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

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

#391

Post by phicoh »

gwd wrote: post #313
nitrogen wrote: post #224

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's an old problem too. I vaguely remember seeing a driver training video made before I was born, warning drivers not to explore random "shortcut" dirt roads on their paper maps.

I've done this sort of thing before manually routing based on OSM maps. A friend of mine and I rented a AWD vehicle to be able to drive on the "F roads" in the internal part of Iceland, which is beautiful but very desolate. (I'd be surprised if the inspiration for Mordor didn't come from some places Iceland in fact.) I had downloaded the OSM maps on my tablet and was just manually plotting routes that looked like the…

In openstreetmap, tracks should get additional tags such as tracktype, surface, smoothness.

If such tags are present and seem to be reliable, then OSM can be used to plan trips. Otherwise it is just too risky to rely on OSM. In particular in harsh climates and if there is no way to get help.

I.e., before using OSM, assess the quality of the mapping done by the local community. Anyone can draw lines of a map by looking at satelite images. It doesn't mean that such lines are passable.

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

#392

Post by namibj »

TomJansen wrote: post #328
dawnerd wrote: post #253

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is why I desperately want a routing mode for 'easiest' drive. Surface streets only, no left turns onto busy highways just to save a minute, no weird shortcuts through neighborhoods, keep me on the highway. I've had so many times where google has had me drive through sketch areas of LA which ended up taking more time dealing with cross traffic. All they have to do is give up on quickest route.

This. If you use Google Maps with biking it is even worse, with really inefficient turns and shortcuts

Use OSM and BRouter. OSMAnd works with it, but it's not trivial to set up after the UI changes from some months ago.

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

#393

Post by Dirlewanger »

dkdbejwi383 wrote: post #296
kilroy123 wrote: post #263

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree 100% and this is a more serious issue in other countries. I've seen Google Maps lead you down some extremely dangerous areas just to save like 5 minutes. Yeah, there's a reason roads in that area are so open.

It’s another example of unintentional bias at play. Most “Googlers” living in safe, well-maintained suburban USA assuming the rest of the world is the same.

While I agree with the sentiment, that's a complex problem to solve, what streets are "dangerous" and what aren't. Especially at scale.

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

#394

Post by hodgesrm »

buzer wrote: post #280
hodgesrm wrote: post #220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It appears that this and at least one other incident are why Google Maps no longer maps routes across Bear Camp Road, which is the most direct route from Grants Pass OR to the Oregon Coast. [1] https://www.google.com/maps/dir/Gold+Beach,+OR/Galice,+OR+97...

They do during summer. If you zoom into the Bear Camp Road, you can see that it currently says "(Closed Nov-Jun)". If you set your leaving time to July, you can see that the other route uses that road.

Excellent. That's the first time I've seen that feature.

There's still some odd behavior around bicycle routes. For instance, Google does not seem to show bike routes down CA-1 in middle California. I'm not sure what's going on there--hundreds of people do that route every year.

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

#395

Post by ryandrake »

viraptor wrote: post #347
roytries wrote: post #325

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

A lot of people confuse "GPS" with "moving map software". I had a neighbor once say "My work's address is wrong on the GPS". There is likely nothing wrong with the GPS signal. It's just that the map data in the area may be known to be incorrect.

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

#396

Post by mark-r »

londons_explore wrote: post #303
mark-r wrote: post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I once submitted a correction for the exact location of a public park. The correction looked like it was applied, but when I looked later it had been reverted.

The data pipelines for maps can be very long - certain changes might take 6 months or more to be applied, because the computation required to rebuild certain things is massive, and it isn't worth doing simply because some street edge moved by a few centimeters.

This wasn't a few centimeters - I had trouble finding the park because Google had it a couple of blocks away from its actual location.

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

#397

Post by sfifs »

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…

Have you explored sending a legal notice through a lawyer?

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

#398

Post by justsid »

RileyJames wrote: post #338
ficklepickle wrote: post #304

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't see Kamloops here everyday. I just helped my brother move from there last week. I don't know if BC's forest service roads are thoroughly electronically mapped anywhere. Last I knew of, you had to buy a book.

A lot are on google maps now. Some forest roads are pretty high traffic through roads, where as some are made for the purposes of accessing a specific cutting. The later are often marked, but inaccurate as they been moved, or not maintained, or replanted. Between maps + satellite imagery navigation was possible.

I have seen a ton of forest service roads as well on Google Maps here in the Okanagan. Some of those are indeed maintained and very usable even in small cars (Penticton to Highway 33/Big White, for example). Others not so much. Definitely had some sketchy adventures in my tiny Corolla on them. I never rely on Google Maps to navigate them though, and never with any intent of getting somewhere. It’s just exploration and if the road gets bad, you bet I’m turning around.

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

#399

Post by maratc »

alisonkisk wrote: post #377
maratc wrote: post #295

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I ... don't get it. You say you work for Google, so you must know that the company you work for amasses huge amounts of information on billions of people on the internet. It then uses that information to sell personalized ads to these people. Advertisers love that, and they pay the rates, and that's how Google makes money for your paycheck — and much more. What makes you think they "require" any action on the part of…

Because as a Google employee they understand what is and isn't done as a matter of privacy? Do you have any evidence that Google spies on its own employees for the purpose of giving them privileged manual treatment when they don't ask for it? Do you have any evidence that Google create associations between separate Google accounts to the extent of treating them as the same accountholder (asside from deleting duplicat…

Some years ago, I watched some historical TV show (could be Rome?) where one of the characters has been diagnosed with some disease, so I wondered if they knew how to properly diagnose it at the time the show was set at. So I used Google to search for the disease to get to its Wikipedia page. Then I almost forgot about it.

For months after that, Google bombarded me with the links to the disease and cures and remedies and whatnot.

I remember even seeing that at my kid's gaming PC, and I don't remember ever logging in to my Google account there. We only shared the same IP in the household.

That's pretty anecdotal, I know, but that's what there is.

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

#400

Post by Talanes »

mark-r wrote: post #210
Talanes wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even a gate with just a rope latch would give most people pause.

You'd need to get cooperation from the other folks using the road that they'd replace the rope after driving through.

You'd need more cooperation to put a pin-code activated electronic gate up.
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