Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Google Maps changes a route after the drama of young people lost on a ghost road

tekdeeps.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

341–350 of 431 posts

Re: Google Maps changes a route after the drama of young people lost on a ghost road

#341

Post by chx »

Thorrez wrote: post #201
slickrick216 wrote: post #126

Google maps has marked my parents in laws drive way as a road. The drive way is quite long as they are on a farm. Due to a right of way for an owner of a field who owns an enclave within their land they can’t put a gate up. It’s quite unmistakable you are going into someone’s house though. This has led to countless individuals showing up and driving through their land past their home. Lots of people stop and ask for…

>I’ve done the whole google maps support thing but no response and deaf ears. You've used the suggest a change feature within Maps? I've done that several times and I think it always worked for me. Full disclosure I work at Google, not on Maps, and I always did the suggest a change with my personal account.

There are two towns in rural Hungary which are reasonably well connected: you need to take a so called secondary main road then after a short time turn to another and again in a short time there you are -- but that's not a direct route even if it's fast. The direct route is an unpaved road cutting across the countryside near two tiny villages if you can call that a "road": more than half of the year it is an unpassable mud trap. The locals regularly need to use their tractors to get the hapless Google Map followers out of it. It's so ridiculous it became a national sensation.

Re: Google Maps changes a route after the drama of young people lost on a ghost road

#342

Post by slickrick216 »

nicoburns wrote: post #128
slickrick216 wrote: post #126

Google maps has marked my parents in laws drive way as a road. The drive way is quite long as they are on a farm. Due to a right of way for an owner of a field who owns an enclave within their land they can’t put a gate up. It’s quite unmistakable you are going into someone’s house though. This has led to countless individuals showing up and driving through their land past their home. Lots of people stop and ask for…

It seems like the obvious solution to this would be a large sign at the entrance to the driveway.

Yeah we did that recently. Should have mentioned it. Some people sadly don’t read signs though.

Re: Google Maps changes a route after the drama of young people lost on a ghost road

#343

Post by pjmlp »

thret wrote: post #339
jlangenauer wrote: post #317

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It shouldn't be up to people to have to spend time and money to correct Google's errors, and to stop Google inconviencing them. Somehow, it has become completely accepted for Google/FB/et al to make profits while shifting costs and externalities onto society. Why do we allow these tech giants to treat us so disgracefully?

Do you even remember what it was like trying to find your way around a foreign city before google maps? They mapped the world and provided it as a service for free.

Yes, I used services like Map24.

Re: Google Maps changes a route after the drama of young people lost on a ghost road

#344

Post by viraptor »

Triv888 wrote: post #187
drdavid wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Where I live, they'll send you down logging roads and old, disused roads fit only for 4WD trucks. It's not just Google. Other GPS maps will send you to my house on a road that hasn't really been passable for 30 or 40 years - if you make the mistake of not telling it to avoid dirt roads. But, if you tell it to stick to paved roads, it'll have you park about 2 km away. I have no idea how to fix this, except to suggest…

Google tracks all Android phones all the time, they should be able to see that no one uses that road, they just don't care.

But people do use the road:

> Every year we get a few people who think that GPS can't be wrong.

A bit of a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Re: Google Maps changes a route after the drama of young people lost on a ghost road

#345

Post by chridou »

thret wrote: post #339
jlangenauer wrote: post #317

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It shouldn't be up to people to have to spend time and money to correct Google's errors, and to stop Google inconviencing them. Somehow, it has become completely accepted for Google/FB/et al to make profits while shifting costs and externalities onto society. Why do we allow these tech giants to treat us so disgracefully?

Do you even remember what it was like trying to find your way around a foreign city before google maps? They mapped the world and provided it as a service for free.

I do. I remember adding a lot of buffer time just in case I wouldn't be able to find my way. It is much more convenient now with G-Maps and other providers. I also remember how expensive the maps for the early navigation systems were and how bad they were.

Re: Google Maps changes a route after the drama of young people lost on a ghost road

#346

Post by Hydraulix989 »

jmkd wrote: post #294
Thorrez wrote: post #250

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That would require you to create some association between your personal and work account right? I don't remember doing that. I guess they could match on first name and last name equality, but that sounds like a bad idea due to name collisions and impersonation.

Before you start working at Google and get an internal email address you have almost certainly communicated with HR using your external email address...a basic profile has been setup etc

Correct. Ever use the multi-accounts login feature on Google?

Re: Google Maps changes a route after the drama of young people lost on a ghost road

#347

Post by viraptor »

roytries wrote: post #325
LoSboccacc wrote: post #291

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even roads that should be real are in different state of maintenance, there's some very bad roads here in central Italy, the likes that will tear a wheel apart from your car but due registration show white or even yellow on Google maps. I do most of my intercity navigation trough state and road signage, with the navigator on but only for the last stretch, like driving me to the address once we're close. Around here,…

In the Netherlands we have signs like the one below. Telling you to stay on the highway and turn off your GPS. Because Google Maps and other software makes you take all these weird short-cuts. Putting trucks through small towns etc.. I think they also have them in Belgium. ( https://images.trafficsupply.nl/imgfill/800/800/i-114795-69c...

To be honest, unless you know why the sign says this, it's not completely clear. Is it warning that your GPS will turn off? Is there EM interference around the area? Should I follow the road unless I've got GPS active?

I suspect it would take me a moment to process this into some action.

Re: Google Maps changes a route after the drama of young people lost on a ghost road

#348

Post by Daho0n »

marc3842h wrote: post #237
Thorrez wrote: post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I’ve done the whole google maps support thing but no response and deaf ears. You've used the suggest a change feature within Maps? I've done that several times and I think it always worked for me. Full disclosure I work at Google, not on Maps, and I always did the suggest a change with my personal account.

Near me Google maps displays a road that has been removed in 2008. When I found that out earlier last year, I used exactly this feature to suggest a removal. As of now, the road is still on Google Maps and the only response I've ever gotten was the automated email reply.

As a counter anecdote I marked a road as changed (one end was closed off) and it was fixed in a few days. I have made quite a number of edits to Maps so to me this is not at all what I have experienced. Maybe Google is different (IE. worse)) in the US than Scandinavia.

Re: Google Maps changes a route after the drama of young people lost on a ghost road

#349

Post by praestigiare »

Google maps also gives dangerous directions in several places in Iceland, directing traffic over old mountain roads that save a kilometer or two but take much longer because they are poorly maintained. It also makes no note of closed roads, though many roads in Iceland are only open seasonally, and this information is easily available.

Re: Google Maps changes a route after the drama of young people lost on a ghost road

#350

Post by Daho0n »

andi999 wrote: post #329
Bjartr wrote: post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You've been downvoted, but I think you have a point. Maps support & "suggest a change" are two different sets of ears, and while one may be deaf to this problem, the other may be more responsive.

Normal companies forward wrongly addressed requests to the correct department.

I know it is trendy to bash Google but if you get millions of support requests it would be abnormal to forward support emails for something that has a very clear built-in function right in the product. It isn't a problem with Google that they don't reply to mail for something like this. It is a clear user error.
Post reply on HN