The problem is - as a non-local you can't really distinguish between Google knowing what it's doing and not until it's too late. For example I've been taken to the following: AUSTRALIA - definitely not a "road" more like an unused hiking / herding path with nothing but lazy kangaroos in sight. CHILE - down an unpaved half-lane road making its way down the side of a cliff, marked "mucho peligroso" ITALY - completely o…
There was a clue though. It was the nickname of Kolkma Highway aka “Highway of Bones”. Anything named as “Devil”, “Death”, “Hell”, “Tears”, or anything else sketchy I would either read about or stay away from. The problem in this case is that Google didn’t show the nickname.
First, the highway of bones I think refers to the Stalin-era political prisoners that died building the road.
Second, Kalyma colloquially refers to an incredibly far away place. Like in English you may say "it's on the moon" to mean that something is ridiculously far, in Russian you say "to Kalyma"
Fundamentally, you don't end up anywhere near that region randomly. It's not like they were going for milk and died on the way to the store. It's hard to really understand what they were thinking - but there's no way they didn't understand that the whole area was ... challenging.