Slashdot Mirror
Satellite Navigation a Real Crackpot!
debest writes "What happens when your satellite navigation system in your car gives you bad advice on which road you should take? In Britain, these systems have been directing drivers down a road near the (aptly named) town of Crackpot that is strewn with boulders and has an unprotected 100ft dropoff on one side! The locals are worried someone's going to go off the edge."
Is why are the british drivers punching in "crackpot" as their destination? Agreed that GPS Nav works like magic, but this is too much optimism. What did they expect, a list of all local crack joints with directions?
""What happens when your satellite navigation system in your car gives you bad advice on which road you should take?"
Not much different than that gas station attendant five miles back.
Come on, if back in the early 1980s you could get a sentient talking car, then why in 2006 do we settle for these simple guidance systems that are so limited they could get us killed?
1) Put up a sign reading "Don't go down this road, even if your GPS tells you to; Dangerous conditions ahead".
2) Stabilize the slope above and install a guard rail.
Is there a reason that they haven't put a railing on the "unprotected 100ft dropoff" edge?
...put up a sign "Toll Road Ahead".
I had a similar problem recently while driving through Pennsylvania. I had set my car's GPS computer to lead me to Intercourse, but no matter what I pushed it I could only reach Bird in Hand. Of course, I've had this problem with web pages on my PC at home before, so I really can't blame the mapping company.
In Crackpot there's more than one way to go off the deep end! /rimshot
There are a couple of problems with these things, both familiar to MapQuest users.
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1) Things change. New roads (sometimes whole communities) get built, and there is some latency in getting that updated data where it can be used by your GPS-mapper (whether in your car or on the web).
2) Driving-direction algorithims are good, but not flawless. MapQuest, for example, provides driving directions that will usually get you where you want to go, but may have you take an odd route to get there.
The bottom line: If you expect your Tom-Tom (or whatever) to magically do all of your thinking for you, you'll eventually wind up going over an 'unexpected' cliff
If a computer tells you to jump off a cliff, would you do it?
Some time back when GPS's in cars were fairly new, I rented a Hertz car with a GPS while on a business trip to Colorado. I didn't ask for the GPS, they just gave it to me. At the end of my trip I decided to try out the GPS, so I programmed it to return me to the Colorado Springs airport. I missed the first turn to the airport but no problem, the GPS said it had an alternate route. So I followed the route until it said I had reached my destination. All I could see however was miles of nothing and a big chain link fence. The GPS insisted I was at the airport however. Finally I dug out the rental car map and it showed me that the GPS had led me to the back side of the airport. I almost missed my flight because of that stupid GPS.
I have a Garmin Quest.
The locals are so worried about this. Just like, in the days of sailing ships, the villagers who put up fake lights were very worried that some ship might run aground on the rocks. I say we see who in this village is hacking the GPS. First place to look...the suspiciously wellstocked local secondhand store.
I knew I should've bought a squirrel
If an officer ever threatens to taze you, say you have a pacemaker.
I say buy the parcel of land at the bottom of the 100ft dropoff and set up an auto wrecking yard. Put up sign half way down - "Welcome to Crackpot Auto Wrecking"
This is fairly local to me. This is out in the wilds where the decent A road takes the long way round. The problem seems to be that untarmaced roads are set to about 10mph average spped by default in a lot of routing software, and most people select 'fastest route'. Simply by setting untarmaced roads to 1mph you can avoid some of this silly routing. Plus using a bit of common sense.
In Soviet Crackpot, GPS drives you!
"I'm a Laver, not a Phyto[plankton]"
Incidently the name comes from the norse "pot" meaning hole or dip (in this case referring to the limestone rift there) and "Kraka" meaning crow. As a kid I was always told it was because they found some roman coins in a cracked pot there but I think the former is more plausible!
Anyway it was great to see Crackpot on Slashdot. I suppose next week they'll be a story about the nearby town of Hawes (which is pronounced "whores" :-)
I guess it's that pale-white track on the bottom left, just below the "Summer Lodge [Farm]" that was mentioned in the article, in which case no GPS system should take you down one of those - white on British OS maps (as opposed to yellow) means no tarmac. And the dotted edges of the road indeed mean "unfenced". Lovely stuff. It's even debatable whether the narrow yellow roads on that map (which mean single-track with passing places) should be used by a GPS as through routes, let alone the white ones!
Still, it reinforces the stupidity of the drivers, as there's obviously a point there, just past the farm, where the character of the road changes, and they blindly believe the GPS rather than turn back and let it find another route.
I have owned a Magellen Roadmate 760 for six months. Living in Chicagoland for 28 years I find my GPS makes days out more flexible; any new place we wish to go is its command. In the past, going from one area to another would include at least a slght bit of driving towards home till we found a street we know takes us to the new area. With GPS it is almost like a wormhole, as soon after you leave your starting point you are in unfamiliar territory and then sooner than you would think you pop out at your destination. I have learned more about what this area has to offer.