WWWWAAAAYYYY to dependent

[cindybubbles]

Once, I used the GPS inside Transit App to try to get me and my friends to the next streetcar stop (yes, we were walking, not driving) so we could all get away from a disastrous Christmas Market event and get a bite to eat.

The result? I got us lost, with one of them yelling at me and getting all mad and whatnot until we managed to find the stop, get on the streetcar and ride over to Hero Certified Burgers for dinner.

[wolfie]

Trouble was, the street in question only went halfway thru the block. Where it ended was a few trees (at least 10 years old, maybe 20). And a hedge, and a retaining wall that the hedge was on top of. About a 5 foot drop if you went thru the hedge.

And if you did, you'd be in the backyard of a house, and have to drive thru the house.

No idea how *that* got into the map database as a thru street.
Then again, set to bicycle, I had it try routing me via a freeway that was posted "no non-motorized vehicles".

I once had Copilot Laptop 11 (with the "53 foot trailer" option selected) try to route me on a road where trailers over 28 1/2 feet were prohibited. GPS databases can be outdated (new construction has eliminated the left exit in favour of a conventional right exit), or just plain wrong. You've got to know when to ignore the damn thing.

[Ben_Who]

For a while, I lived in a state where many of the locals would say "You cant get they-ah from he-yah" and they mean it. Many roads along the Androscoggin River run close to the edge....and then on the other side of the river...one sees another road also close to the river's edge--with NO bridge crossing the river. Yet, at least once a year the local TV station covered a story of some nit wit tourist almost driving into the river because "the GPS said to follow this route."

Fuggin Lemmings....

To be fair, the Androscoggin was once so polluted you could practically cut it into blocks.

But you're right about Lewiston-Auburn, a pair of cities comprising about 60,000 people and FOUR BRIDGES, River Road on one side and Riverside Drive on the other and never the 'twain shall meet. What they DO have are boat launches...like the ones dotting Sebago Lake, where they frequently have to fish cars out of the water because the place is riddled with private roads, and the driver who thought he was turning onto Uncle Frankie's Unmarked Cabin in the Woods Camp Road was actually turning onto Boat Launch 34 in the dark and didn't notice until the water surged up over the hood...

I have a hell of a time convincing my roommate to stop listening to his damn GPS and listen to me instead. The odd thing is, if I'm not in the car, he's able to dismiss the GPS and get where he's going with some trial and error, and possibly some additional references. If I AM in the car, he's suddenly convinced of the utter infallibility of GPS, and any opinions of mine to the contrary are the ravings of a madman, despite the fact that his GPS hasn't been updated in about eight years. We have these raging arguments while he's driving past our destination, because the GPS says it's eight miles down the road, huge signs notwithstanding.

[Racket_Man]

The funny thing is is that when I try and use on of the on-line type map sites like Google street view or MapQuest NONE of them can even find these particular address as the circle is a GATED community thus most may "know" where the gate entrance may be but little else.

[mhkohne]

They *really* need to not have "bike" and "pedestrian" navigation options if they aren't willing to take the extra effort to include bike paths, etc that are not legal for cars to use.

The problem, I suspect is that they can't reliably GET the data. Motor vehicle accessible stuff is desired by most, and is generally already known to lots of firms (before gps they did roadmaps). So getting that data is pretty easy - pay someone who has the info. For pedestrian stuff, who has the data? Well, no large central data sets really exist, I think. Walking maps aren't necessarrily available for everywhere.

[bhskittykatt]

Fortunately I know my newspaper delivery area well enough that when I get a new address, I usually already know which house it is or have it mentally narrowed down to a couple possibilities before I ever get there.

When I worked at the motel, it was always super fun. We were on "ABC Ave", but our mailing address as "ABC St" because according to USPS, despite what the roadsign said, there was no "ABC Ave" and all of us were officially designated "St" addresses (Public Works and USPS apparently don't always play well together). So the GPS would direct everyone who put our mailing address in to "ABC St", which was on the other side of the interstate.

[LoTech]

Google Maps is not infallible either. My small town is less developed on one wide of the railroad tracks than the other. My street ends at the railroad tracks. Yet for some reason, any address with a house number less than 400 gets mislocated into the two blocks of my street between Main Street and the railroad tracks. No exceptions.
And that doesn't even count the single house on the other side of the tracks whose address puts him on my street North, whose driveway is a long length of gravel that reaches around to where the Avenue dead ends next to the railroad tracks, because there is no street there! A UPS(?) driver left a package for him on my doorstep once, out of desperation, I'm sure!

[wordgirl]

For years, GPS in our area was notorious for directing people to cross State Road A1A - and keep going east. About how far into the Atlantic Ocean people were supposed to drive varied.

Google Maps has the same problem, intermittently, and will direct people to turn left or right into the Intracoastal Waterway.