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...

[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.

[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. :-)