Led Astray

[bjarvis]

I was going to visit an insurance broker today to see if I could get a better deal on our home insurance and car insurance.

Checking with Google Maps, the office was situated at Veirs Mill Road and Twinbrook Parkway, on the border between Rockville and Wheaton, MD.

Um, no.

Upon driving there and checking the local house addresses, then working my way south-east, I eventually found the broker's office several miles away at Veirs Mill Road and Georgia Avenue.

While MapQuest has routinely tried to send me the wrong way up one-way streets, through median strips, across non-existent bridges and more, this is the first time Google Maps misdirected me so badly. Harrumph.

And the broker's office was closed anyway. Double harrumph.

Comments

[vasilatos]

This is turning into an increasingly serious problem for folks who get stuck out in conditions where their survival is at stake. They had two sets of people on the news who were misdirected by their GPS systems and weren't rescued for days...

[markens]

Yes indeed, blindly following a GPS-recommended route can be very hazardous to your health. One of the incidents here in Oregon a few weeks ago involved a couple who followed the route well into the mountains on an unplowed Forest road. They passed several signs warning that the road is not maintained Nov-May. The signs were placed after the ill-fated Kim family tried to use that same road several winters ago.

[vasilatos]

Weren't the Kims using Yahoo! Maps?

I got seriously lost at night in Cloverdale, CA trying to find my motel, using Google Maps once, just totally given the wrong directions, and ended up out in nowhere...

[pklexton.livejournal.com]

Yup. If you try to use GPS to some destinations in the Sierra Nevada out here it will send you several *hundred* miles (yes) out of your way, over routes that are closed six months of the year.

It's just a dumb machine, sometimes it helps, sometimes it leads one astray. Kind of like spellcheck - some people think it replaced proofreading.

[bjarvis.livejournal.com]

I don't own or especially trust a GPS unit. Until now, I had a somewhat higher degree of comfort that Google Maps via a web browser from home would at least show me an accurate location even if it was not especially trustworthy on selecting the best route there.

[pklexton.livejournal.com]

I'm guessing your situation could have involved a problem with the street numbering. As I recall that was somewhat irregular on some of those major through arteries in those Maryland burbs, but what do I know.

Happy New Year Brian!

[ciddyguy.livejournal.com]

Part of why I don't have a GPS unit in my vehicle and if I get lost, there is a MAP of the paper kind to get me back on track. :-)

[bjarvis.livejournal.com]

My experience today wasn't really a GPS issue, especially since I don't own or use a GPS. It's not that it sent me along an incorrect path or misreported my real-time location. Rather, the web app took an address and displayed it on a map in an incorrect location. This strikes me more of a database error than a GPS one.

[ciddyguy.livejournal.com]

Oh I know you were using google maps and was in part replying to the comments of GPS units. I used to use mapquest myself and it's wretchidly inaccurate much of the time, as you, Google maps seems much more accurate.

That said, I don't always use Google Maps for routes getting there as I can often times sense where the detination I need to get to is from looking at the map and then see that the route they chose is not what I'd chose if I know the area well enough.