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'Death By GPS' Increasing In America's Wilderness
An anonymous reader writes "Every year, more and more Americans are dying in deserts and wildernesses because they rely on their GPS units (and, to some degree, their cellphones) to always be accurate. The Sacramento Bee quotes Death Valley wilderness coordinator Charlie Callagan: 'It's what I'm beginning to call death by GPS ... People are renting vehicles with GPS and they have no idea how it works and they are willing to trust the GPS to lead them into the middle of nowhere.'"
Come on, folks, you're traveling between Portland OR and Las Vegas NV, and your GPS says the most direct route is over some gravel Forest Service road in the Eastern Oregon mountains... In the winter... You take it? Really?
Your GPS takes you down some deserted desert road that peters away into sand in the mifddle of Death Valley... Really?
There's not much you can do about MORONS, one way or another, they may kill themselves.
If you want news from today, you have to come back tomorrow.
You call it "Death by GPS" I call it "evolution".
"Have you ever thought about just turning off the TV, sitting down with your kids, and hitting them?"
My ex-girlfriend got stuck on a road last winter because her GPS took her up a summer only road that was for snowmobiles in the winter. The GPS didn't know the difference. We had to get a buddy's big pickup truck to come crank her our of a snowdrift.
i couldn't navigate until Platoon Leader's Development Course in the US Army and now i can look at any map and find my way easily. never use a GPS. even learned to navigate using the terrain in a few days.
half the battle is just looking at your watch and the sun to figure out where north, south, east and west are
Sorry if I sound unsympathetic... but really, who starts to drive through a large unpopulated expanse of land without at least making sure they have enough gas to make it across? I've seen "Last Chance" gas stations before, and in my experience they are totally serious... dare I even say deadly serious. If you don't fill up there, you can very well not expect to ever see another human being again for as long as you live... which might not be very long from now if you decide that you have enough gas just because your low gas indicator isn't lit.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
Whether that map is electronic (GPS) or not (origami), maps can be out-of-date or just plain wrong. Nattrass said. "A map in that case may have been a lifesaver for them." Not so. If they had a GOOD/ACCURATE map, it could have been a lifesaver. Had they a map from 100 years ago, it would have been useless.
God is good all the time! -K
.
Now, the real question was actually even how he got as far as he did. He'd had to go up and down and around for a couple miles of almost-that-bad road to get where he got stuck in a place utterly obvious a tractor couldn't go -- it was longer and straighter than the distance between two hairpins near the bottom of that hill, and driving skill at that point made no difference. I'd have to suppose this guy didn't realize that it was pointless, and that even an hour of carefully backing up the way he came would be a better plan -- there is no place to turn one of these.
.
What is truly hilarious is that he would only have saved two miles (out of 10-15) doing this over simply using the main, paved roads -- this was a "shortcut", and the way no one goes who knows the roads here -- too hard on the vehicle to be worth saving the miles, and you save no gas at all.
.
So yeah, it took both driver ignorance AND a lousy GPS to get there, but it seems both were willin'.
Why guess when you can know? Measure!
I was in the US Coast Guard from roughly 1990 to 2000, and GPS quickly became a very popular alternative to the older LORAN-C system used by recreational & commercial boaters alike. I did a number of patrols in Boston Harbor, which has a few very shallow spots in it. There are a couple places in particular where there are rocks just below the surface of the water at low tide, but if you have even the most basic level of understanding aids to navigation (bouys, etc) it's very easy to avoid those spots. There's one spot south of Logan Airport called "lower middle" that has rocks just below the waterline, but well marked channels guide boaters well around both sides of it.
I still clearly recall one summer day when we were on patrol and saw a small boat moving slowly through lower middle, pretty much directly toward where we knew the rocks were. We sped towards them as quickly as we could and tried to get their attention, but before we could we saw the unmistakable result of their boat hitting the rocks at a slow speed - the boat lurched a bit and the back kicked up noticeably. By the time we got close enough to them without putting our own boat in danger we could see oil starting to leak out around their engine.
When we told the operator that he was well outside the marked channels and that he had struck a rock that's clearly marked on all navigation charts, he simply replied, "Well my GPS told me to turn left here."
He'd hold two sticks up to the sun, determine his location and time to destination ... then eat a few grubs and squeeze a shot of water from some animal dung.
Even in major cities, GPS will (occasionally but cheerfully) lead you into parking lots, streets that don't even exist... (Anecdote: Once, while driving 65+ down a highway, My lovely little unit startled me with a "Turn Left!" command out of nowhere. Very fun.) Even if the directions are 100% correct, you'll sometimes see a better, legal way to get where you want to go (U-turns, for example).
I'm sorry to know that other people were as stupid as I have been. Treat your GPS instructions as ADVICE, and keep your eyes open!
5 deaths are mentioned. I see no other evidence in this article of deaths. The assertion that "More and more Americans are dying in deserts and wildernesses because they rely on their GPS units" is extremely vague, and almost entirely sensationalist speculation.
No really. Talk about depressing. It's about a six-year old kid and his mom, the kid dies. That's sad enough, but they have to give you some horrible details and imagery that's incredibly depressing.
I'm gunna go run a hot bath and slit my wrists now. Or maybe make some toast.
Reminds me of a background element in the "Girl Genius" comic.
.....POISON......
A candy dispenser ball, filled with candies in big glass sphere, and a pretty poster over it, written in big friendly colorful letters:
Illiteracy reduction program
45 5F E1 04 22 CA 29 C4 93 3F 95 05 2B 79 2A B2
The first guy I knew who had a GPS told me, "This thing can make you absolutely fearless." The dangers seemed pretty minimal in the Northern Virginia suburbs, but it's clear that one must respect the environment, as some places can be deadly. Thanks for posting a sobering article.
"Who controls the past controls the future. Who controls the present controls the past." -- George Orwell
If you actually talk like this in person, then you are probably the most disgusting, insufferable asshole that anyone around you has ever met.
Compared to that the usual idiots who'll drive into a river because a ferry was marked as a bridge seem like mere amateurs.
of course not that many people seem to have it in the first place, but now they
think they can really avoid spending time understanding what they are doing thanks to gadgets.
people wouldn't get into trouble if they spent just some small amount of time planning where they were
going and alternate routes to get there.
Absolute statements are never true
gps as been around for a very long time. when they started the entire turn by tun directions and mass marking them it became a problem. so rather then treating it like a device of reference like where you are on a map people have started using them as replacements for maps or outright relying on them. i have a laptop with gps but i still get old school directions like from mapquest or google maps or even other people. and use the gps to help me see if i am indeed coming to the turn or exit the directions stated. but if my gps was to fail and it has or simply give misdirection i still have my direction i wrote down or a plain old map.
Part of the problem with GPS units is that they charge almost as much for map updates as they do for the GPS unit itself. In my case my TomTom cost $99 and the map updates are $84.
The other problem is even the map updates are frequently best guesses.
And rental companies are notorious for issuing un-updated GPS units. Back a couple of years ago, I flew into Norfolk, VA and rented a car. The GPS unit wasn't aware that they'd moved U.S. 17 so much of the time it showed the car as driving over water. I just followed the signs for 17.
And more recently coming home from North Carolina my TomTom was trying to tell me to get off I-95. I finally shut little Miss Navigator off and we got home just fine without her.
Near where the road ends, Nattrass followed the tire tracks that turned onto "a closed road in the wilderness area going over several small bushes and rocks lined along the road to designate closure," her report says.
Pro-tip! "Small bushes and rocks lined along a road" do not "designate closure." You know what designate's closure? A fucking sign that says "Hey asshole, this road is closed, back your shit up or get fucked." Humans have been communicating with pictures since at least the Paleolithic, like actually discernible drawings: cavemen didn't settle for taking a dump on a wall, sticking a leaf on top, and being satisfied that said configuration designated "auroch."
Question:
Things went more smoothly with TomTom, a major manufacturer of GPS units for cars. "I had a representative right here. He was real professional. I was able to sit down and say, 'Nope, that doesn't exist,' " Callagan said. That representative was Matthew Rinaldi, a geographic sourcing analyst for the company. "I knew there were issues in Death Valley, consumer-wide, for all GPS devices, not just TomTom," Rinaldi said. In all, Rinaldi said he made adjustments to 185 Death Valley road segments in the company's navigation database and removed about 50 altogether.
So I have to fork over a few bucks to TomTom so that their GPS won't kill me? Thanks TomTom! You can GoGo FuckFuck YourselfYourself.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Kim
this story haunts me. because i could have done this. any of us could
and for those of you assholes talking about the darwin awards or death by stupidity: i think arrogant hubris is a pretty good candidate gene for being weeded from the homo sapiens gene pool. when stories like these arise, there's two types of people: those who feel saddened at a pointless death, aka, human beings, and those who think that the occasion is an opportunity to trumpet how smart they are, aka, assholes with an ego problem and lacking empathy
you're so fucking smart and immune to tragedy, huh? until a tragedy happens to you or yours. try showing some basic simple respect for the dead, asswipes
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
The same problem was there with people using old or inaccurate maps in the past, but there is a definite tendency for people to believe that GPS systems are somehow more accurate and up to date. It's irrational, but it's a real phenomenon.
Actual people will do irrational things. Pretending that people are fundamentally rational beings is irrational in itself. We have to design devices to assume irrational behavior and to take advantage of natural tendencies.
I suggest a GPS that "sounds" stupid. Something that gives verbal queues that it should not be trusted too much. We can use some well known politicians as voice talent. On the other hand, I suppose their success invalidates my theory.
[-- Trust the Monkey --]
I tried reading the article, the screwed up page with all it's toolbars, ads and such kept refreshing after a few seconds and jumping to the top of the page. I was interested enough to go to the printer-friendly link an be able to finish the article.
It's unfortunate that the article and summary talk about "inaccurate GPS" while giving examples of inaccurate or for the most part imprecise databases. It sounded like someone getting lost and blaming the compass when it was the tourist map from the gift shop that was at fault.
Just checked to make sure, the 8 year old Garmin in my car has the option "avoid unpaved roads" as I don't have a 4x4 I have that option checked. If I wanted to go 4-wheeling I guess I could let it route me on those.
Idiots who drive for miles in the desert on a gravel road when they are ill-prepared for it are no different than the ones who drive off the pier when their Nav unit was trying to lead them to the ferry. There's always going to be idiots, now they're just ganging up to blame their gadget for their problems.
This is highly misleading. What IS a "GPS"? It's NOT the whole unit, it's JUST the receiver, yet people - even people who should know better - persist in mis-labeling the entire device as a "GPS". What got the people described in this article in life-threatening trouble was NOT the GPS, it was the software and maps, which were of a type completely unsuited to an undeveloped wilderness area.
Had the ignorant people described in the article had a GPS receiver with the right device, software, and maps, for instance TOPO USA or the outdated Outdoor Navigator, then they likely would have survived and found their destinations in good (or better) health.
I do lots of traveling, and almost always by car (longest trip was a 3.5 week, 10k mile road trip). I take my GPS with me on every trip, and it almost never even makes it out of its case. I always take a US atlas with me as my primary means of navigation. If I'm going to be doing extensive travel off the main roads, then I also take one of those state atlases that has 100+ pages of maps dedicated to a single state. Otherwise I do a bunch of printouts on google maps of areas I expect to go. When I use the GPS, it's usually just to give me an idea of what sort of services are around. If the next town is 10 miles off the exit, then I might break out the GPS just to see if they have a restaurant listed, or if I'd just be better off waiting for the town 40 miles down the road but right next to the expressway. Only one time have I used a GPS for navigation, and that' because I was on a very confusing group of dirt backroads. I was able to trace my progress for about 20 miles but then there were a few crossroads that weren't on the detailed maps and no signage saying which road was which, so I used the GPS to confirm that I was actually where I thought.
i tried to navigate with my iPad the other day. i entered an address very quickly and easily using the virtual keyboard. it pulled up a beautiful map on the big responsive touchscreen, computed my route faster than a garmin could and told me to start off by turning right at the end of my driveway. perfect, off i went! i knew it was not going to work, but i wanted to see the failure mode anyway. once i got going it kept saying something along the lines of insufficient GPS signal. i though that was funny because it's a wifi-only model that doesn't even have a GPS chip in it.
I'm doing a skipper course where navigation and calculating water levels are the most stressed topics. I quickly realised that going to sea without training will get you killed pretty soon and very certainly. Same holds for deserts and wilderness in general. Hell, there are cities where you get killed if you wind up in the wrong 'hood.
The thing is that so many times all will be well with a car, a desert and a some navigation gadget. Taking care of the exceptions is the hard part. Very much like coding.
I hadn't the slightest objection to his spending his time planning massacres for the bourgeoisie... (P.G. Wodehouse)
Thank you.
Sometimes people get really lost and a GPS could have saved them.
In particular I am thinking of the story of James Kim and his family. In December 2006 they were driving south in Oregon, and they missed their planned exit. It was almost an hour of driving later before they realized they had missed the exit. Not wanting to waste another hour by doubling back, they got off the highway and took a road that looked okay on their map, but was pretty much impassible in winter. (In fact there was supposed to be a gate closing off the road with a sign saying "Closed in Winter".) They ended up stuck, completely outside cellular phone coverage areas, with nobody having any clue where to look for them, and no emergency food or clothes in the car. After a week (a week! no food, only snow for water, two adults and two children, imagine how horrible it must have been!) Mr. Kim made the decision to set out on foot and try to find help. He froze to death, but fortunately a search helicopter spotted the car and the rest of the family was saved.
I have always figured that a GPS could have prevented this tragedy; with a GPS they wouldn't have missed their exit, and if they did they would have realized it immediately and would have simply gone back and taken the intended exit.
Now, while I have no desire to say anything disrespectful about Mr. Kim, I do also wonder at their common sense. According to one report I read, they found the road to be difficult going, and they had to stop and get out of the car and move obstacles out of the road (fallen trees? I don't remember the details). Their common sense should have told them that this road was a bad idea, and they should have just turned around and backtracked before it was too late.
So, common sense could have saved them, or a GPS could have saved them.
The sad irony is that Mr. Kim was an editor on CNet and he reviewed gadgets like GPS navigators. But he didn't have one in his car.
P.S. Blindly trusting a GPS is also increasingly leading to trucks trying to go under low bridges, as in this story.
steveha
lf(1): it's like ls(1) but sorts filenames by extension, tersely
http://xkcd.com/605/
Installing pirated maps requires running an executable to patch your GPS. So not only do I have to worry about said executable having a malicious payload that could effect my PC (granted I could run it once in a VM), I have to worry about said executable having a malicious payload that could effect my TomTom. That, and I have to hope that the pirated maps haven't been screwed with by a merry prankster. Other than that, great suggestion!
Encounter #1: Driving on I-95, going to from New York to Washington DC. Somewhere around the NJ/PA border, the GPS tells me to take the exit off 95. I look at the instructions, and it's telling me to get off the highway, go down a side-street, turn around, then get BACK ON 95 and continue. WTF?! I ignore it and drive past. It goes through it's "recalculating" thing, then tries to tell me to do it again. This continued for about 50 miles until I got far enough away from the alien machine intelligence rays that were telling it to try and kill me by routing me through the worst neighborhoods of Philadelphia and Baltimore.
Encounter #2: Interstate travel again. I follow it, and it takes me onto a "major highway" that goes through towns, villages and more stoplights than I have ever seen in my entire life. ALL of them red. I check through the settings, and apparently this route is the "shortest distance". I change that to "fastest" and recalculate. Oh, look! I've got to backtrack 4 miles to the turnpike.
Encounter #3: I wanna avoid Baltimore like the plague, so I route north along the loop to 70, then up to 81. I then take 81 to Binghamton. Straight shot, clear as a bell and lickety-split! The damn GPS keeps trying to route me onto 15 off Frederick, which is a 55 road of money-starved towns with lots of cops. I ignore it and carry on to Hagerstown to pick up 81, but it KEEPS TRYING TO BRING ME BACK TO 15!! I finally gave up and turned it off, since I knew where I was going, I was just using it for mileage tracking and timing. I later learned about "block zones", where you can eliminate areas you don't want the auto-route feature to go.
It is my opinion that the GPS manufacturers are:
1. In league with the petro companies, to get you to use up as much fuel as possible.
2. In league with big pharma, because by the time you get where you're going, you're going to need medication.
3. In league with the alien machine intelligence, which is thinning the herd of useless bipeds who are too stupid or too stressed out to survive the coming invasion and subsequent processing into energy pods.
[End Of Line]
So if you're up there on those wintery roads and bored out of your mind, try this: Drive your OnStar equipped vehicle to the middle of a large frozen lake. Press the button. Continue driving in straight lines, occasionally stopping to make square left and right hand turns. Talk to the nice lady from India (or Southern California) who has never seen ice in any amount larger than a water pitcher, and tell her you're kind of lost.
John
She entered 'Neiman Marcus' into the GPS. But it directed her to WalMart.
Have gnu, will travel.
You awaken in a poorly lit room, with a closed door on each wall. By your side is a GPS device. You turn it on and ask for directions to go home. It tells you to head east and indicates the proper direction with an arrow. You turn in the direction of the arrow, which adjusts to match your new heading. You open it and enter another room. The door shuts behind you. It is pitch black. You are likely to be eaten by a grue. The GPS continues to point you forward. What do you do?
The first Christmas after I got my iPhone, the office party was somewhere out of the way, and I checked the iPhone for directions. It's directions would have gotten me there, but I didn't like the route it suggested and tried my own route. It was quicker and simpler than the iPhone route.
Slow down, cowboy! It has been 4 hours since you last posted. You must wait another few hours.
of what their exact name is, if it's the software or hardware, etc., I'm willing to guess that, in historical comparison, before the recent navigation systems became widespread consumer electronics, there was a sudden surge in missing people when the first maps made of paper started being sold in a large commercial manner, together with good ol' magnetic compasses. Hm?
"I'm taking this loop off." - Jack O'Neill
Once, when I was trying to find a mountain resort, my GPS tried to send me 20 miles up a country road that ran parallel to the interstate. I turned around and followed the written directions that I always keep with me when going somewhere "difficult."
Another time, I decided to use my GPS to get to a ski area that I kinda-sorta knew how to get to. The GPS told me to turn onto a road covered in snow. I got back on the highway and went the way that I remembered.
What told me that my GPS gives bad directions is that once, in San Francisco, it made me drive 20 blocks on a road with a stop sign at every block, when directly parallel to me was Sunset Boulevard, a road where the stoplights are timed so well I can go 20 blocks without stopping!
No, I will not work for your startup
If you are stupid enough put your life in the hands of a single fallible device, you're going to have other problems surviving in the wilderness. Even on a light day walk in a well maintained trail you are one fall or a weather change away form a survival situation, it doesn't take much imagination to work that out, nor prior experience.
I would suggest the real problem here is that GPS is powerfully enabling to inexperienced people who otherwise would not have undertaken the journey without such directional assitance - perhaps even not been able to find the start of the trail in the first place. The feeling of confidence when you can navigate is dangerous, except it's not in your own orienteering ability, it's in a handheld device that's one drop away from failure.
There is no substitute to having a freakin clue what do what when the batteries run out.
After logging in slashdot still does not take you back to the page you were on. It's been that way for 20 years.
The article is a little unfair; to be fair it would have to subtract people saved by GPS.
Frankly, people have always gotten lost, dating right back to at least the time Moses wandered for 40 years in the Sinai. Surely GPS has also gotten people out of trouble. The question is, what's the net effect?
http://www.geoffreylandis.com
It's strategic thinning of targeted segments of the population. I expect the creationist sect to chime in any minute now with something about relying on technology too much. /scorn
"We are just a war away from Amerikastan. When god vs god the undoing of man." Dave Mustaine
-quote from Dwight D. Eisenhower (or "Plans never make it past first contact.")
At any moment in time, a GPS, compass, map, or vehicle may fail you.
There is absolutely no substitute for common sense and a little bit of preparedness. Anyone who doesn't look at a map before taking a long road trip on unfamiliar roads is purely idiotic. It's just like checking the weather, checking your tire pressure and wiper blades, and topping off your gas tank. I can make the trip from NY to Houston without a map, but I got misled more than once on my first trip...easy to do with a 21 hour drive - and I had a good road atlas to help me along.
I'm very thankful to have experienced navigation in every imaginable terrain through multiple means via military training. In some situations, you may even be making the map yourself, on-the-fly.
Whenever possible, equip yourself with an up-to-date map, a reasonable amount of food and water, a change of clothing (seasonally appropriate, of course) and maintain situational awareness of the terrain, weather, and other people or wildlife around you. A little bit of preparation goes a LONG way in getting you out of a potentially fatal bind.
What else can happen when an unstoppable force collides with an immovable object?
Darwin approves.
Also, did it really take this long?
http://xkcd.com/461/
Also,
http://xkcd.com/201/
http://xkcd.com/407/
http://xkcd.com/783/
WTF am I doing replying to an AC at 5 A.M on a Friday night?
Not that this story needs more anecdotal posts, but I was walking around in the Czech Republic wandering around small towns. My wife and I decided to check where we were on our GPS-enabled Nokia N810. Lo and behold, we were on a marked "road" that was no more than a wide footpath through trees. We weren't certain that an ancient cart would fit down the path.
Well I'd be with you, without question. The only problem is, people seem to get upset when you consider this as a viable option. I regularly get called out by the local police, to go and 'recover' idiots on my snow mobile(along with 3 other folks around here) until they can find someone to pull their car out which is stuck 2-8mi down a 'summer only' concession. Never mind the large signs that say NO PLOWING FROM NOV TO MARCH, with a 2ft plowed in drift at the front of the road. Then again I'm always surprised at how people will go around the 2ft drift, and through the ditch to get on these roads.
I might actually break my old record of 40 trips out this year. And yes, the services(police) around here have snow mobiles, but these people are low-rung on the totem pole, and the police are more likely to ask locals who know the area better to get them out, unless it's really serious(then they might fly in a helicopter). In the end if it's not to that, I just go pick up someone from the triage team from the local ski club.
Om, nomnomnom...
These same people would have been dying taking those secondary roads over the mountain pass in their Thomas Guides. All this article shows is the steady hand of progress - turns out there are still stupid people out there.
I use GPS and paper maps (Delorme) when I go in to Death Valley. GPS is not the problem. Uninformed, inexperienced, and unprepared drivers are the problem. Death Valley is unforgiving if you make too many mistakes.
Have any of you ever tried informing Google/Navteq/Teleatlas of map errors? It's like communicating with a black hole.
At one point every map provider had a POI for city hall (of a major US city) pointed at a nearby Starbucks, along with a long-gone road that had been redeveloped 40 years ago and is now covered with buildings. I filled out error reports every few month along with a link to photos and satellite imagery. It took between one and two-and-a-half years for them all to get updated. At one point I had email correspondence with a real person who said they would need to send someone out to check it out.
I don't get what the problem is. Is it really so labor intensive for map providers to fix their maps? Or do they just have sucky processes for collecting map feedback?
We usually carry 5 extra gallons of gas when going into Death Valley. In calculating how much gas you need to cover your trip, you also need to factor in the lower tire pressure you're going to be running (if you're going to go over rocky terrains and washboard roads) --- that takes more gas than normal.
No I just don't have a high tolerance for dumb.
But if you talk like that in person you're probably one of those really annoying moms who thinks everything is good, sunshine and unicorns.
I was going to rush in here and post something about Darwinism at work, only to find that like 4 of the first 5 posts were all Darwin related. I guess everyone else is exactly as unoriginal as I am.
that stole my Garmin Nuvi is hopelessly lost somewhere as I write this...
Nullius in verba
Here's what I don't get: does Brazil not have radar? I mean, he's not likely to produce a huge radar echo or anything, but they should have been able to spot him.
Or, for that matter, triangulate the satellite phone call.
Or, heaven forbid, the emergency operator goes to the website of the GPS manufacturer and downloads a copy of the manual, then gives him instructions....
Which brings me to the question: did they even try to save this guy? Yeah, there may be a Darwin award here, but if this story is true, there was plenty of incompetence to go around, and 99% of it wasn't on the part of the priest.
Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.
As others have alluded, it's not the GPS, it's the maps. Any map can be wrong. A printed map can be wrong just as easily as an electronic map in a GPS unit can be wrong. Part of the problem might be that the view of your route is generally much narrower in the GPS, and it's more difficult to see that the route you're taking leads to a whole bunch of nothing in the middle of nowhere. If I'm going into an unknown area, I often zoom out the map just to make sure the road eventually connects somewhere. And even that isn't a perfect indication.
Also, just like paper maps, electronic maps get OLD. If you have a unit that gets maps off a DVD or internal storage, the information can get stale. If it doesn't update over the air, find out how to keep it current.
Now, GPS making nonoptimal decisions, like leading you off the freeway and right back on again (shortest route) or directing you to a 35mph "highway" that goes through a bunch of small towns instead of using the freeway, that's the GPS unit not the maps. Some of these problems can be fixed by changing the setup defaults, which most non-geeks aren't inclined to do. But this isn't really a map issue.
After a couple early incidents (gps trying to make me turn left on a one-way going right, or heading me up a road that clearly had been closed for years) I began using the GPS directions as advisory only. What I tell new GPS users is not to panic if you miss a turn or not sure it's giving you the right directions. All GPS units will recalculate if you miss a turn. Sometimes this means "I just didn't want to turn there". GPS is advisory only , just as if your spousal unit was in the passenger seat with a map and a compass.
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
Gadget folks who are too scared go outside unless they had a toy to show them where to go dying because of their gadgets?
I've been lost in the woods without a map or compass. fortunately, it wasn't a very big, @37k acres. But I'm somewhat accustomed to wandering in natural areas. I take my risks with some knowledge of what they entail.
I've been turned around even when i had a Trimble. when I follow the Trimble explicitly, I'm not conscious of my path and surroundings, so take away the Trimble and I don't know how I got there or how to get back until I've wandered for a while. A GPS is fun at times, but one should already be familiar with what it's like being in remote areas and carrying a compass & map.
If you were too scared to venture out before without the assistance, perhaps you should have not bought that gadget and started walking or driving.
"To stop the terrorists."
Calling you an asshole is not at all a pollyanna response.
Adding some misogyny on top of your general misanthropy isn't doing your social skills any favors, either.
From TFA:
"I'm pulling my hair," he said. "I was never able to reach a single human with Google Earth Maps. But in their system, they have a way you can let them know something is wrong. And over the course of a year, I was able to get their maps updated."
This was the least surprising part of the article. I'm becoming increasingly convinced that they don't actually have any human beings over there at all, and GLaDOS or whatever is running the show entirely.
"Congratulations, the test is now over."
"It was a fun test, and we're all impressed at how much you won. The test is over."
-- GLaDOS, 2007
GLaDOS for President 2016! "Well here we are again. It's always such a pleasure." -- GLaDOS, 2011
Just about happened to a couple of us that were following the GPS route thru Death Valley. We believed the gadget when it said to go in a certain direction that was not the main road. 40 miles later, the next turn put us on a road paved with fairly large, sharp rocks. The sign said, "Next services 70 miles." Well, we had an AWD SUV, but that road looked seriously challenging, and although we filled up at the last opportunity, there wasn't enough gas to go 69 miles down that road, find a bridge out, come 110 miles back to the main road, and then coutinue on the main road to California. We turned around, even tho the road we were on before the unpaved road was shown to join up with the main road. That was a good decision, too, as we found out later that it didn't go "thru" either.
That was close...
"Annoying mom" seems to still fit the bill.
One of the reasons I rely on proper paper maps when in the wilderness is because they have significantly less errors and include a lot of information the digital databases don't. I've also been concerned for many years the way many maps in GPS units, and online map tools don't give you any information about the type of road (paved, unpaved, 4WD only etc) which proper topographic maps do. You can't even tell how steep the road is due to the lack of proper topographic information.
This is very poor on the part of the companies making these products. There is no excuse for stupidity but there is also no excuse for not anticipating the stupidity of people who might be mislead by bad information from your product and kill themselves with it. Seriously, how could the possible condition of the road and the type of vehicle it being used with be completely forgotten when developing these products? Quite simply too many GPS devices have map data that is just not as good as a real map, and seems to lack any consideration of safety when providing instructions to users. Combine this neglegence with standard widespread and potentially fatal stupidity and it's a perfect storm.
After logging in slashdot still does not take you back to the page you were on. It's been that way for 20 years.
Are there any maps showing the bad neighborhoods?
Boy, I could use that... I only recently moved to Brooklyn, NY (previous places I lived: Waldport Oregon, Portland Oregon, Pune India...) and I don't know where the borders of some of the neighborhoods are. I work in Crown Heights and I know that's a bad one (two murders in December on the very block where my office is located!) but where does it end and Bed-Stuy begin? That'd be worse...
At least Manhattan is pretty safe for almost all of it except the far north...
Sure, any competent navigator knows how/when to use GPS. The problem is with all of the other incompetent navigators that rely on the GPS to navigate for them.
My buddy used to drive for JB Hunt, and they damn sure told him which way he was going to drive (presumably based on one of these premium nav services). I'm kinda surprised that this guy was freelancing it.
Don't blame GPS. It's a system utilized by a device to show you where things likely are. If people die in blindly following GPS, that's on the user. That's a single point of failure in their survival plan that made for themselves.
Tip: If you're going out into the wild with a GPS device, also bring along a compass, a map of the area (topographical), and let people know when you're leaving and when you'll be back. Also tell them if you're not back by X date, call the authorities.
Hope for the best, but plan for the worst, people.
I was trying to get to a buddy's house and he had provided an address... cheerfully typed it into Google Maps on the iPhone and away I go. Get somewhat near the destination, and the application starts telling me to turn right... while I'm on an overpass. I later found out that his address was unknown to Google Maps and you had to use Mapquest to find it!
Some can do that. The Motion-X GPS app for the iPhone, for example, will allow you to store maps in your phone, so you can still navigate in areas without cellular data service.
But if you RTFA, the problem isn't online vs offline access to maps. It's that the maps are inaccurate.
Believe it or not, almost all neighbourhoods are safe to drive through if you don't mind running over the guys who jump out into the road wielding baseball bats.
Supporter of the +1 Over Dramatic mod option. In memory of apk.
Surely misreading a map means that you deserve to die, and your family to suffer horribly, right?
I concur with the GP: you're an ass.
It's not GPS, is the routing software messing up usually due to lack of data (or out of date) as opposed to logical fault. I am pretty sure the satellites had very little to do with it other than say "Your Here!" over and over again.
Of course I remember when GPS was a "big deal" and specialized, I remember taking a course in it, and having to provide training to others. When units cost thousands of dollars. Of course I am in GIS and understand all the background. Heck there was a time when the US Army would mess with your accuracy just for fun, and you had to try to correct for it!
Now any smuck can go to bestbuy and pick up something for 150$ and it tells you where to go.
You're supposed to use a tool, not let the tool use you.
I live in Arizona, and always bring a map and put some water in the back of my truck before traveling in an unfamiliar route in the desert or the mountains. I do that even if I am not planning to go 4-wheeling on dirt roads. I usually put one or two plastic 5-gallon water cans in the back, just in case. During the winter, up in the mountains here, I keep gloves, a jacket, and other warm clothing behind the seat. That way, if I break down or get stuck, I can still survive.
People who try to use their GPS to find where I live, have complained that my address is not in their GPS. One GPS that did have my address, was off by about 1/4 of a mile.
Last time I checked, a couple of well known on-line mapping websites were off by over a mile, for where I live. They both indicate that my address is among the cattails in the marshy area at the end of a small lake, next to the garbage transfer station and near the city sewage treatment plant. I would hate to see anyone actually try to drive into that marshy area.
About 12 years ago, I bought a newly published book about ghost towns directly in person from the author. The author neglected to mention that the maps and photos in his new book were over 30 years old. I took off into the mountains, in my 4 wheel drive truck, looking for several ghost towns. I was puzzled that the maps in his book did not mention forest road numbers.
The route to one ghost town was described as being a little rough. That was really understating things, I was carefully continuously crawling over rocks in low range, until I finally gave up and turned around. I later noticed that his maps were so old and out of date, that there were no Interstate freeways shown, because they did not exist back then. Local old timers, later told me that most of the buildings in his photos had been torn down, for safety reasons, back in the 1970s.
A few years ago there was a man who was told to turn right... at a railroad crossing. He dutifully did and the car got stuck on the railroad tracks. Shortly thereafter a commuter train made short work of his vehicle (he had safely gotten out). The line is electrified with third rail (the kind that does not have wooden protection boards) so he is pretty lucky to have not hit the damn thing when exiting the car or even with the car itself.
For years we have wondered what will happen if machines make life too easy for people will be all end up like idiocracy????
Well this is a perfect example of a Selection Pressure that is re-emerging, we should not try to "Fix it".
Tsukasa: All I really want, is to be left alone...
You don't need GPS, map or compass when a helicopter drops you on the high ground and you only need to figure out which way is down hill. ;-)
GPS is marketed as a consumer device which will get you where you need to go. A good GPS will not lead you down a road you cannot pass. GPS mapmakers should quit using maps which include closed, impassible roads. Also, if a road is closed, it needs to have its entrances blocked or signage indicating how rough it is and what kind of vehicle is needed to traverse it. I've also wondered, since I read the story about the CNET editor and his family who got stranded similarly and died. What would the cost be to install minimum-capability 911/sms-only cell towers in remote areas? If they have deaths every year in death valley, which could be alleviated by some very low-capability wireless infrastructure, then why not do it? How much would it cost?
I've got a few stupid GPS stories.
Like the time it told me to turn right and send me on a 3 mile U turn right back to the place where I turned right to cross the street I had been on.
I could have just made a LEFT turn and saved 3 miles!
Or the countless times the destination was on the RIGHT according to the GPS. After not finding it and back tracking, we found it ON THE LEFT!
I wonder if anybody has sued the GPS makers for defective software that led them astray and into potential danger.
This is going to give the GPS system a bad rap, but it's not the fault of the GPS (Global Positioning System). When is the GPS ever off enough to cause someone to do something horribly stupid?
What is at fault here is the software utilizing GPS! If you were going by coordinates, and the coordinates were off...then sure. But this isn't that at all; it's the mapping software giving incorrect directions. And people blindly following.
This is like blaming Intel for Microsoft's bugs. (granted..sometimes it might be intel's issue.)
This little saying from my GPS has almost gotten me into accidents along the Garden State more times than I can remember...
What it's really saying is that I should stay center because the road is about to split into "Express" and "Local" and I need to be on the local, but, after I follow it's directions to stay left, I'm headed for the express, with NO WAY to get off the Garden State from that point on for many, many miles.
It makes me want to throw the damn thing out the window and just look at a paper map. All hail analog!
If telephones are outlawed, then only outlaws will have telephones.
Because of the money it costs to search for them and extract them and their vehicles from where they get stuck when we do find them in time.
I'm too lazy to compose a creative sig.
more and more people are dying in deserts and wildernesses because they rely on their GPS units
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
My first experience with a Garmin had it trying to make us go down the wrong way on one way streets.
God spoke to me.
I don't have any problems with this....
http://darwinawards.com/darwin/darwin2010.html
If you're going off the beaten track, then I have but one word (okay, acronym): EPIRB. As well as adequate, food, water, and fuel supplies, of course. And, if possible, tell someone at your destination when to expect you, so they can raise the alarm when you don't turn up.
*facepalm*
I've never trusted GPS, and I never will... I could never forgive it... for the death of my boy.
Believe it or not, almost all neighbourhoods are safe to drive through if you don't mind running over the guys who jump out into the road wielding baseball bats.
Personally, I don't mind a bit. However, OTHER people mind, for some reason, especially the police.
It's quite troublesome.
Very very sad story. I am wondering if the woman had tried opening the radiator to obtain water for her and her son to drink.
Hungry bears are buying GPS jammers and quietly laughing.
Think of it as Evolution in action.
If you're willing to follow something blindly to your death, the world is better off without you.
Note this also applies to politics and religion, at least; probably many more things as well...
Truth isn't Truth - Guliani
Come on, folks, you're traveling between Portland OR and Las Vegas NV, and your GPS says the most direct route is over some gravel Forest Service road in the Eastern Oregon mountains... In the winter... You take it? Really? And then you: - Remove something like four roadblocks placed there to indicate the road is closed (except to locals with local knowledge). - Go up a ways in the snow, decide to back out, and go out by a DIFFERENT route. - When you get stuck, burn your tires to make a smoke signal WITHOUT waiting for the snowstorm to end and cloud cover to clear so it will be visible. (And with all this wet burns-smoky wood around, too...) - Then leave the car to hike out for help, rather than sticking around for the air search to find you. But what's really stupid is when the CLEO in charge of the search gets on the media and says that "he did all the right things" to salve the feelings of the Darwin Award winner's loved ones - and drive the Mountain Rescue volunteers ballistic because he's just told several million news watchers to do THE SAME STUPID STUFF. There's not much you can do about MORONS, one way or another, they may kill themselves. But you CAN at least MENTION to them that GPS databases show: - every historic abandoned logging road and ghost town known to the USGS (whose maps and databases they used as their major input), - every closed-all-winter road and only-occupied-seasonally resort town ditto, and - a few fake towns and roads that are deliberately inserted - in out-of-the-way places - to detect copyright violators. With those in the database the poor program is going to include them in the route finding. So somebody in a Prius looking for a way to the Bodie state park may be driected to the 4-wheel-drive-only road to save a few miles (as happened to a friend). Or somebody looking for a way over a mountain might end up on the closed-by-snow-until-summer-meltoff road to the summer-only resort town, rather than the interstate road a few miles over. Or somebody running low on gas in a desert may take a back road to a copyright-protection fake town or a mining town that's been "ghost" for a century. It's unreasonable to expect everybody who bought a "maps and navigation" product to figure this out in advance. This is especially true for city dwellers whose experience with surviving in hostile environments is limited to cable/satellite TV shows. News stories like this one get the word out that GPS system use produces a "kill you" mode that is not intuitively obvious. If they kill themselves by trusting a GPS AFTER seeing/hearing about a few of these, THEN it's a much clearer case of "evolution in action".
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
Come on, folks, you're traveling between Portland OR and Las Vegas NV, and your GPS says the most direct route is over some gravel Forest Service road in the Eastern Oregon mountains... In the winter... You take it? Really?
And then you:
- Remove something like four roadblocks placed there to indicate the road is closed (except to locals with local knowledge).
- Go up a ways in the snow, decide to back out, and go out by a DIFFERENT route.
- When you get stuck, burn your tires to make a smoke signal WITHOUT waiting for the snowstorm to end and cloud cover to clear so it will be visible. (And with all this wet burns-smoky wood around, too...)
- Then leave the car to hike out for help, rather than sticking around for the air search to find you.
But what's really stupid is when the CLEO in charge of the search gets on the media and says that "he did all the right things" to salve the feelings of the Darwin Award winner's loved ones - and drive the Mountain Rescue volunteers ballistic because he's just told several million news watchers to do THE SAME STUPID STUFF.
There's not much you can do about MORONS, one way or another, they may kill themselves.
But you CAN at least MENTION to them that GPS databases show:
- every historic abandoned logging road and ghost town known to the USGS (whose maps and databases they used as their major input),
- every closed-all-winter road and only-occupied-seasonally resort town ditto, and
- a few fake towns and roads that are deliberately inserted - in out-of-the-way places - to detect copyright violators.
With those in the database the poor program is going to include them in the route finding. So somebody in a Prius looking for a way to the Bodie state park may be driected to the 4-wheel-drive-only road to save a few miles (as happened to a friend). Or somebody looking for a way over a mountain might end up on the closed-by-snow-until-summer-meltoff road to the summer-only resort town, rather than the interstate road a few miles over. Or somebody running low on gas in a desert may take a back road to a copyright-protection fake town or a mining town that's been "ghost" for a century.
It's unreasonable to expect everybody who bought a "maps and navigation" product to figure this out in advance. This is especially true for city dwellers whose experience with surviving in hostile environments is limited to cable/satellite TV shows. News stories like this one get the word out that GPS system use produces a "kill you" mode that is not intuitively obvious.
If they kill themselves by trusting a GPS AFTER seeing/hearing about a few of these, THEN it's a much clearer case of "evolution in action".
PS: The italic tag is broken with the new version of slashcode.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
Now that's a reality show I could enjoy.
Be seeing you...
It's that people blindly trust their GPS. How dumb do you have to be to drive more than 1/2-a-gas-tank's distance into the middle of nowhere, uphill, in a snowstorm, on a one-lane gravel road before you say "hmm... maybe this is not the best way..."
there is no spoon. or fork. there is a butter knife, and it's dull.
It's Death fucking Valley.
It's wasn't named that in a hipster ironic way. Death Valley will KILL you.
It's not the GPS, it's people being so sheltered from Rural life that they forget that we couldn't survive outside without modern conveniences.
If you had to go out and forage for food, could you?
Democrats or Republicans. They are both taking us to the same place and they are not afraid of us anymore.
A friend of mine and myself went to Colorado a few years back and rented a Jeep which came with a GPS. About half way into the trip we decided to drive around the inner foothills which was a blast. We decided to turn on the GPS to find our way back into Denver and what seemed like a reasonable road turned into a dirt road, then a off road path, finally a goat path. The GPS had a reading of a fork or turn ahead soon so we knew we were going to be in the clear soon. One of the best metal images of my life was driving on the side of this mountain with a solid wall of rock to my left, not enough road for my tires on the narrow path because on the right side it dropped down 1000 ft or more (so I was literally driving half on the wall of the mountain). I look at my friend in the passenger seat and because of the extreme angle we are at I can nearly see down the shear cliff to my right and that British bitch chimes in at that very moment "Turn right, now". My friend and I look at each other, he looks out his window practically hanging over the cliff smiles and says he didn't think he would appreciate me making that turn right now. We did make it off that goat path finally, but we did complain to Enterprise about their GPS who frequently suggested we drive ourselves off multiple mountain sides that trip.
Oddly enough the house I bought last year which is not in CO and very much in town doesn't show up correctly on any GPS. Perhaps this is a curse. Although when I go to sell this house I want to sell it as a grow house and get some good money for it. Cops not being able to find my house could pay some dividends.
"In God We Trust, All Others Pay Cash"
I remember when I was in Boy Scouts, our leader told us to ignore any advice you might have heard about finding your way back to civilization if you are lost. If somebody, somewhere, has some remote clue as to where you might be (and thinks to have someone search), you are 100% better off not going anywhere. You probably are not as lost as you think, and are likely not far from where you were trying to be. The best way for somebody to find you is for you not to go even farther away.
Yes, by moving you may, by dumb luck, blunder back to where you need to be, but you are far more likely to simply end up getting more lost and hard to find.
And never, ever, abandon your car if you are lost. It contains all sorts of useful resources and is rather larger (and easier to find) than you wandering about the woods alone, passed out under a tree. It contains a conveniently large tank of liquid firestarter, and if you carry a couple of basic tools, a large amount of nice insulation in the form of your seat cushions and carpeting. In the heat, the underside is perfectly good shade (if a little cramped.)
What ever happened to just reading maps? I don't know what the US equivalent is, but in Melbourne we have the Melways. Basically, it's a road map of pretty much the whole state. It is updated every year, so it's almost always accurate. Sure, it might actually require using your brain a little (that sounds pretty scary) to figure out the best route but I don't think It has ever lead me the wrong direction or sent me into a desert. Why is that idea so hard for people to grasp? Just read the god-damn map, and as long as you aren't an idiot about it, you will get to your destination. Bam, problem solved. No more driving through narrow unsealed roads or into rivers. When did people stop thinking for themselves?
And don't be too hard on yourself. It's easier to run out of gas in west Texas than you might think. You know to gas up before trying to cross a desert, but east of Lubbock is not a desert and has some towns, so you think there'll be gas and it puts you off your guard. The towns don't all have gas stations. And those stations that are open on Sunday (let alone 24/7) are even fewer. Heck of a time to find out that your gas gauge is even less accurate than you suspected.
Intellectual Property is a monopolistic, selfish, and defective concept. It is "tyranny over the mind of man"
It's been stated already, GPS is just where you are. Its road metadata and routing that gets you. I'd like to point out the wiki style road map system Open Street Maps http://www.openstreetmap.org/ Easy to upload your own tracks and create roads out of them. The OSM wiki has lots of information on apps that utilize the data, I even used it on an old Nokia Series60 phone. http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/OSM_Map_On_Garmin is how to use the data over the default maps on Garmin.
Girl of four died in sat-nav error crash in Blackrod
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-12360687/
Too many people blindly follow these things. There's a ford a few miles from me that is impassable for much of the year if not in a Land Rover etc. After heavy rain only a big tractor could make it.
Yet every year the fire service pulls out 6 - 10 cars whose drivers followed their Sat Navs instructions to pass through it. There is a easily visible water depth gauge.
flying helium balloons asked during the flight how to operate the GPS which he borrowed. He ended landing in the sea and dying. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f1J11EhUd7k
2011. The year Gnome decided Linux will never be on the desktop.
Real men do not stop and ask directions, we trust our maps and our navigational equipment. Our task is to muddle through, no matter how bad it gets. Turning back after having invested so much time and energy to get to the end of this road we are on is to admit defeat. This road we travel may start out looking good. It may give every indication that it will lead to where we want to go. Its features may dwindle as we go along, like our relationship to our spouse tends to, but we cling to our plan, our course, our commitment, because it is our duty. Our vehicle is our trusted war horse, and will take us through any terrain. The fact that we eventually wind up in a situation we cannot cope with is of secondary concern. Too bad if we drive over the cliff. We will make camp at the bottom, and sally forth again in the morning, refreshed anew. Cowboy up!
Words, words, words