So the bone-jarring thumping from driving over rows of tracks was not clue enough to this individual that the “road” he was on was not meant for a car??

I think there is just entirely too much idiocy behind the wheel. Both of these individuals should have their licenses revoked for being incapable of making sound decisions!

This is a wake up call for people to drive looking out their windshields instead of staring at their GPS screens.

“guy must of been using”? What does that mean?
I must have missed something…

“When the map doesn’t match the terrain, believe the terrain”

This reminds me of an episode of “The Office,” in which Michael turns right where he is, instead of at the road 50 feet ahead… and drowns the car in a pond. I only found it hilarious because I didn’t think a human that stupid actually existed… I thought they were exaggerating possible stupidity… not predicting it! Indy heavily on my GPS when going to unfamiliar or distant places, because it helps me know when to start looking for a street, but when it says to turn, I still look at the street signs to make sure it’s the correct one… guess everyone doesn’t put that much faith in their mental abilities.

I agree with the comments that GPS users need to use common sense when relying on the device for direction… However, there may be times when you think the GPS is wrong when indeed it is correct.

Over the Christmas holidays I drove west to Nebraska for a visit family so brought my new Garmin along for the ride. I figured it would be useful since they had moved since my last visit. My father lives out in the country (which is any part of Nebraska really); as I got close to the destination I was directed by the GPS to exit the highway and drive down a dirt road. After driving down the road a bit I found however that it dead ended into the middle of a field, obviously something was wrong with the GPS map. After some time trying to figure out how to get around this field I eventually arrived. When I relayed this story on to my father however he started laughing hysterically. Apparently the locals do use this field as a road. He later showed me where a railroad crossing had been built which appeared to be placed between the middle of two corn fields. It even had the standardized railroad crossing road signs posted.

Beware of Mill/Dodd Rd in Crawford NE

http://maps.google.com/maps?q=Crawford,+NE,+United+States+of+America&ie=UTF8&ll=42.713029,-103.42289&spn=0.026613,0.065746&t=p&z=14&om=0

GPS gets really lost here in Sydney sometimes, you can tell when it’s beginning to struggle when it says things like “Make a U-Turn whenever possible” followed by “in 200m continue straight” when all I’m doing is sitting waiting for the lights to change!

I personally find it great for getting places but you still need to know how to drive in the first place, and that includes road signs!

This tale reminds me of all the stories about people who put their motor home into “cruise control” and leave the driver’s seat to go to the kitchen area to make a sandwich. As the stories go; they then sue the dealers for not telling them they must be in control the motor home at all times.

Does the evolution of the human brain seem to be in a backwards spiral? Or has humanity always had people who are proving that evolution of “thought” hasn’t kept up with the evolution of the body.

It really wasn’t the GPS’ fault, it just wanted to be put out of its misery for being installed in a Ford Focus. I’d want to die too if I had to ride around in one of those…

your GPS hates you and wants to kill you

that every time I get in my Camry I have to “Agree” to not blame Toyota if I pay too much attention to the GPS and get in a wreck. Kill the lawyers….Kill them all…

Tech-Head or Gear Head…… I guess we all can’t be both… Maybe GPS operation should be part of the drivers test…. on second thought… the drivers test dosn’t seem to make much of a differance anyway… Hope he is not the guy who put the cruise control on in the motorhome and went for a nap!!!

For a large scale implementation, I imagine it would require a roll out of ITS (Intelligent Transportation Systems) and TDM (Traffic Demand Management).

This was tried several years ago in Germany for the Autobahn… With big hitters such as Lucent, Dahlmer Christer, Deutsche Telecom, and consultant friends (read: star performers fresh out of College without practical experience) from Booz Allen Hamilton. The project got nowhere, and DT, at least, ended up charging it to the balance sheet in the right column.

Probably one of the best worldwide implementations of TDM and ITS is actually stateside… In Colorado (Can you believe it). It must be a monster to maintain because of the snow– it causes potholes and break in-road connections to TDM/ITS sensors.

So if you want to perform certain tasks such as turning, it may be best to move to Colorado. They seem to have a lot of things going right.

I hear they are also a major hub for content distribution, and have one of the most educated workforces in the US, lower cost of living in relationship to NYC or Los Angeles. Quality of life ranks in the top too.

Hmmm.. Maybe I should start get some of my Billionare friends together and start a full blown movie studio in Denver. Sounds crazy, but there is a tax stiphon on the books for that. http://www.metrodenver.org/

I love the fact that I put on a wikipedia article that Denver was on 105 meridian a few months ago, and now they are using it in their marketing efforts. 🙂

One-Bounce Satellite – Denver is the largest U.S. city to offer one-bounce satellite uplinks that provide real-time connections to six out of seven continents in one business day.

The project got nowhere, and DT, at least, ended up charging it to the balance sheet in the right column.

Err Left Column…

Oooooooooo, just missed a new Darwin award recipient.

I have seen various writeups on the joys of GPS systems used in driving. They have been brief. This writeup goes into much more detail and details more than one risk. I wrote this in June of 2006 and have lightly edited it.

I am a Canadian citizen, but I then lived in Bellingham, WA, USA and work near it. At the beginning of April 2006, I went to visit my mother who was then living in Greenwood, BC, Canada. At the car rental place, because neither of the cars available was acceptable — perfumed cleaners are a non-computer risk some face — and because I am a frequent customer, I was upgraded at no extra cost to a SUV, a SUV with a GPS navigator: the NeverLost system. I did not get lost, but that was not entirely due to the device.

I lost little time in starting to play with this new toy.

I found it interesting all of the streets that were nearby. Unfortunately, sometimes, the names were truncated, and in at least one case, the truncated name made sense as a word. I did not see any way to adjust the magnification.

I saw that I could ask for a course to my mother’s. Unfortunately, the interface was a bit confusing and rather than selecting the city of Greenwood, BC (the smallest incorporated city in Canada), I accidentally selected the then-current city and a street. There is a street named Greenwood in Bellingham. There is also one in Lynden (near to Bellingham). I found myself being directed to the south. My mother’s home was north and east. The device was quite persistent: “Please proceed to the designated route.” Later, it got desperate, words to the effect of “When legal, please make a U-turn.” I finally shut it off.

I tried again later, and it worked, mostly. My mom lived on Kimberley Street. It is one of, if not the, longest street in Greenwood. The device did not know its name. It did know many of the other streets, including the cross-street by my mom’s then-home. The cross-street is two short blocks long. I finally programmed the device for the city centre of Greenwood.

I crossed the border at Sumas. I then proceeded to Hope. While on the way, at one point I glanced at the display to see that a road was displayed to the right. This was disconcerting as that was where a cliff was. The road turned out to deadend. I think it was a deactivated road, possibly the old highway.

I usually stop at a certain gas station in Hope to buy a sandwich and drink. In that area, there are under- and over-passes. The device got confused. It got its revenge shortly. When I restarted the SUV, I looked at the display and was confused. The USA operates on the Imperial system of measure, and Canada uses the metric system. The device, recognising that it was in Canada, had switched to metric. When I looked more closely, I could see the miles display. It was rather smaller than the digits.

The gas station is on the old highway which parallels the current highway. To get onto the current highway involves a few tight turns. Some of these, the device knew and some it did not. I was directed to make turns when there was no other road, but sometimes, the curve had no instructions. This also happened when I left Keremeos, BC.

The device warns about 2 Km before a turn and then just before. The turnoff for the Hope-Princeton Highway had already diverged from the main highway by nearly one lanewidth before the device announced the just before warning that I should turn. I was already in the correct lane. Had I not been in the correct lane, I could not have safely switched.

Not long after, I looked at the time display. As it was just after noon, I could not tell whether it was the time I would arrive in Greenwood or the time left before I would arrive in Greenwood. Later, I found that that detail was documented on the card that was dangling from the unit, but many other things were not.

While driving on the Hope-Princeton Highway, I found that many roads that had no names were on the display, but that some roads that had names were not present.

The Hope-Princeton Highway does run through wilderness, and in many places, there are no other roads nearby. That did not stop the device from telling me three times each way to “Proceed to the designated route.” The voice is a bit startling when it is not expected.

Glancing from time to time at the time-to-go display, I got suspicious. It seemed to be assuming 80 Km/h. This is the default highway speed in BC, but the Hope-Princeton Highway is known for being rather curvy in places. It has plenty of signs suggesting slower speeds. At one place, the advisory is 20 Km/h. In the summer, one can go bombing along much of the highway. In the winter, the curves get more dangerous, and you had better slow to 20 Km/h on the worst curve. This was near the end of breakup, so conditions could vary considerably? What was the device assuming?

Princeton is at the west end of “The Regional District of Okanagan-Similkameen”. The device displayed this from time to time clipped to “Okanagan-Similkameen Region”. Much of this time, it displayed this next to the road on the other side of the Similkameen River. There was no differentiation of region or city names from street names. That road across the river is called “Old Hedley Road”. When it finally was displayed, well, the device leaves off the road designation. The device did not display the river though earlier, it had displayed much smaller creeks.

Leaving the village of Keremeos, BC, the road winds up a hill. At the bottom of the hill, there is a curve to the right (which the device told me about), a curve to the left at the top of the hill (which the device did not tell me about), and finally a right turn to the highway I wanted (which the device told me about). The up-shot was that I was told to make a right turn followed by a right turn, and it did not make sense. It was good that I knew the road.

In the hamlet of Cawston, BC, the device thought that the main street deadended and suggested accordingly.

I get paid in US dollars, so I prefer to spend US dollars. Therefore, rather than continuing through Canada, I cross at Nighthawk, WA, proceed to Oroville, WA, fill up with gas, and cross back into Canada at Osoyoos, BC.

The device kept trying to get me to turn around. I was wondering when it would give up. While I was wondering I saw a road displayed on the device, but there was no road there, no sign of there ever having been a road there, and no sign of anything else that the device should know about (such as a creek). A few miles past the border crossing, there is another road, a real one. The device seems to understand the world as segments. When I got off the segment, it recalculated. The road to Oroville is a nice drive, very pretty. At least one of the roads that the device shows is actually a long driveway.

Ah, Canada. The device was displaying Imperial. Remember how the device switched measuring systems in Hope? It switched again after I restarted the SUV at the gas station in Oroville. The system in use depends not on what country you are in, but what country you were in when you started the vehicle. I found later that one can force the setting, but I did not experiment to see if that locked down the measuring system used or that it just lasted until the next vehicle startup. Imagine explaining to a border officer that you are experimenting with your GPS. Guessing is such fun.

The device also had an odd idea of which way I should go. As far as I can tell, it intended to keep me on the highways. I know of a shortcut, and I took it. The device did not handle it well. Trying to get me back “on course”, it suggested some bad ideas.

1) One road to the left comes down a hill which is steep enough that the road is broken into left and right branches. The device suggested that I take the far branch. This would have necessitated a turn of approximately 150 degrees. The near branch is about thirty degrees.

2) Later, it suggested that I take a right turn — remember that the previous suggestion was for a left turn? — onto a narrow road with patched potholes when I was on the best road around and which led straight to the programmed route.

3) I rejoined the programmed route and prepared to turn right. The device was instructing me to turn left!

One thing that I never did solve was how to get the device to just display without having a route programmed. I wanted to see where I was without having to select a destination.

The device has a safety feature that disables most of the user interface when the vehicle is in motion. It was also mounted so that the person in the front passenger seat would not be able to see the display. I thought this was rather counterproductive.

When I set out to go home, I planned again to stop in Oroville for gas. While I did not know the exact address, I thought I could get close. For some reason, the highway was not listed. Unfortunately, the device requires you to select first what you want (nearest city centre, a particular city centre, or a particular intersection) then the city name. The other way around is much more natural to me. It also would have been much quicker as entering alphabetic was a slow process with no keyboard.

Again, I crossed the border at Nighthawk. I crossed into the US a final time. The border between Canada and the USA is is at 49 degrees north latitude. For some reason, the device told me I was in the USA when it still displayed me at seven seconds of latitude north of the border. According to my estimate, I was much closer.

I decided to let the device tell me how to get to Bellingham. Understand that I take a short route. Roughly, I go west, then I go south. The system picked a route that was much longer and windier. Among other places that I saw, the oddly appropriate Chance Road. In Osoyoos, it was trying to keep me on the highways. Here, it avoided them until the end.

I did make it home safely, and I certainly see where these devices are useful, but much salt is needed.

Sincerely,

Gene Wirchenko

wee =D

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Driver slavishly obeys GPS directions rather than think and accept responsibility or his own actions. I have seen this before when a coworker wouldn’t drive around the block to enter the job site because his TOM TOM did not give him directions. Come on people, THINK!