on asphalt, though. BTW anyone who has the means to buy or send offroad vehicles to Ukraine, please do! They really need them!
  - mynameisnoone 3y ago
    Ouch. The base vehicle of that year wasn't very good, so I hope they changed the engine to a Subaru or something reliable. My grandfather was a Chrysler-Dodge-Jeep dealer mechanic. Also, you just described every other vehicle in Texas: jacked up, souped-up, with mud tires, and glasspacks. In a war zone, low-observable, quiet, and high performance are better ideas. Also, I'm hoping for quick COTUS 2024 aid package to UA. Slava Ukraini! PS: What the heck is a Canadian SWE doing delivering vehicles in UA? Must be really, really good $$$. ;@]
seer 3y ago
Does google even have any perspective on active warzones/frontlines? I would have thought natural disasters are common enough that they would have modeled that into their route algo, and warzones are kind of like one big natural disaster like a hurricane or a flood. I guess there is not a lot of money in it for them - disaster areas probably don’t generate a lot of revenue from maps, still though could lead to some unfortunate PR problems so there must be some incentive for them to add it. Wondering if waze is doing better there.
- creato 3y ago
  You think the PR problems come from not trying to route around war zones? “Google told me it would plan a route around this war zone, now I’m a prisoner in Russia. 0/5 stars”
- bboygravity 3y ago
  Does avoiding warzones in Maps help drive ad revenue? There's your answer.
  - anticensor 3y ago
    Yes, indirectly. You cannot advertise to a dead person.
    - bayindirh 3y ago
      Our Finance Department (i.e. AI powered BI engine running in a datacenter on a VM on a 6 year old server cluster) told us that the difference would be negligible when the FY ends, so we reduced the priority of the feature to 0.
  - ricardobayes 3y ago
    To continue your chain of thought, if ad revenue is the primary goal, why does it show me hotels in my home town?
    - pmontra 3y ago
xarope 3y ago
That happened to me in iceland. I wanted to get to this famous black sand beach, and maps sent me to a cliff ACROSS the sea from it, with the intention that I would then descend ~30m vertically down a cliff, and drive across the sea, to get to the beach. Nope.
- baz00 3y ago
  Yeah had this with it in Iceland too. Tried to send me through a river when I had a shitty hire van. Ended up using Organic Maps instead.
- meheleventyone 3y ago
  This is one of those cases where I think tech makes people switch their brains off. Reynisfjara is just off the ring road, is well signposted and the correct route is obvious on the map! Although the cliff top there is worth a visit as well. Hopefully you noticed that in advance though!
  - ParetoOptimal 3y ago
    I find using GPS easy. I find navigating by signs easy. I find doing both difficult, GPS very much encourages my brain to shut off.
InCityDreams 3y ago
There is so much more to this story that I would love to hear. Switching to a much-related app: Does waze have any buttons for 'Russian infantry', or 'minefield'?, I may be unaware of?
- kstenerud 3y ago
  There's a LOT more to it, but I'm not prepared to talk about it for a number of important reasons. There will be a book coming out eventually, though.
mrangle 3y ago
This past summer Waze routed me through one of the most dangerous areas in the US, for 30 minutes. To save maybe a few minutes. Tight side streets with "obstacles", at 10-15 mph. I was on the highway when the re-route happened, and so wasn't in a position to examine the map and argue with it. This type of thing is a major problem.
- yummypaint 3y ago
  I was under the impression that this was the whole purpose of waze, to find out-of-the-box routes as an alternative to traditional navigation apps that don't do that kind of thing.
  - mrangle 3y ago
    I wasn't aware that Waze was "alternative" vs "traditional", nor do I know the difference. I suspect that almost no one does, if the categories exist. I am specifically responding to a post that details that Google Maps reroutes. What is the difference between an "out of the box" reroute and a regular one? Danger?
    - dbetteridge 3y ago
      Waze is more likely to use what transport engineers call "Rat runs" Diverting you via side streets and alternatives to highways when the major roads show congestion, roadworks or other issues. Google maps tends to prefer freeways/highways above all other options and its often a fight to get it to take an alternative, You have to toggle the 'avoid freeways' and then even sometimes enter waypoints to guarantee bypassing the motorway.
      - mrangle 3y ago
        Got it. Thank you.
habi 3y ago
https://organicmaps.app/ https://organicmaps.app/ is well suited for (completely) offline routing. Based on OpenStreetMap data, which can be updated yourself.

throw101010 3y ago

If 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 ago
I'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 ago

Just for reference, Bakhmut is an active warzone.

helsinkiandrew 3y ago

To be fair I don't think many map products have active warzone avoidance.

kstenerud 3y ago
That 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.
- tessierashpool 3y ago
  it's horrifying how much software operates in defiance of consent. huge overlap with how much software provides "conveniences" which undermine utility.
  - apantel 3y ago
    Google search now does this. The only way now to search Google for the actual terms you want matched is to put them all in double-quotes. Otherwise Google will ignore terms you provided even in the first result in order to show you some SEO-optimized content that matches synonyms or fewer terms.
    - b112 3y ago
      Use "verbatim", under search tools. It forces precise word matching, so Robert doesn't match Bob and Ubuntu doesn't match Debian, for example. Google is utterly useless without verbatim. Recently, some asshat at Google munged things up. When I do verbatim searches, I have to do -hotel, otherwise I get ridiculous local hotels. Search for Debian, get pages of hotel advertising... makes perfect sense.
  - sjfjsjdjwvwvc 3y ago
    Few things make me more furious than the constant „computer says no/knows better“ one has to deal with on so many occasions these days, be it mobile apps, websites or other
onion2k 3y ago
Many have ways for users to define routes more specifically than a couple of basic options though, and arguably 'user safety' should be a critical feature of all of them. Also, thinking "we don't need this feature because none of our less popular rivals have it" is not how you build a world class product. This is Google. They have the resources to be better than the other ones.

mynameisnoone 3y ago

Wow. Seriously, can't Google add to the route planning costs or gradient vectors to point people away from battlefronts unless explicitly requested to allow it, i.e., legitimate nav uses like ambulances and fire trucks? "No, fucking stupid Google Maps, I don't want to visit any Russian tanks, landmines, or rapist prison conscripts." EDIT: Are you a medic or war correspondent by chance?

kstenerud 3y ago
I was just delivering an off-road vehicle. It's a real beauty, too. A souped up '97 Cherokee with heavy duty tires and a monster winch that I bought in Poland, perfect for nasty evacs :) Noisy as hell on asphalt, though. BTW anyone who has the means to buy or send offroad vehicles to Ukraine, please do! They really need them!
- mynameisnoone 3y ago
  Ouch. The base vehicle of that year wasn't very good, so I hope they changed the engine to a Subaru or something reliable. My grandfather was a Chrysler-Dodge-Jeep dealer mechanic. Also, you just described every other vehicle in Texas: jacked up, souped-up, with mud tires, and glasspacks. In a war zone, low-observable, quiet, and high performance are better ideas. Also, I'm hoping for quick COTUS 2024 aid package to UA. Slava Ukraini! PS: What the heck is a Canadian SWE doing delivering vehicles in UA? Must be really, really good $$$. ;@]

seer 3y ago

Does google even have any perspective on active warzones/frontlines? I would have thought natural disasters are common enough that they would have modeled that into their route algo, and warzones are kind of like one big natural disaster like a hurricane or a flood. I guess there is not a lot of money in it for them - disaster areas probably don’t generate a lot of revenue from maps, still though could lead to some unfortunate PR problems so there must be some incentive for them to add it. Wondering if waze is doing better there.

creato 3y ago
You think the PR problems come from not trying to route around war zones? “Google told me it would plan a route around this war zone, now I’m a prisoner in Russia. 0/5 stars”
bboygravity 3y ago
Does avoiding warzones in Maps help drive ad revenue? There's your answer.
- anticensor 3y ago
  Yes, indirectly. You cannot advertise to a dead person.
  - bayindirh 3y ago
    Our Finance Department (i.e. AI powered BI engine running in a datacenter on a VM on a 6 year old server cluster) told us that the difference would be negligible when the FY ends, so we reduced the priority of the feature to 0.
- ricardobayes 3y ago
  To continue your chain of thought, if ad revenue is the primary goal, why does it show me hotels in my home town?
  - pmontra 3y ago

xarope 3y ago

That happened to me in iceland. I wanted to get to this famous black sand beach, and maps sent me to a cliff ACROSS the sea from it, with the intention that I would then descend ~30m vertically down a cliff, and drive across the sea, to get to the beach. Nope.

baz00 3y ago
Yeah had this with it in Iceland too. Tried to send me through a river when I had a shitty hire van. Ended up using Organic Maps instead.
meheleventyone 3y ago
This is one of those cases where I think tech makes people switch their brains off. Reynisfjara is just off the ring road, is well signposted and the correct route is obvious on the map! Although the cliff top there is worth a visit as well. Hopefully you noticed that in advance though!
- ParetoOptimal 3y ago
  I find using GPS easy. I find navigating by signs easy. I find doing both difficult, GPS very much encourages my brain to shut off.

InCityDreams 3y ago

There is so much more to this story that I would love to hear. Switching to a much-related app: Does waze have any buttons for 'Russian infantry', or 'minefield'?, I may be unaware of?

kstenerud 3y ago
There's a LOT more to it, but I'm not prepared to talk about it for a number of important reasons. There will be a book coming out eventually, though.

mrangle 3y ago

This past summer Waze routed me through one of the most dangerous areas in the US, for 30 minutes. To save maybe a few minutes. Tight side streets with "obstacles", at 10-15 mph. I was on the highway when the re-route happened, and so wasn't in a position to examine the map and argue with it. This type of thing is a major problem.

yummypaint 3y ago
I was under the impression that this was the whole purpose of waze, to find out-of-the-box routes as an alternative to traditional navigation apps that don't do that kind of thing.
- mrangle 3y ago
  I wasn't aware that Waze was "alternative" vs "traditional", nor do I know the difference. I suspect that almost no one does, if the categories exist. I am specifically responding to a post that details that Google Maps reroutes. What is the difference between an "out of the box" reroute and a regular one? Danger?
  - dbetteridge 3y ago
    Waze is more likely to use what transport engineers call "Rat runs" Diverting you via side streets and alternatives to highways when the major roads show congestion, roadworks or other issues. Google maps tends to prefer freeways/highways above all other options and its often a fight to get it to take an alternative, You have to toggle the 'avoid freeways' and then even sometimes enter waypoints to guarantee bypassing the motorway.
    - mrangle 3y ago
      Got it. Thank you.

habi 3y ago

https://organicmaps.app/ https://organicmaps.app/ is well suited for (completely) offline routing. Based on OpenStreetMap data, which can be updated yourself.