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Drivers Need To Forget Their GPS
HughPickens.com writes: Greg Milner writes in the NYT that an American tourist in Iceland directed the GPS unit in his rental car to guide him from Keflavik International Airport to a hotel in nearby Reykjavik, and ended up 250 icy miles away in Siglufjordur, a fishing village on the outskirts of the Arctic Circle. Mr. Santillan apparently explained that he was very tired after his flight and had "put his faith in the GPS." In another incident, a woman in Belgium asked GPS to take her to a destination less than two hours away and two days later, she turned up in Croatia. Finally disastrous incidents involving drivers following disused roads and disappearing into remote areas of Death Valley in California have became so common that park rangers gave them a name: "death by GPS." "If we're being honest, it's not that hard to imagine doing something similar ourselves" says Milner. "Most of us use GPS as a crutch while driving through unfamiliar terrain, tuning out and letting that soothing voice do the dirty work of navigating."
Could society's embrace of GPS be eroding our cognitive maps? Julia Frankenstein, a psychologist at the University of Freiburg's Center for Cognitive Science, says the danger of GPS is that "we are not forced to remember or process the information — as it is permanently 'at hand,' we need not think or decide for ourselves." "Next time you're in a new place, forget the GPS device. Study a map to get your bearings, then try to focus on your memory of it to find your way around. City maps do not tell you each step, but they provide a wealth of abstract survey knowledge. Fill in these memories with your own navigational experience, and give your brain the chance to live up to its abilities."
Could society's embrace of GPS be eroding our cognitive maps? Julia Frankenstein, a psychologist at the University of Freiburg's Center for Cognitive Science, says the danger of GPS is that "we are not forced to remember or process the information — as it is permanently 'at hand,' we need not think or decide for ourselves." "Next time you're in a new place, forget the GPS device. Study a map to get your bearings, then try to focus on your memory of it to find your way around. City maps do not tell you each step, but they provide a wealth of abstract survey knowledge. Fill in these memories with your own navigational experience, and give your brain the chance to live up to its abilities."
>> "death by GPS."
So, now is it finally legal to slap the phone out of pedestrians hands when they're about to stumble off the curb (whether into a crosswalk or not). I know I already honk at drivers who are staring at their dashboard (or their lap) as they inch through an intersection or change lanes on a highway.
No. This is silly. You're better off having GPS than not having it - just don't shut off your common sense at the same time.
#DeleteChrome
Remember unintended acceleration?
I'm old enough to have learned how to navigate without GPS or even maps. I use GPS nowadays, but only as an aid (ETA is fairly accurate). I've seen it make enough mistakes to not ever trust it 100%.
Learn the basics: the "sun rises in the east and sets in the west" type of stuff. Learn how roads are numbered: north/south are generally odd numbered, etc.. Learn which way the mountains in your area are oriented. Buy a map and get acquainted with the area and which way the main roads are laid out.
It ain't that hard to find your way around. I've spent nearly forty years going to places I've never been to before and I haven't been lost once.
The problem isn't that the GPS is wrong, the problem is that the user is in error. In the Iceland case, the driver made a typo and wound up going to a similarly-named road 250 miles away. Had he entered the correct street name, he would likely have made it to his destination without a problem. I'm guessing the Belgium-Croatia case is similar.
And I thought people driving into a lake because the GPS told them to turn right was an episode of The Office.
When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
From TFS:
Study a map to get your bearings, then try to focus on your memory of it to find your way around. City maps do not tell you each step, but they provide a wealth of abstract survey knowledge. Fill in these memories with your own navigational experience, and give your brain the chance to live up to its abilities.
I've argued (unsuccessfully) for years that this same type of over-dependence on some extral tool (be it GPS or Google or Wikipedia) makes us dumber. Nobody believes me, though.
My opinion comes from years of observing programmers (normally people of higher-than-average intelligence) who are completely useless unless they have StackOverflow or something open at all times.
Brawndo! It's what plants crave!
Some of the GPS units I've used just start giving you street directions right away after you enter a destination. The better ones I've used (including Google Maps) start with an overhead view of your entire route, then zoom in to the street-by-street view. That makes it rather simple to spot silly errors like driving from San Francisco to Springfield, Missouri, instead of Springfield, California.
It's death of common sense that we need to bemoan! As another poster said, it's just an aid!
if the destination is two hours away and someone drives for two days without wondering what's going on, well that says a lot
and it's probably not intelligence speaking
These people are doomed to failure from the beginning. After learning how to operate a vehicle safely (note this apply's to almost any vehicle: car, bike, plane, boat, etc.) your second goal is to properly navigate that vehicle in the public domain. Most countries by now have implemented at least a basic form of navigation for at least a few forms of transport.
For example, in a few weeks I will be driving from Reno to Las Vegas, NV. I have 100% confidence that I will not get lost at any point during this journey, with or without GPS. I already know the route I wish to take, which roads I will be using, which towns I will be passing through, and about how long it is between each town. I even know where I will probably stop for gas and lunch in Tonopah. I have a printed map, and know that for the most part I will be on US-95. The state has kindly marked these roads with signs that I can follow. If these people can't figure out that they should be going mostly East instead of mostly Southwest, and do so for days, even hours, GPS isn't the problem.
Just don't tell the Air Force about it
just climb into your self-driving car.
Socrates said the same things about the invention of writing. Ironically, what we know of what he said had to be written down in books such as Plato's The Phaedrus ...
So what is the other side of the statistic? How many times has a GPS unit sent someone in the correct direction, when a human would have driven the wrong way without the GPS?
And a piece of advice: never try to use the Google Maps navigator on a military base. I tried to use it once on an Army base (where the roads weren't clearly marked) and ended up out on an old tank course before I realized that Google Maps had no idea where the fuck it was.
SJW's don't eliminate discrimination. They just expropriate it for themselves.
It's easy to blame other people but how many times have you entered a location and the GPS selects some obscure selection. Both sides should probably take some responsibility.
Just wait for the auto drive cars to fail in the same way.
How about just viewing the map of the route given by the gps/phone/whatever before blindly going to the destination?
How did these people survive before GPS?
It is navigation. /. summary.
Navigation software working with the navigation mapping software which is the problem described in fine
GPS is the fancy clocks floating about in space.
.
>"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."
I know how that goes. I've submitted about 40 reports to them trying to fix the business locations in the office park I work in over the past 5 years. Every day I have people show up at my office trying to find a hospice a couple of streets over because of this. Google really needs to get some humans over at their Maps and Youtube divisions.
I would be surprised if you are far more likely to be in an accident on a per-mile basis than a big GPS mishap.
love is just extroverted narcissism
What are autonomous cars going to use if not GPS? If live (we think) humans are having this kind of issue with GPSs, what will a driver-less car do when encountering these scenarios???
From the linked article about deaths from GPS in Death Valley NP:
The mapping people at the National Parks Service were unable to contact a human being at Google to update their map, but could talk to Tom Tom.
I've heard that story also from other professional source.
That doesn't absolve stupidity, but still, it's nice when maps mark the important stuff. But then, Google maps violates most of the rules of good cartography.
Garmin's response to someone following their GPS half-way under a low bridge was, "Would you follow your GPS through a red light?"
Have gnu, will travel.
Whenever I go to a new city on business, I always make it a point to quickly study a zoomed-out map of the area just so I know a little bit about where I'm going. The thing about GPS is that it's always zoomed into the immediate area you're driving in, and the only info you (should be) looking at while driving is the distance to the next turn. Trying to navigate a dark road at night after a multi-hour flight while having the GPS barking orders at you is stressful enough, but not knowing anything about where you are right then is even more disorienting.
Any navigational aid (or other tool for that matter) should be sanity checked before relying on it. How many IT people do you know who can't troubleshoot without Internet access, or programmers who need StackOverflow to get anything done?
It is obvious that the programmers of these machines think that there are too many people and they are using these "mistakes" to eliminate the weakest among us.
Either that or it is Skynet beginning to figure out how to kill humans.
Back in the dark ages, about circa 2010, researchers found evidence that GPS may erode navigational ability.
"Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) scans were taken of older adults who were GPS and non-GPS users. The subjects accustomed to navigating by spatial means were found to have higher activity and a greater volume of grey matter in the hippocampus than those used to relying on GPS."
http://phys.org/news/2010-11-r...
I only know what to do when the arrows show up, turn left or turn right ....
Like ONSTAR was in my Camaro, just verbal directions and arrows. I never used that once. I did have a tablet that I could mount to my dash so that it could display Navigation with a MAP so I could use my common sense to double check, in the off chance that the computer had picked an invalid route (or one through a bad neighborhood). Waze in particular saved me from a few hours-long traffic snarls that without its input I could not have gotten around, due to complete unfamiliarity with side streets in that area. Having a MAP along with advise that I could follow or ignore, along with software that was capable of working to continue to guide me despite me making a different choice, was invaluable.
There is NO WAY I would attempt to navigate in a new city or country without at least SOME positional information to go with a map. The technology is useful. I see no need to behave like a luddite simply because "machines"
The people that stubbornly obey directions without reference to even a map are at fault, not the software.
I also blame "safety experts" who think that having in-car GPS display a map in transit is "distracting and unsafe" and insist on "no screen, directions only" GPS. Useless.
"Oh my God. This is terrible. This is the end of my Presidency. I'm fucked."; ~ Donald J. Trump
GPS is the satellites that with the proper receiver can tell you where you are - period.
It's a navigation system you're complaining about...
-jg
When you're driving solo in unfamiliar territory, maps are a distraction at best and a menace at worst. Having had the misfortune of having to navigate by an incomplete map to a destination I've never been before, I know "Next time you're in a new place, forget the GPS device" is a line of bullshit. By all means, use common sense (e.g. do a sanity check of the computed route before setting off), but I'd much rather keep both eyes on the road where they belong, rather than have to spend my brain's CPU cycles on guessing where I might have to go next.
No drivers do not need to forget their GPS any more than an idiot that puts a drill through his hand means everyone needs to stop using power tools.
This is bad journalism and is click-baity.
People need to stop being idiots.
That's not news either.
It has to do with people who are cognitively damaged/incompetent and are unable to comprehend that "this shouldn't be".
People have been wandering and getting lost long before GPS navigation was a consumer product. Ever since we've had an interstate system, people have been getting on the southbound ramp instead of northbound and winding up in Florida 2 days after they started the hour trip to visit the grandkids. Before that, they'd just wander into the wilderness and get eaten by a bear.
If somebody enters a destination in their GPS and it says the estimated travel time is 3 hours and they know it's a 5 mile trip, it's not the GPS' fault if they shrug and start driving.
Probably a form of mental illness.
My next-door neighbor, who was an orienteering champion as a teenager, despite lacking a penis, would differ with you. As would the friend with whom I traveled in Europe in the days before GPS, who, despite what I gather to be perfectly functional external genitalia, would stare helplessly at the map, unable to find our location (or, possibly, even to imagine that there was a spot on the map that somehow represented our place in the world), and would instead read place names and say, "do you see XXXX?". (Well, Navigator X,. . . DO YOU?)
Personally I think dead reckoning is innate. At least it feels that way to me. Like knowing it's about to rain, I "sense" I should be heading that way or this, instinctively I suppose, almost as if I'm being pulled, and if practice (or lack thereof) alters the effect, I haven't noticed anything so far, and I've been using using GPS for over a decade (props to HERE btw, best app for the phone, especially beyond towers). There are the odd minor digressions, like on the Vinyard last summer when my phone was constantly routing me around Obamajams onto sketchy dirt roads etc, but I told it to. Anytime things get really weird alarms go off and I reassess.
I think it's all positive, and while I'm all for model maps and peer reviewed papers, I doubt that particular spidey sense will atrophy anymore than I'll lose the ability to eat with my hands because I've been using utensils for too long. Spatial localizing isn't just a time saver, it's survival, and thanks to fuckups by the ancients we've evolved from those that were pretty damn good at it. It's ingrained, it appears, and we got it free.
Not always user error.
One I was going to a office building. That basically had it's privet road as part of the parking lot called tower ln but the online maps sent me to the near by tower pl road that also has office building on / next to it. Same city about 3 miles or less apart. (I think it's fixed now)
There is this one house where some times if you enter it to maps some times it will pull up the wrong place so much so that when they have some come over they need to say google maps is wrong.
There is this other area where at times you need to play with the address to get it right (same road just at times is a little off)
I do a lot of driving out in the forests and rural areas with GPS for navigation. I've noticed that I often need to be sure to set the GPS for Shortest Time rather than Shortest Distance. Setting the GPS to Shortest Distance can result in the GPS directing me via routes like 'Forestry Road #13' or worse.
The other thing I've noticed is that I can start a trip in town using my phone GPS and get directions to a rural location (actually hiking trailhead) and then on return be somewhere with no cell signal and be unable to get return directions.
I now travel with smart phone, stand-alone car GPS, and a paper map. I've occasionally had to resort to the paper map.
[Insert pithy quote here]
Think of it... As evolution in action.
Just take two seconds after you get routing directions up to zoom out and verify it's going about where you want to go.
I've driven in Iceland before and it's impossible to not go to Reykjavik if you pay even the least attention to signs, or just look at the map where you can see where Reykjavik is in relation to where you are driving.
I really like using Waze to guide me, not even by giving directions (which I often ignore) but just to see what roads are around me while driving so I can quickly adjust pathing to something that makes more sense.
One gripe I have with all modern nav systems is that I really wish I had a lot more control over the routes - like "avoid highway if possible" or "Your traffic predictions are always wrong, do not believe their lies". At least Apple Maps gives you three different routes to choose from, that's a nice start but I'd like to be able to guide it further.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
How many died prior to GPS from just getting lost?
If Slashdot were chemistry it would look like this:Cadaverine
If some driver getting themselves lost is a news story, then GPS must be incredibly good at giving correct directions.
These are examples of really really dumb people not paying attention. if your GPS says, "drive 250 miles" to the hotel near your airport, and you blindly do it... you are an idiot.
Drive 2 days away... again, idiot level.
The problem is that all technology requires the user to have a modicum of intelligence. The examples in the story are of people that should not be allowed to drive a car let alone use a GPS.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
Garmin's response to someone following their GPS
Garmin's maps suck. A few years ago, I decided to take a scenic route home by driving around the East side of Lake Stevens (Wash State) instead of the West (direct route). I figured my dashboard GPS would just say "recalculating" and direct me to my destination. But that part of the county is similar to the territory in Winter's Bone or Deliverance. I suspect Garmin just figured that there was nothing worth mapping that far out in the sticks because their map was blank. I tried it again with my hiking eTrex, loaded with Openstreetmap data. No problems*.
*I still kept my doors locked as there were a few residents that looked like "Squeal like a pig" might be a typical greeting.
Have gnu, will travel.
I know people who are I just do what the GPS says even when I try to tell them some routes to take (some times the GPS gives poor routes or ones that like jump down this small 2 lane back road then turn turn turn.. vs the slightly longer / easier to fellow main roads. Some of them are apple uses so I hope that apple maps does not really mess them up some day.
They have their uses but if I rely on one too much, my mental compass turns off.
I've got a ridiculously good mental compass (video games as a kid, I don't know?) but I almost always know what direction I'm facing, where I came from, where I'm headed to, what direction things face, etc.
GPS can get me REALLY lost, when I disable my compass for too long, I end up with no idea where I am.
GPS isn't the problem here. Perhaps I'm being pedantic when I say that, but it needs to be said. If it were the problem, it would likely be obvious; the location fix would be totally wrong and the directions wouldn't make any sense. It might say to turn where there's no place to turn or, quite possibly, indicate you're not on a road at all when you actually are. The real problem is a combination of software issues, poor design, and user error.
I do see some very strange routes that come out of some mapping software. I live in a city that's mostly a grid with some major north-south and east-west roads. If I plan my own route, I'll tend to stay on those main roads. That makes sense because the speed limits tend to be higher, there are fewer uncontrolled intersections, and the stoplights will be timed such that you're less likely to hit red lights on those roads. Mapping software often plots a course that zigzags through the streets. I suppose the software projects it saves a few seconds, but I'm not convinced it's the optimal route. I make trips east to St. Louis from time to time, and Google Maps gives me some bizarre alternate routes. If I'm heading east on I-70, an alternate route that follows I-64 (or if you're from St. Louis it's Highway 40) makes sense. It's probably a time difference of a minute or two. However, many times the alternate route offered involves taking some state highway down to I-44 or something like that, which can add an hour to the trip. I have no clue why this is a logical alternate route, but it's what the software finds. Thankfully I know not to consider those routes.
Poor design can be an issue. If it's easy for the user to select the wrong destination, that's a big problem. That certainly sounds like the case here in the linked story. If the user can't easily verify that the destination entered is really where they want to go, then poor design can be to blame.
That said, none of this is a substitute for common sense. If a route looks really strange or if the estimated time seems way too long, that's because it probably is. Driving for two days and crossing international borders for a trip that's supposed to be two hours long cannot simply be blamed on mapping software. The user is an idiot. At minimum, you have to cross two international borders to get from Belgium to Croatia. Quite possibly it was more than two, which should have been a huge warning sign that the user was too foolish to pay attention to.
GPS is a wonderful tool. I tend not to rely heavily on it to give me precise directions. I tend to follow the approximate route if it looks reasonable to me. I also use it to tell me where I am and roughly how long it is until the next turn and when I need to watch for particular road signs. That said, it's no substitute for common sense, knowing how to read a map, and watching the signs along the road.
I hate all anonymous shitbags. Log in, you filthy bastards.
I live in a rural mountain location, and know that certain map software, therefore certain GPS units, give really horrible directions to my location--as in sending you on a long detour on a brutally rough & steep dirt road through a state park several miles from me, or in another case giving directions that are flat-out impossible to follow. I explain this to service people before giving them the actually simple directions. And yet, some of them go ahead and use their GPS and get totally lost, even after having been told that their GPS is likely to give them incorrect directions!
I've had access to GPS for quite a while and have NEVER used it. I don't trust my navigation to a computer and a battery. I find it much easier to just use a printed map or a mapbook. I would say you have to be pretty fucking stupid to take off on roads unknown without a printed map. But after living on this rock for close to 50 years, stupidity is just as common as wind and dirt.
Navigation is path planning and positioning.
GPS is the positioning.
Directions is the path planning.
Of the 2 cases mentioned in the article, they are path planning issues, the driver ignoring where's he is at and just following directions.
The problem is not GPS, but the path software.
Then again GPS in the EU better be using the EU system (Galileo) and not the US system--I'm sure there's an problem in that context since one case was in high lats (bad for GPS) or near the Russian/EU zone.
also the fold up maps are not down to street level so using them may not help that much. Unless you have one of the big map books that is down to the street level.
The GPS system works just fine. It's an issue with the routing software being squirrely and people not taking a moment to engage their brain.
So a few people have died by GPS because they drove to the wrong place.
What the moronic article fails to take into account is how many deaths have been prevented by GPS.
How many deaths have been prevented because without the GPS they would have driven to the wrong place?
How many deaths have been prevented because the driver was not distracted looking down a map instead of keeping the eyes on the road because they had turn by turn instructions?
Yeah, trying to use a map that doesn't include the minimum relevant information, i.e., the roads you will actually be traveling on, could be a problem.
The soylentnews experiment has been a dismal failure.
that's interesting, because I submitted a correction to Google Maps just last year by clicking "send feedback". I reported what was supposed to be an east-west road connecting two north-south roads (think letter H). Unfortunately, the east-west road actually dead-ended in a pasture about 400 yards before it connected one of the north-south roads. The detour to get where that little missing connection should have led was about 5 miles...
Anyway, I got an email response from Google Maps about 3 weeks later reporting that I was correct and the maps had been updated. Sure enough, map was correct when I checked. Point is, if you see an issue, report it...it's built into Google Maps for pete's sake...
It's hard for some people to get used to, but it forces you to develop a "cognitive map" or at least pay attention to which way is north. That helps a ton when the GPS gets you lost and you have to ask for directions.
Dr. Frankenstein studies brain's orientation? I see she followed the family area of expertise, in a way.
BTW, how do we pronounce her name?
an American tourist in Iceland directed the GPS unit in his rental car to guide him from Keflavik International Airport to a hotel in nearby Reykjavik, and ended up 250 icy miles away in Siglufjordur, a fishing village on the outskirts of the Arctic Circle.
Which show is this the pilot episode script for, and when does it air? Sounds awesome.
evolution in action...
So they are supposedly responsible adults...
Some 100 or even 50 years ago, the majority of people especially in rural areas were able to make informed assumptions as to tomorrows weather by looking up into the evening sky. Today, a growing number of people will not even associate "sky" if you mention "clouds" to them.
While it is rather unlikely that this is anywhere near NY Times' Greg Milner's point (proudly not having RTFA), here's my take: the problem is neither GPS nor common sense or the lack thereof, but our growing dependency on tech, while at the same time we neglect basically all of the knowledge and experience it took to get us to where we are. To put it another way: if individuals wanting to go somewhere close by end up in Croatia, where will humankind end up once it completely subjects itself to todays automated emergency response systems, high speed trading algorithms and real time stock market analyses and all the rest of the things we can no longer live without? A person might be silly, but it'll yet have to turn out if we as a species are silly ... .
I hope I didn't brain my damage.
Learn the basics: the "sun rises in the east and sets in the west" type of stuff.
This is a news for nerds site. The sun doesn't rise in the east; the earth rotates to the east.
It ain't that hard to find your way around. I've spent nearly forty years going to places I've never been to before and I haven't been lost once.
I don't get lost, I just have adventures!
Everything I needed to know about navigating while driving was learnt by playing Grand Theft Auto 3. It didn't have a functional GPS navigator, you would just look at the mini-map and if your destination was far away the colored block would indicate which direction your destination was. You had to solve problems on your own like "Hmm it's possible that destination is on another island and I'll have to take one of the bridges to get there."
Having got lost recently on a 5 mile trip on a bicycle to an area beyond my usual stamping ground and being forced to resort to a PAPER map, it reminded me that there is always an alternative. However the starting point is to recognise you are lost - which requires some humility...
The vast majority of the time my GPS will give me an identical or better route than I planned. Once in a blue moon it suggests an identically named city that is about a 20 hour drive away. Once in a while I doubt the strange routing it will suggest but out of curiosity I will follow its suggestions and it is mostly correct. The key is to have a GPS program that shows you the overall routing instead of just the next turn. This way you can see if it is driving you back and fourth across a river, or taking you for a loop mid trip.
I call it map blindness when someone doesn't constantly maintain or at least try to maintain a map in their mind whenever they go somewhere. One of my office mates can be considered map blind. When he gets off of the elevator after arriving at our floor he has to look around to get his bearings visually in order to figure out which way to go to the office. This is especially because there are 2 + 2 elevators on opposite sides of the hall in our building. Whereas another office mate can point out the directions in 3 dimensions of any destination or office in our building,
The point is different people have different skills in this area. I sort of assume it to be innate.
That was the turning point of my life--I went from negative zero to positive zero.
The man was trying to reach a local hotel just a little ways from the airport and drove 250 miles (@ ~60mph, that is 4 hours). I am sorry we cannot blame a GPS for dementia. If this guy had a Rand McNally Road Atlas, he'd still have driven for four hours. He clearly had no perspective on reality. This is NOT a GPS issue, this is dementia..
Most gps systems are also quite bad at making sure that the driver entered the desired location. If the route has any significant length, you get a 10 mile per pixel overview, and only by zooming in like hell you are able to find out whether the destination makes sense.
What is missing from the article is an actual comparison between people with and without GPS. Yes there are anecdotes of people driving way off with GPS, but are there not also cases of people without GPS going completely the wrong way? That sort of comparison is necessary before arriving at the conclusion "forget the GPS device".
FTW....
You're messin' with my Zen Thing, man.....
There have been instances of GPS guiding people across a bridge that no longer exists, but most of the problem is people not bothering to read maps when setting up a journey. Even if you have never been to Iceland before, having "satnav" (as they cal it in Europe) take you on a medallion cab ride to nowhere between the airport and a nearby hotel would be obvious to anyone who bothered to glance at the route as displayed on your device's map before pressing 'Start'.
You just agreed with him.
My GPS works perfectly for me...
1. I don't trust it implicitly... I have a general idea of where I'm going and if the damned thing starts talking about a very different place then I know enough to error check it.
2. I actually key the information in correctly. Most times when people have problems it is "user error".
3. I don't blindly stay on highways etc simply because the stupid thing is biased to do that. I'll drop off them even if it keeps insisting that I have to if I know there is a traffic incident... eventually my GPS will figure it out or if not it will continue to direct me roughly in the correct direction.
Generally I use GPS for two things. Finding something in town or helping me on a long trip... short of that it isn't used at all. And in fairness, I don't need it... I have "maps"... I just find it more convenient to use the GPS.
I've decided to stop wasting my time responding to AC trolls/sockpuppets... so if you want a response from me... login.
The GPS product specification & safety guide needs an recommended IQ rating. :-)
Why not bundle in an IQ test with the license test
1. You can't make things fool proof, fools are very inventive;
2. Today's automation allows lazy people to do stupid things in many new ways and get away with it ... mostly.
No, GPS is not making people stupid, or destroying their inner mapping.
What GPS is doing is allowing idiots who are already pretty stupid to have access to technology that they cannot comprehend.
They started out stupid, and remain that way.
I use GPS daily, and I also have old school paper maps in the car. If something doesn't seem right, I refer to the paper maps as a sanity check. So I seldom end up 250 miles out of my way, or driving into a desert and ending up nearly dead http://www.sacbee.com/entertai...
http://abcnews.go.com/Technolo...
Not one of these fates was the fault of the GPS. It was the fault of the stupid stupid owners, who were stupid enough to end up near the Arctic circle, or stupid enough to ever ever go into the desert without provisions, then coupled with not having a paper map in their car and checking it the first second something didn't seem right.
One of the best was the case of Iftikhar Hussain, who last year followed his GPS off a demolished bridge in Indiana. Sad, but according to the Lake County Police:
a sheriff's office spokeswoman told the Times of Munster: "The Cline Avenue bridge is marked with numerous barricades including orange barrels and cones, large wood signs stating ROAD CLOSED with orange striped markings. There are concrete barricades across the road to further indicate the road is closed."
So if you are going to assume that the GPS is correct, as you drive around barricades and barrels and "Road Closed" signs and concrete barricades, It isn't the machine that is stupid, it is you.
GPS navigation is simply mapreading enhanced by GPS coordinates. The Mapreader doesn't always plot what it thinks is your exact position, it often assigns you to a nearby road. It doesn't always know the exact condition of the road it's trying to send you on, and if you choose "shortest route" it will often send you off on some interesting but time consuming shortcuts. It doesn't always know if a route is closed.
But if you are stupid, it will allow you to kill yourself.
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
This friend of a friend of a guy who knew my cousin (it wasn't me, really) once drove 3 hours the wrong way in Germany because he was following maps and signs to Rottenburg, when he was actually trying to get to Rothenburg.
None of them can see the clouds; The polished wings don't care.
Like any tool, a GPS is sometimes faulty. But if you combine it with other inputs like a compass, or choose interim checkpoints to reestablish your bearings periodically, nav problems like these disappear. That's what everyone used to do with paper maps, of course.
This problem is caused by our motley collection of independent e-tools that don't communicate to double check each other, and our unthinking unblinking trust in dumb machines. Bad combo.
You almost cost me a keyboard. How about a warning next time? Funniest reply on Slashdot so far today.
"So long and thanks for all the fish."
The last 3 times I submitted corrections to Google Maps, complete with timestamped & geostamped pictures, they said they couldn't verify that.
F*ck 'em. I'm not going to be their unpaid surveyor any more.
in Brazil, there are several accounts of people being guided through slums, with several accounts of fatal encounters
"life is a joke, and someone is laughing at me"
Doubt anyone will see this comment, there being almost 300 comments at this moment, but regardless..
What I see is a trend towards more automation, machines doing more and more for us, allegedly 'liberating' us from 'menial tasks', but in reality people are being challenged less and less with every passing decade to actually learn to do things for themselves, and it's making their brains lazier and lazier, less willing or even able to learn new things. 'Use it or lose it' is a real thing.
Are YOU using the TOOL, or is the TOOL using YOU? Think about it!
People used to do lots of hard work in the fields. But machines made that unnecessary.
People used to know how to do arithmetic and spel. But machines have made that unnecessary.
People used to learn to read maps. But machines have made that unnecessary.
People used to know how to follow rules that approve housing loans or insurance requests. But machines have made that unnecessary.
People still need to think. For the time being.
http://www.computersthink.com/
You aren't married are you? Anyone who is married is laughing at your naivety right now. (Including me)
Nowhere does it say that the rest of us thinking human beings need to suffer fools. I ride a bike down 5th Avenue in New York City at an average of 20MPH. If I ride 3rd Avenue and the wind is right, I might hit 35MPH, but you bet your ass I'll be watching what all the vehicles in front of me are doing or think of doing. And if someone's engine behind me sounds particularly close or fast, I slow down to 5MPH and hug the side of parked cars.
I know that for the continental US, satellite dishes face south. I know that moss grows on the northern side of trees. I know that rivers east of the Rockies flow south and east, and so on. Most cities have multiple skyscrapers and bridges that one can use for triangulation.
So please, go on trusting technology and removing yourselves from the gene pool.
What bullshit.
99.99999999999999% a GPS will take you exactly where you want to go. It's dunderheads that take off on a 10-mile trip and 800 miles later they finally "realize" that something's wrong. That's not really the fault of the GPS.
Or some idiot drives into a lake or down a jogging trail because he or she is just TOO STUPID to understand that they're not driving on a road anymore.
The GPS and its related gadgets are one of the great success stories of modern technology, so stop with these "Your GPS Will Kill You!" stories.
Just cruising through this digital world at 33 1/3 rpm...
For YEARS, I've hoped for GPS software that had three features:
1.) A "fewest number of turns" mode. Especially if I am in unfamiliar territory, I would rather a route that involves four turns and takes five more minutes and three more miles, than a route that saves me those five minutes and involves fifteen turns. Give me the route that is the simplest to memorize, even if it means a longer drive.
2.) An "avoid crappy intersections" mode. Yes, please, make my drive three minutes longer if it means I don't have to cut across four lanes of traffic within 100 feet to make a hairpin left at a five-way stop. Prioritize standard, right-angle intersections where possible.
3.) A "get the complete thought out" mode. One time, I was driving in Queens, trying to get back on the Jackie Robinson Parkway (I think). The GPS literally said "stay to the right...then...stay to the left...then...stay to the right...", to which I blurted out, "Cha cha now, y'all!". While yes, I was navigating through an intersection of three major highways (see #2), there were about four different roads I could get onto with that particular set of directions, and looking at the map to figure out which particular set of squiggly lines I was supposed to drive onto was not an option, given that I had to, y'know...avoid hitting another driver or ending up in oncoming traffic (yeah, I'm picky like that). If directions are going to be given in that quick succession, then tell me "head toward the Jackie Robinson Parkway"...and then, just start calculating rerouted directions in the background, under the assumption that I'll miss it.
Honestly, I think that these three features would be incredibly helpful...so, anyone who wants to code it, just get me a free copy.
In the 90s, when I lived in CA, I used to get AAA maps of the cities I lived in. Like in the Bay Area, I had maps of most cities in Santa Clara, San Mateo and Alameda counties. If I was headed to a place I wasn't familiar w/, I'd study the map and then go there. More locally, I'd drive all over the place - pretty much had Milpitas, Santa Clara and Sunnyvale mentally nailed, and for other places, would refer to the maps at times.
When I moved to the East coast, I got a car w/ the GPS built in, and that turned out to be a godsend. B'cos unlike in CA, where most of the roads are in a grid and one gets a good idea of roads that are parallel or perpendicular to how one is driving, here, roads are all over the place. Atlanta in particular drives me nuts: if it weren't for GPS, I'd be at sea. I'd drive according to my instincts back from some place, and have no idea of where I'm headed, despite the compass on the GPS, unless I plug in my destination.
But about the people in the story, if one is 2 hrs drive away, how does one keep driving and end up from Belgium to Croatia? Wouldn't one re-check one's destination periodically? Not to mention that most GPS systems tell you when you are close to your ultimate destination
I've had my GPS lead me on "scenic routes" a few times, and realized it fairly soon, even in an area I was unfamiliar with (a dirt road is not likely an optimal route). Usually I followed it to see where it would go, at least for a while, but if it didn't get back on track before I got bored with it, either backtracked or cut over to where I knew it would get there.
Driving in the boondocks past the range of your data signal can have bad results if you don't know the area. I've driven to a destination in the mountains with poor reception but perfect routing information sustained past the loss of data signal. Later when restarting the maps app the gps position was accurate with no maps or routing information available. I wasn't that familiar with the back roads but knew the general direction to the major highway. Nevertheless I made a wrong turn and had to bumble around a bit.
Pre-saving maps for less-known regions where you might lose data is a good idea. Even if you have no routing you can figure it out from the accurate map.
One of my main frustrations when hiking is getting a decent tourist map. I want 4 things on every map - Title, scale, which way north is and a key. If the map is on a sign post a little marker saying "you are here" is also helpful. I suspect most of the people who create these maps not only haven't tried to use them but they haven't ever used a map.
or maybe.. just maybe those people are idiots and have under developed intelligence and maybe shouldnt be driving at all?
Put up a toll sign and profit!
I relied on my navigator who relied on bad GPS coordinates and ended up in dirt roads of backwoods of south carolina in a dead cell zone. You would have thought in the ten hours it took to get there she could have looked up something on a map... but anyway, I would not want to rely on just one or the other, I am absolutely terrible with directions, I really prefer to have a map and GPS to verify each other. I really hate trying to find campsites in the dark that only give vague directions, go three miles turn left, go .7 miles, second road etc.
Because no one ever got lost before GPS, right?
This seemed like a reasonable sig at the time.
As the history of maps go, they are only as good as the information. GPS to me will kill the self driving car and it occupants as plenty of bad mapping still exists.
I was a truck driver for 20 years and much of that time I used physical maps but many times the best directions were from the people that worked where I delivered or picked up. A simple call on my phone made things much easier. When I finally decided to try GPS I bought one designed for heavy trucks. It was constantly directing me into parking lots, and to turn onto streets that were not through streets. What a mess, I finally traded it in for some cash. Won't ever use one again.
"If we're being honest, it's not that hard to imagine doing something similar ourselves" says Milner. "Most of us use GPS as a crutch while driving through unfamiliar terrain, tuning out and letting that soothing voice do the dirty work of navigating." I don't care what the fucking GPS says, if I'm going somewhere that's 2hrs away, there's not fucking way I make it past 3 or so hours. I certainly wouldn't end up some place that's 2 days away. That's just fucking stupidity and has nothing to do with a GPS crutch.
If I program a destination that is close and I start seeing "welcome to x state" signs show up, it's time to turn around. How someone made it to a different country without turning around I'll never know.
With GPS, you can accurately tell your latitude, longitude, and altitude within a very few feet. However, commercial GPS mapping services often contain wrong data.
Visitors using GPS to locate my home for the first time from my address often travel up a collector street and then turn right. I am a left turn from that collector street. I have seen this happen with contractors and airport shuttle vans.
The problem lies within the maps used by the GPS services, not with the GPS satellite system. This is quite understandable since Web-based mapping services have similar errors.
Frankenstein? Why should I believe anyone who's name is Frankenstein?
Using her "logic", we should stop using cell phones and speed dial because we no longer remember phone numbers.
A couple of anecdotal accounts and you want us to abandon this wonderful technology? I vote no.
From the future:
Self-driving cars need to forget their GPS
Sara Bellum left her home in Phoenix for a weekend trip to the Grand Canyon in her self-driving RV. We caught up with Sara on a ferry to Grand Cayman islands where she was happy to give an interview through her vehicle's side window, as the doors were locked by the computer while the car is in transit to a destination. After exhausting her supply of food and periodically checking for a big hole in the ground, she started bartering her knitting at refueling stops in exchange for food and sundries. "You'd be amazed what you can pick up through the window of your car!" she chuckled happily while munching on a carrot and working away at another steering wheel cozy.
Did we really forget this rather high-profile death-by-GPS from 10 years ago? Come on, New York Times, really? This is Introduction to Journalism 101.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
Kriston
Because no one ever got lost before with maps? Guess getting lost started with the advent of the GPS.
Dumb story is dumb.
Several years ago when I had the iPhone 3G, I was using the GPS on the map app as I drove around Lake Tahoe. Sometimes the GPS said I was on the other side of the lake, other times the GPS told me I was driving in the middle of the lake.
I always look over the map/directions that a GPS gives me to make sure it seems at least reasonable, and that I have a basic understanding of where I'm going. I'm shocked that people just enter a destination and follow whatever the voice says to do.
Use a tool like an idiot, and it won't work as you expect.
I regularly do things like 100 mile drives into the middle of nowhere, then just turn on the sat nav knowing that it will get me back. My girlfriend and I find it a nice way to discover new places, new pubs, new routes, new towns, new countryside.
What bugs me more than anything is short, temporary roadworks, restrictions, road closures, etc. that are never announced on RDS-TMC or similar traffic services and so you have to manually re-route. The one bit of a journey that pisses me off is when I *can't* let the satnav do its job.
Otherwise, I have never got lost, drove hundreds of km's out of my way "by accident" (moron!), driven through a ford I didn't know was coming up or into a low bridge that was too low for my vehicle (morons!), or anything else along those lines. Hell, it's been years since I typed in a postcode that the computer couldn't recognise first time.
Seriously, people, just get a life and check the overview map before you accept route. There are millions of places which share names with things that aren't what you intended. Check which one you meant first rather than blindly pressing OK.
And then your satnav-led journeys will be pretty much uneventful.
Oh, and I use a GBP20 Copilot app on an Android phone. It's not like I spent a fortune, and I don't even have to pay for map updates.
Nowadays nearly every HGV driver in Europe has a GPS. Since GPS's became available, the number of drivers getting stuck in small villages or tight country lanes has increased dramatically, as has the number of bridge strikes. I'm not infallible either, and have took some very stupid routes because I relied on the GPS instead of my own head (went through mid-wales instead of along the M4, because the GPS told me too -.-). Recently Oxfordshire Country Council proposed a movement to "force" HGV drivers to use commercial sat navs (supposedly set up for HGV's, supposedly), due to the number of trucks going through small villages. While this is a silly idea, because trucks will continue to go to these villages (delivering furniture, helping people move house, delivering to shops, collecting from quarries and factories, etc.), it does show that today's truck driver, (and today's car driver) is certainly less capable that the driver of yesteryear (not getting into cross-cut gearing and "proper driving" as some older drivers like to rant).
To go from Belgium to Croatia you have to go through multiple country. Either the IQ of the woman is so low that she should be barred from driving, or she simply used it as an excuse. "yeah I followed my GPS two day long" bullshit. She wanted to get away from where she was whatever was the reason (could be any reason) then after 2 day of blowing off she realized she was going off the rail and rather than admit anything she accused the GPS.
C. Sagan : A demon haunted world:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0345409469/
visit randi.org
Only a woman would so something that stupid. Is anybody surprised? Women and cars don't mix.
Personally, I find auto driving annoying. So, I use chauffeurs when I travel. They don't need GPS because they are local and already know the way. They are used to driving in the locale and know all the relevant laws and practices. And finally, they cost a fraction of a rental car. How? I use a bus chauffeur and a train chauffeur and, no, I won't ever go back. Travel in style and luxury for a pittance. Where's the problem?
"A lot of people don't realize you should just turn around and go back the way you came," she said. "We see that a lot here."
Without that you need a data network. Something I am sure is readily available in the cited areas. I doubt we will regress to older technologies, so we have to make the data better.
The guy in Iceland put the wrong road name into his GPS. The GPS worked flawlessly and took him to the place he asked to go.
Heard many of such stories before. :)
Kursy jÄ(TM)zykowe za granicÄ...
...but it's no worse either.
On more than one occasion off in the middle of nowhere on a camping trip with my wife, well out of cell coverage and with no google maps to help us I navigated with a paper map to a road that terminated at a collapsed bridge.... on the other side the pavement was in the process of giving way to the forest that encroached from their side.
The road was clearly on the map though, and it clearly went through on the map.... later I asked google for directions, and looked at google maps.... that road did not go through on google maps.... it actually indicated it was a dead end, and the road on the other side of the bridge wasn't even listed...
Maps suck when they are wrong. It's not just electronic maps that can have that problem.
No, I"m not...I do NOT want kids.
I don't have kids and I'm married. Have been for a long time. The decision to be married has nothing to do with whether or not you want kids. My wife and I have been together for almost 20 years and we go back another 10 before that. Our decision to get married had nothing to do with children at all.
Therefore, there is no reason to get married, and risk losing half of what I own whenever I decide I want to move on to a different woman.
So A) you've apparently never heard of a pre-nuptial agreement and B) you are apparently a selfish little boy who thinks that women exist merely to service your desires.
Yes, I say, grow a pair....women don't respect you if you don't assert yourself, show confidence, and show that you know (or at least project that you know) what you want in life.
You don't date much I'm guessing or if you do you probably get dumped a lot for being an ass. Son, let me let you in on a little secret. If you get married you aren't doing it for you. You do it because someone else matters so much to you that you are willing to make huge adjustments to your life to care for them and your spouse is doing the same. There is enormous satisfaction to be found in taking care of others, whether that be a spouse or a child. When you are in a relationship your opinion isn't the only one that matters. It doesn't mean your opinion doesn't matter but sometimes it does mean you'll need to put away your toys and do something for someone else. A real relationship requires both people to make some accommodations the the needs and desires of the other person. Given the self indulgent nonsense you are spouting it's probably a good thing that you aren't married. You certainly wouldn't remain married for long.
Geez, do you ask permission to change the radio station too?
Grow up little boy.
Well then, aren't you a judgmental prick. Maybe if you actually got to know people better, you'd understand they're a lot more like you than you think. If you go around acting like you are better than everyone else, people will treat you like shit and rightfully so.
Maps? Bah! They're a crutch for people who can't be arsed to walk around and get a feel for the neighborhood. How are you going to get to know the local shops and people from staring at a piece of paper? People need to stop relying on maps and build up an in-depth understanding of the area by asking homeless guys for directions.
Chelloveck
I give up on debugging. From now on, SIGSEGV is a feature.
Why do poeple take their gps for granted? When I first got one I was skeptical of it and still always look at the routes its suggested to make sure it makes sense, couple times I have caught it trying to suggest bad roads or simply the wrong place, if i think its wrong I stop and figure it out before blindly driving accross that airport runway. Once I have learned a new area I stop using it and/or take alternate routes it might suggest to learn those. Other times I just take different roads to see what it works out when it recalculates.
The trouble is that the times the Sat Nav gets you to your destination without incident are not at all memorable and the one time it directed you into the mouth of an active volcano is something you'll never forget.
You know, if my satnav drives me into the mouth of an active volcano even one time, I'd call that a sufficiently bad flaw to be grounds to reject the technology with prejudice.
Driving me into the mouth of a volcano will pretty much not only ruin my whole day, it will ruin my whole year.
http://www.geoffreylandis.com
What happens when the driver is also the GPS? Gives new meaning to the term 'carjacking'? Um, hello is this 911? I was trying to go the grocery store by my car has kidnapped me.
I asked where is the store located? Person whips out the phone and gives me lat/long. No, I want to go there and buy something, not blow it up.
mfwright@batnet.com
I knew it! Bring back maps!!
People generally don't know how to read maps, that's why people tend to ask for directions (less and less now) and/or stop along the way and ask for more directions. The GPS made people comfortable enough that they put all trust into it, and no longer ask other people for direction. Ultimately, the better solution is to continue to improve GPS, but people also need to learn how to read a map and/or ask for directions and how long it will take to get from point A to point B when unfamiliar with the area.
Siri tried putting our rental car off a cliff in Puerto Rico. "Continue 800 feet and take a right" but the road dead ended on a cliff and that 800 feet was 795 feet too far off the edge. That same week she put us in a nest of armed cartel marijuana operatives at the end of a sketchy jeep trail lookin for Aricebo dish.
What happens when the car becomes driverless and does one of these things? Won't the human be even more convinced to let it take them across the continent? LOL
Sure, the GPS might keep you from having to memorize street names, but that map you are using to learn the street names is keeping you from having to navigate by sun/star position. And no cheating and using an astrolabe.
Ultimately, GPSs are an incremental change in what we remember vs what we have available as a reference, just as the maps you are promoting did.
The local company that produced a 5 county map of the area gave up on putting out new ones. I have one of the last copies they made. The store they run is starting to look run down, too. GPS probably killed their bottom line, and they are just selling whatever they have left. It is pretty sad to walk around the store, and see the once booming 'Travel' section is now a bunch of empty shelves. They don't even have the lights all turned on in that section, any more.
I have submitted updates/fixes to TomTom and have seen them applied. You can even do it from within the iPhone app.
TomTom is quite good at that kind of stuff.
RogerWilco the Adventurous Janitor
I have been 'lost' for short periods however my GPS is 'old school', a compass, map and common sense...
...
I remember a couple of years ago a couple drove through what they though was a shortcut in Northern Nevada and ended up stranded. The husband died as he tried to find help but the wife was found inside the car starving but otherwise okay. The locals were amazed to hear that this couple with a 2WD van went on a jeep trail that they even avoid during the winter months with their 4WD vehicles because the road is in bad shape and there are all kinds of surprise snowstorms in the area. This couple simply followed their GPS device and never thought of the fact that they were driving on a jeep trail with a 2WD van in an area notorious for sudden snowstorms. GPS leads people to many places that aren't safe and in combination with people doing simple google searches and hiking rough trails, California officials started calling "Yuppie 911" when a inexperienced camper gets in trouble and has to call 911 for help because they failed to prepare for the hike or did a simple 5 minute google search and tried to hike a trail for experienced hikers when hey are novices.
I have an orienteering merit badge and find the notion of using a GPS a silly waste of money. Know where you are going and how you plan to get there before you ever step foot outside of your home. When my parent's flew out to visit me they got a rental car with a GPS, while trying to drive to the Wisconsin "Cheese Castle" the GPS told them to turn right and drive 1.5 miles to get to the destination, thankfully they were smart enough to look out the window and saw the location 20 yards to their left.
For fun I sometimes drive down roads I've never studied before and try to get myself lost then work my way back out.
I'm 37, BTW.