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Article mentions "forced to change a route" but has no before/after image of the route and nothing to support the idea that this incident forced anybody to do anything with respect to the map.
The old route: https://cdn.newsapi.com.au/image/v1/481952e93a2fed32c94a09bd...
Google Maps gives me the new, longer route from Yakutsk to Magadan (34 hr, 1161 mi) but I can recover the old route by adding a stop in Tomtor (40 hr, 1077 mi).
“Death by GPS” is an all too common problem when depending on tools like Google Maps too much to plan routes. This has been a common problem in the Mojave Desert in California: https://www.sacbee.com/entertainment/living/travel/article25... (Edit: James Kim actually used a paper map) I will use Google Maps to plan routes, but I will also use common sense: • I will look at the route on the map to become familiar with…
Except that tragedy involved a paper map. Mostly, I don't sweat it so long as I'm doing something straightforward although I find routing tries to overoptimize.
A few years back we travelled with friends to a mountain resort for the new year's eve. Instead of choosing a longer, well maintained primary road to our destination, it chose a slightly shorter secondary road through a high mountain pass, where it was snowing like hell and obviously no ploughs were around.
I was a passenger and wasn't involved in route selection, but the lesson is that it might be good to take time to discuss this before. Also, zoom out before driving and see high level plan instead of blindly following first-person view of the road. Or, you know, old school low tech solution: call the locals and ask for best road.
Google locates the park address as 40000 Paseo Padre Pkwy, Fremont 94538. The pin is dropped in a fine place, at the building by the Lake Elizabeth boat ramp.
I mostly know where I'm going anyway, and as I come up Washington Blvd I notice it's asking me to turn early, so I follow just for kicks. Inexplicably, gmaps directs me to an area about a mile to the south of my destination, at the end of the Railroad Ave trail (https://goo.gl/maps/G5xV7MDemtbtmNYRA). It then appears to suggest that I park and walk the trail for a mile to get to my destination. In the middle of downtown Fremont! When using driving directions!
The weirdest part is that gmaps clearly knows that it's taken me to the wrong place. There's a dotted line instructing me to walk a mile along a footpath. But then, why not just take me to the actual destination address in my car, which has a huge parking lot? I can't wrap my head around what's going wrong in this scenario.
This wasn't a fluke. I reliably get told that this is the best way to the park. If gmaps can be this wildly wrong in the middle of Fremont CA then I can only imagine how bad it gets in rural areas.
One of which was following what looked like a normal road out of town and ended up being a full day of crossing a mountain range, in the middle of nowhere, on a path where I had to push the motorbike up the hill for parts of it and cross a river half way through. Exhausting day, but amazing none the less.
So yeah, when the road does not seem right follow your gut feelings.
Travelling from Durango Colorado to Reserve New Mexico, Google Maps routed me to a "road" that was simply a dry stream bed, in the middle of Navajo Nation, in high desert wilderness, many miles from human habitation. It happened gradually. First I was directed to a well maintained gravel road, then to dirt track, which forked and forked and slowly faded to nothing. I was driving a 4x4, had an almost full tank, a load…
I have the opposite problem in rural Portugal, insofar as google maps resolutely refuses to recognise the numerous unpaved trackways around here as roads, even though they are far more traffic by locals than the paved roads, which are basically for trucks and tourists, and wind like crazy around the mountains. With the tracks, the journey to our nearest village is 5km, and our second nearest is 7km away - without the…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
From this link posted in another comment it says "The two travelers - not dressed for extreme cold - evidently took a wrong turn and their car got damaged". So it does not seem to be because google suggested the incorrect route. https://siberiantimes.com/other/others/news/tragedy-in-yakut... Edit: It was pointed out in the comments below that Google maps does go on the correct route now. It is the same general road,…
huh, seems like there are numerous towns visible on the satellite/aerial imagery on the "old summer road". Are those towns cut off in the winter (by land)? Do they have an ice road? Seems unusual that travel is easier in the summer. In northern Canada summer travel is often not possible by land due to extensive mud and bogs. In the winter you can travel across the frozen tundra much more easily (although you need to…
Judging by a couple of photos I could find on Google Maps it looks like in the summer the road is barely accessible using vehicles like the famous UAZ-452, I'm talking about this photo [2] showing a UAZ-452 crossing a river. In the winter I saw that these two people did it with a heavily equipped Toyota off-roader [3].
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toyota_Chaser#6th_Generation_(...
[2] https://www.google.com/maps/@63.351051,140.967979,3a,75y,90t...
[3] https://www.google.com/maps/@63.258317,143.201208,3a,75y,90t...
Relying on GMaps can be dangerous especially in winter, because it doesn't seem to take time of the year into account. A few years back we travelled with friends to a mountain resort for the new year's eve. Instead of choosing a longer, well maintained primary road to our destination, it chose a slightly shorter secondary road through a high mountain pass , where it was snowing like hell and obviously no ploughs were…