Death by GPS

http://arstechnica.com/cars/2016/05/death-by-gps/

by bookmtn • 10 years ago

149 129 10 years ago

jwildeboer• 10 years ago

Uhm. You cannot blame GPS for the bad maps in navigation systems. GPS knows nothing about roads. That's the maps in your satnav.

SolarNet• 10 years ago

The colloquial usage of GPS includes devices using GPS with maps in them.

s0rce• 10 years ago

This is a very unfortunate story When I first moved out west I looked up directions with the Alltrails app, presumably based on some sort of map app, maybe google maps, to a trailhead in Idaho that should have been about an hour off the interstate. We drove until we reached a stream crossing that would have been impossible to cross in the car we had. However, we would not have continued up to the stream if the road narrowed to such a point that we were unable to turn the car around, also, it was at worst a days walk to the nearest town. We continued on foot following the directions for a bit, realizing the road was clearly an ATV trail and didn't appear to actually lead to the trailhead which looked to be quite a distance across a valley and a few mountains. We eventually headed back to the car (the scenery was still beautiful so nothing was really lost). We turned back and then re-read the correct directions from the forest service and tried to follow them to the real trailhead, eventually, asking for help from a super-fit cyclist climbing the mountain road alongside our little car. We finally arrived at the road to the trailhead only to find it covered in snow, unsurprisingly, as it was only early June and we were at 6000ft. The first moral of the story was GPS directions to trailheads are often incorrect and you should try and follow the real directions to the trailhead. The second is to know what conditions to expect during your travels.

tommoor• 10 years ago

Okay, I'll be the one to say it - how does this bode for the future of autonomous cars? If a man drives off a cliff because he was following a GPS and not paying attention then that's not great, granted - but if your car drives you off a cliff whilst you're reading in the backseat that's another matter :)

glenra• 10 years ago

A handheld GPS typically offers a few options: (a) fastest route, (b) simplest route, (c) shortest route. These problems happen to people who pick (c) or worse, pick (c) with an added "avoid major roads" modifier. Which can be a great option if you are hiking or biking or sightseeing and want to see the "real country" and don't care how long the trip takes or how bad the roads are.

The main thing this says for autonomous cars is: don't do that. If the routing algorithm has a bias towards picking highways and major roads and roads you've used before, this problem should virtually never come up.

hueving• 10 years ago

Well self-driving cars are programmed to avoid obstacles. Hopefully it would stop at the edge of the cliff, dump a segfault onto the nav screen, and then shutoff.

pkulak• 10 years ago

For a standard GPS head unit, the burden of proof that a road exists and is appropriate to drive on may be some purchased telematics database, itself combined from all kinds of different sources. The burden of proof for a Google self-driving car is that the road recently had every feature (curb, sign, mailbox, lane marking, etc) mapped by a Google employee.

sandworm1015• 10 years ago

Does anyone think this problem will get any better if/when we allow the GPS to actually drive the car?

I'm waiting for the day that someone tells their iCar to "Drive me Home" and they wake up stranded 7,000 feet up "Mt. Home". It's not the GPS that is the problem. GPS does exactly what it was designed to do. The problem isn't even in the mapping software. The problem is that the human is too ready to give up decision-making to a machine. That should inform many autodrive enthusiasts who think humans cannot be trusted with their own navigation.

striking2• 10 years ago

We'll certainly get more data on what works and what doesn't.

The implications of that statement, however, are not pleasant.

gutnor• 10 years ago

Hopefully they will get UI data. Even the best of current generation of GPS are awful to use if you want to force it to take specific routes. Even analysing the route the GPS is building for you is not often easy and in any case a lot of the metadata is not available visually before the fact. For example, you will get the same symbol for a 4 lanes national road or a 2 lane one. No way to tell the difference on the map as they are the same road category, however, the GPS knows the difference ( it has lane information, different exit strategies, speed limitation difference, ...) but doesn't display it.

When the car primary control is the GPS that better change.

sandworm1015• 10 years ago

Such crowd-sourcing of safety information is dangerous. We cannot send out cars on the basis that eventually we will get enough feedback on how to make them safe. That was how car companies operated in the 50s and 60s. Today we insist that products are safe before they are allowed on the market. It's a catch-22, but that's Google's problem to solve. If one of their cars injures me during the test phase, expect lawyers.

GauntletWizard2• 10 years ago

Thankfully, "Mt. Home" is just off of I-84: https://goo.gl/maps/TShipVvyxGC2

sandworm1015• 10 years ago

Or you are woken up by an airforce guard after your iCar attempts to drive onto the base. Car approaching a checkpoint + not responding to vocal commands + no apparent driver = not good things.

jedberg2• 10 years ago

I had one of these experiences when I was driving from Hungary to Austria. I was just blindly following the GPS, which started taking me down some very small roads with lots of turns. Since I had no idea where I was going I didn't question it.

I eventually stumbled upon a sign, in German, that was big and red, and I knew I was on the border between Hungary and Austria. I wasn't sure what the sign said, and at the time I didn't realize the two countries had an open border. I looked around for police like cars, and then quickly crossed the border, eventually reaching my destination just inside Austria.

As it turns out the sign just said "no vehicles over two metric tons", and that somehow I had gotten of the highway which had a very nice border crossing.

But a few years earlier and that mistake would have gotten me arrested!

vecinu• 10 years ago

a sign, in German

Interesting that the sign was in German while you were on the Hungarian side.

I find GPS to be invaluable in countries where I can't even decipher their alphabet (Sanskrit, Chinese) and like you, I end up trusting them a lot more than I probably should!

jedberg2• 10 years ago

Interesting that the sign was in German while you were on the Hungarian side.

It was at the border to Austria, technically on the Austrian side. It was just standard street sign seen across Austria that says no heavy vehicles.

ygra3• 10 years ago

I wonder how this happens, though. Normally, finding a route for cars will try to follow increasingly larger roads. This has practical reasons to avoid scenarios outlined in the article and also performance reasons to avoid searching the complete graph of roads.

Getting a route that follows many small roads usually only happens if you tell the GPS to find the shortest route (and really the shortest one), or by using its bicycle or pedestrian routing.

It also requires the user to ignore any signs along the way, putting way more trust in a bunch of males that's hard to keep updated properly than is healthy. (For topographical maps in Germany (I guess road maps have similar problems) it is sometimes normal for certain regions not to receive an update in a decade or two, thus sometimes showing very outdated features. OSM these days is luckily either very up to date or simply very sparse, depending on the region and how many people with local knowledge are contributing.)

pkaye• 10 years ago

You would be surprised the routes the GPS suggests when you are traveling in less populated areas. I've seen a lot of this near national parks. Often times the route seems reasonable enough but slowly it narrows and becomes worse. It takes some time for you to eventually question your decisions.

maxerickson• 10 years ago

It's because of TIGER! It groups a huge variety of roads together as something like 'minor road, open to the public'. A dirt trail all the way up to a nice highway that they haven't noticed was rebuilt.

Most digital US maps started with it and low traffic areaas are not a priority to update to something more sensible.

bpchaps• 10 years ago

Within Arches National Park, my GPS told me to turn left to get back on the main stretch of road towards vegas (we were in a hurry and the park seemed like a good idea at the time). It sent us on a route meant for 4x4 offroading.. in my 4 cylinder lancer. By the time we figured that out, it seemed quicker to just keep going - the GPS agreed. Well, two hours and a havoc'd suspension system later, we finally got back on the main road. Damn you, technology.

These days I have a dry erase board for directions in lieu of a gps and phone. I only need to look at it every now and then, and as long as my notes are correct, it's just about as easy to get there. If I get lost, pulling over and asking someone isn't that difficult to do, either. Not sure I'll go back. :)

avel• 10 years ago

Recently I have been noticing how Uber/Lyft drivers in NYC are "gps sheep". The lack of common sense is astounding to me. They are very often only listening to their gps and nothing else.

One time, a driver chose to circle around after two blocks instead of turning directly right at an intersection, because Waze said it had a lot of traffic and therefore chose that route. If he had bothered to turn his head right, he'd see that the road was empty.

e1g• 10 years ago

Following the GPS has two benefits: assure the passenger they aren't being ripped off with dubious/scenic routes, and remove the mental load from the driver on each intersection. Any single trip could be faster by couple minutes of done by a local, or longer+pricier if done by a crafty taxi driver. The GPS narrows this variability, pacifies the passenger, and let's the driver focus on the driving vs the routing. But yes, this sound general strategy can be frustrating in a local-maximum situation.

Spooky23• 10 years ago

That's a great example of the problem with all of this stuff -- both driver and passenger are blithering idiots who have no idea where they are. A professional driver should know how to drive their city.

Some good friends moved to the North Shore near Boston about 10 years ago. We visit 3-4 times a year. They are big GPS people, and know nothing about navigating the region. If we go somewhere, can get us there more sensibly just about any time. It mind blowing to me. I always drive and/or walk around any new place I visit for more than a day. I like to know where I am.

nwjtkjn• 10 years ago

I have a much bigger problem with the driver who is too busy talking on the phone or giving me their card to even take the exits the GPS is telling them to take. I can't wait for self driving taxi services.

cloudjacker• 10 years ago

A lot of the drivers are opportunists from outside of the area.

They don't know, and in NYC in particular many are fresh off the boat, the yellow cab drivers were no different only slightly better connected to obtain a yellow cab.

revelation• 10 years ago

Had they simply entered Las Vegas from the beginning, it would have got them there no problem..

brianwawok• 10 years ago

This is a likely way that I die. Other option is ran over while riding my bike by a SUV or a giant pickup truck with a lift.

jdietrich• 10 years ago

I'm reminded of a principle from aviation, "always fly the plane". Student pilots are taught to never allow their attention to drift from the basics of flight, even if they're dealing with mechanical failure or confusing instrument readings. The first priority is always to maintain situational awareness. A large subset of aviation disasters could have been prevented if the pilot had simply looked out of the window.

throwaway_exer• 10 years ago

Your recollection is a little rusty.

It's:

1. aviate (physically fly the plane, or more fundamentally, fly the wing) 2. navigate (know where you're going/situational awareness) 3. communicate (tell whoever needs to know)

dTal• 10 years ago

And always in that order.

hvidgaard2• 10 years ago

On the other hand, accidenct could have been avoided if the pilot had simply relied on the instruments.

paulsutter• 10 years ago

I was using Google Maps to take a shortcut through Kathmandu on foot. Just as I commented on the amazing accuracy of the map, I found myself approaching a dead end that the map showed continued onwards.

I turned around and several small dogs were in the road behind me. No big deal I thought, I walked past them as they barked at the intruder.

I continued in the most promising direction, which turned out to also be a dead end. Behind me the small dogs had been joined by an enormous fierce dog so angry his hair was standing on end. And the only path out was past him.

I stayed calm with my eyes on the exit, walking wide of dogs who were drooling and livid.

Better lucky than smart, I guess. I've never been cavalier about following Google maps since.

anonfunction• 10 years ago

A friend of mine and I followed Google Maps directions while on skateboards in a little town in Oregon called Coquille.

At the bottom of a fairly steep hill there was a huge unchained full-grown Rottweiler.

When we arrived at the flat area he attacked.

We had to hold our boards out to defend ourselves.

A women driver started honking and driving towards the dog causing him to run away.

We rode towards the main road, and I've never used Google maps in that tiny town again. Likely because I haven't been there since that day.

thrownaway2424• 10 years ago

I guess I don't get it. Does Google Maps reputedly have a feature regarding dog population?

YZF• 10 years ago

Previous discussion here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11096978

13of40• 10 years ago

I had a fun experience in the Dominican Republic once: There was no official coverage of the island at that time, but I was able to get a map for my Garmin from some shady Russian website. The roads were accurate for the most part, but they were lacking all of the metadata like highway size, speed, direction, etc. We used it to drive from our resort to another town down the coast, and lacking all of that data, the Garmin just routed us through the shortest path, which turned out to be a country road out in the hills that eventually disappeared. Luckily I was able to ask some bemused farmers how to get to the right road - basically drive 20 miles back and get on the highway.

stickfigure• 10 years ago

I travel by tiny backroads whenever possible - often dirt, frequently by motorcycle, and sometimes in third world countries. I love the GPS because it allows me to have a reasonable expectation that these crazy little roads will go through.

I've found one "master" secret to not getting lost: Get rid of all that 3D garbage and put the map in overhead view, north up. It takes a tiny bit of practice getting used to the dynamic meaning of Left and Right but you build up a geospatial awareness and can usually tell when the GPS is getting stupid.

shiro• 10 years ago

I also prefer the navi using fixed orientation; if the map rotates, it becomes very hard to track myself in my mental map. I'd imagine once you lose tracking in mental map you tend to blindly follow whatever the machine tells you.

schiffern2• 10 years ago

I live in the northern hemisphere, and wish more maps supported "South up." Maybe I'm weird, but in my mental map I expect the light (the sun) to be at the top of the page.

mrestko• 10 years ago

There's no maybe. You're weird. Nearly all maps we're exposed to growing up have North at the top of the page. However, you would be right at home in this segment of West Wing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OH1bZ0F3zVU

giomasce• 10 years ago

My navigation application supports rotating the map with double touch. You can put it whatever-you-want-up. This is probably rather common in other applications. You might then be a bit confused if you have to look a conventional north-up map...

adrianN• 10 years ago

Get a hand-held GPS, turn it whatever way you want?

sunshiney• 10 years ago

I live in a rural area where gravel and dirt roads outnumber paved roads by an easy 100 to 1. The issue with these roads is that they change with the season, the weather, the stage that farmers are at and the health of the county road department. Those nuances are known to locals but cannot be expected to be known by gps. I travel gravel and dirt daily by paying attention to butte landmarks, the location of the sun, certain farms and barns but most importantly, local gossip. I recall Los Angeles friends visiting and exclaiming "oh my gawd how in the world do you drive these roads -- no signage, no businesses, no gps?" I said all you have to do is look and listen very well and I can drive roads here I have never been on. Look ma..no gps..just eyes and ears.

jlg23• 10 years ago

What you describe is "using common sense" - unfortunately a sense a lot of us have lost because we live in place where road signs are reliable and digital maps are up-to-date.

It took me quite a few months to relearn what you are practicing every day but now I'd say that this is a must on every curriculum. After I moved to a third world country (and did my re-learning) I understood that in case of a zombie-apocalypse (used as a place-holder for your "no tech works anymore"-scenario) people from less developed countries are so much more likely to cope than 99% of the 1st world population.

toomanybeersies• 10 years ago

I just recently had my gps get me to try and drive down a gravel road (not that bad) and through a ford that was clearly far too deep for my car, and had a sign on it saying that it was unsuitable for cars, all to save about a minute.

Google maps also doesn't seem to know whether roads are gravel or tarmac, and since they both have a 100 km/h speed limit, it will direct me down a shorter gravel road, that will actually take longer because I'm not suicidal to go 100 km/h down a windy gravel road.

gregmac• 10 years ago

put the map in overhead view, north up ... you build up a geospatial awareness

Totally agree.

I think the other thing that helps in an unfamiliar area is to pre-scout the route.. basically just look at the map around where you're going, while you're stopped. Honestly I don't always do this, but I should and it usually helps.

can usually tell when the GPS is getting stupid.

The key to this is how you respond.

I used to just decide to go the way I think makes more sense, then often find out there was a reason: a one-way or closed street, no left-hand turns intersection, only one on-ramp to the highway (in the opposite direction I'm trying to go), construction, etc, and then I'd have to loop around.

Now I just become more vigilant. I always pay attention to the road names (and not just "take next left"), but I also really keep an eye out for extra signage (like signs showing the route to get to a highway) or closures.

One of the problems with current GPS tech and the maps is they're really damn good -- but still not perfect. The fact they work so well most of the time makes people complacent.

tajen• 10 years ago

Some people can't read a map in North view, that's where customer interviews get interesting - they even need a 3D view or the speech. Actually in my IT-engineering school a subgroup couldn't read the technical blueprints at all (drawings of mechanical parts in left/right section), and it was all the students from Morrocco - even if both their parents were French immigrants with servants and wealth. The only possible explanation I've though about is that they may not have been exposed to Lego when young.

bhandziuk• 10 years ago

3D view, speech, north changing directions, the slanted angle of the map during navigation; these are all things that are so disorienting for me I have to turn them off.

dbcurtis• 10 years ago

All you coders out there say it with me: "cost function".

Really, is that so hard? I see a lot of comments about what is going to happen when robotic cars do this. Well, every roboticist I know, and I know a big bunch of them, is well acquainted with the concept of having a cost-map overlay on the world map. And it is not only OK, but common, to have infinite cost assigned to many nodes -- "Don't go there robot, you will not be a happy robot."

So why does the GPS database have poorly assigned cost values on certain road segments? Perhaps because QA de-prioritizes little-traveled roads?

But more to the point -- I'll get out of roboticist mode and into seasoned backwoods traveler mode for a moment -- don't go where you are not prepared to go. Look at a paper map, ask a local at the gas station about conditions, and if the road ends up bruising your kidneys, turn back.

x0x0• 10 years ago

Or you start going up towards a pass in winter in a vehicle not equipped to do so (awd/4wd, probably backup chains if you're by yourself, water, blankets or winter clothes enough to get you through 24 hours). Particularly with zero other traffic on the road so there's no one to flag down.

That the gps took them there sucks, but you need to be responsible for looking at the road and deciding if your vehicle can do it. Particularly in the mountains in winter. And be extra careful when you're approaching the half-way mark on gas, ie you can't get back to where you last saw a human. Going past that point means you're all in.

I drive to Tahoe all the time and the number of accidents you see because morons decide to zoom over mountain passes in their crappy civic with bald tires passing people in awd suvs with ski stickers on them (ie people who regularly drive in snow)...

sandworm1015• 10 years ago

And I've seen plenty of Tahoes in the ditch after people think that having one will somehow make a difference. 4x4 is great for getting moving, but a soon as you want to stop it's all about the tires and traction control systems.

nkozyra2• 10 years ago

The solutions are not in question. Cost functions, reinforcement learning, etc. are decades old and well understood.

There's a big distinction between a roboticist and someone programming GPS route determination. When you build a robot and throw some sensors at it and ask "what was your last position, your last turn, your last accelerometer and your last shift sensor reading," well, you get it. That kind of data is readily available. If you ask a lot of people for that information today, they uncheck the "share with ..." button before continuing. Or even more commonly, there's only one data point. If there's not enough data to do anything intelligent with it, then for practical purposes there's no data.

I'm not saying we should share more, but I'm trying to highlight a key difference and one that can make solving this problem more complicated than just throwing a relatively simple and common algorithm at it.

gugagore2• 10 years ago

I don't think I understand the rest of your comment, but I don't agree that "RL is well understood".

rcthompson• 10 years ago

I think people are willing to trust the GPS precisely because because they don't understand that the routing is based on a cost function that was ultimately determined by humans with imperfect knowledge about the conditions on every road in the country (not to mention variable conditions that can't be known precisely in advance, like weather and traffic). When you understand that the route is simply the output of an algorithm whose input may or may not be accurate, you're a lot more willing to disregard the route if other information contradicts it than if you believe that the GPS is somehow telling you the "best" route.

jakevoytko2• 10 years ago

This is a problem that we can fix just by throwing data at it. Now that it's possible for any app to know what routes people actually take, we can do even better. It's possible to generate cost functions based on what people actually do.

This would fix a lot of different types of problems. First: issues like the ones raised in the article. The killer "roads" have never had drivers successfully complete them, so they should have infinite cost.

It would handle construction. If the traffic in a route suddenly falls to zero, or suddenly goes from zero to lots, the cost functions can be updated to reroute.

It would handle dangerous neighborhoods. Route 31 was the most direct route between my first apartment and Pennsylvania. I once followed MapQuest directions on this route, and it turns out that it takes you through the part of Trenton that makes it one of the top-20 most dangerous cities in the nation (at the time). Nobody really drives this way, so it could route people via safer roads.

The problem here is that the companies that already have good databases are probably going to keep them secret, in case they figure out a way to turn that data into more ad revenue

tremon• 10 years ago

I don't think it's as simple a picture as you paint. The world is not a static place, and there will always be cases where human judgement is required. Consider for example ice roads or mountain passes: thousands of people may ride them on a single day, and the next day the road may be closed off because of frost, thaw or avalanche danger. There is no way you want your car to only consider a different route after ten drivees have lost their life.

deevus• 10 years ago

I think the part that baffles me the most is that these drivers blindly do what the GPS says and drive straight into a lake.

I regularly see tourists here in Australia do very odd things and sometimes I can't help but feel a little xenophobic.

mikestew3• 10 years ago

The best explanation I can come up with is that people assume the GPS has perfect information. Sure, you and I and anyone that's used a GPS off the beaten path knows that's not true, but that's a long way from "everyone". When you ask yourself, "who would do that?", the obvious answer is, "someone who was led to believe that a GPS unit is infallible."

mikestew3• 10 years ago

No one sets out to spend two months drinking out of mud puddles and getting your husband killed. I get that, I won't pile on with "morons, don't rely on your GPS", because that doesn't help anything but my own sense of superiority. That said, I sometimes wonder if there shouldn't be a little one-pager that comes with your GPS. No one will read it, of course. I'm not exactly sure what it would say, either. But a few points to consider...

Observe your surroundings. If you begin to start to feel the slightest discomfort with the route you're on, consider turning back. Please reference "sunk cost fallacy". The time you lose backtracking is nothing in comparison to the time lost if you're dead. Or to be less dramatic, it might take a day for a tow truck to get to you, if they can get to you at all.

And always be prepared to turn back. Hell, I do it all the time; did it just this weekend, in fact. Wanted to go over Stampede Pass in the camper van with the dogs, camp, do some hiking, see the ghost town of Lester. Big plans! Warm spring, mid-May, should be good. Nope, turned back by snow. Might have been able to make it, but on those tires? Meh, go camp somewhere else, no fun to be had digging your van out of the snow ten feet at a time. More so on the bike: point A to point B on forest roads, map says it should go all the way through. Sometimes I'm turned back by gated roads. Sometimes, like the stories in this articles, the road turns to two dirt tracks separated by tall grass, to trail, to what once was a narrow trail and is now overgrown with saplings. And yet I still catch myself thinking, "park the bike, walk ahead a few hundred feet, see if it gets any better". Despite being somewhere no tow truck will come, with a 600lb. bike (heavy, for the uninitiated) ridden by a scrawny marathon runner who's going to have a shitload of fun picking said bike up when he drops it. Don't be a dumbass like me; turn around.

If you are well and truly lost, stay where you are. I'm not talking the "oh, we missed our turn" kind of lost. I'm talking, "without backtracking, I have no real idea where I am in relation to a major road or decent-sized town...or even a house" lost. If you find yourself hoping the road gets better, hoping this road will take you where you want to go, and hoping it will just all work out if you keep going, STOP. Maybe not until Search and Rescue finds you, but at least stop for an hour and get your bearings. Good bearings, so that you can point at a map (if you had one) and say with 90% confidence, "that's where we're at". Figure out your plan, 'cuz the current one ain't working. And do not leave your vehicle. Time and again I read these stories of "GPS took them down a snow-covered forest road, and they got stuck" that end with someone dying because they walked to get help. You're obviously already lost, you're not going to unlost by walking around ill-equipped.

Call in to work, call the friends you're supposed to meet, call off that client meeting, because you're going to be late or not make it at all. Seriously, just give up those thoughts right now. The time for "making up time" is over. You fucked up, and now you're late. Continuing on is not going to undo that fact. For one, you have insufficient information to conclude that you stand any chance of arriving on time. You don't even know where you are, how do you know how long it will take to arrive? So go ahead and backtrack, because you're plans are shot. Or go on over that mountain pass in mid-Novemember, the GPS says there's a road, and you might still make it. Just kidding, no you won't. You'll get stuck, try to walk to get help, and freeze to death on the way.

That's what my pamphlet might look like anyway. I often wonder how folks get themselves in these situations, and the best theory I have is that we have enough everyday convenience that we forget the parts of the U. S and Canada (let alone the world) that are still very remote and very dangerous for the unprepared. Many of us live where there's always a gas station, always a cell signal, always some landmark to give us guidance as to where we are. Road signs to tell us where to go, guardrails to keep us falling off a cliff. As the folks in this article found out, the western U. S. is a place where it is very easy to get yourself into trouble if you take all of those assumptions with you down a dirt road. Gas might be 100 miles away (whoops, that station closed ten years ago, hope you have enough to make it 50 more miles), you probably won't have a cell signal, and once you're off U. S. and state highways all bets are off as to road conditions or if the road even exists anymore.

After all this typing, it just occurred to me how some of these tragedies could be avoided, and in one sentence: if you're not a local, not experienced in off-pavement driving (especially in the mountains), and are not equipped to spend a few nights out there if you absolutely had to, then the instant the road turns to dirt, turn around; no exceptions. For the folks that drive off bridges, sorry, my only advice is to turn in your keys.

Scoundreller3• 10 years ago

Things that GPS/Waze still don't do a good job of handling:

1. Toll roads - You can either choose to avoid, or choose to take. But I want to avoid toll roads when it will cost me > $x / saved hour. Or how about some optimization between fuel use and the value of my time? Paying $2 to save 30 minutes makes sense, buy not $15 to save 2 minutes. Where's the in-between setting/dial?

2. High-Occupancy Vehicle lanes. The highway may make a lot of sense with 2 people, but not while being a solo driver.

3. Traffic levels and when to wake up. I wish Waze could integrate with my alarm clock to wake me up extra early when major roads are closed, and I'd be majorly late for work without giving me an extra margin.

4. I'm not a trucker, nor an SUV driver, but something to account for high-height vehicles could be useful for many.

peckrob• 10 years ago

4. I'm not a trucker, nor an SUV driver, but something to account for high-height vehicles could be useful for many.

This exact issue causes a fair number of trucks to hit this one specific bridge [0] in Durham, NC. Blindly following a GPS meant for cars when you have a tall vehicle is a recipe for disaster.

[0] http://11foot8.com/

[1] http://championtrucklines.com/latest-news/11foot8-bridge-cra...

[2] http://chapelboro.com/news/news-around-town/durham-can-opene...

[3] http://www.thetruckersreport.com/truckingindustryforum/threa...

jackvalentine2• 10 years ago

With a "sister" bridge in Melbourne Australia: http://howmanydayssincemontaguestreetbridgehasbeenhit.com/

prawn• 10 years ago

"eventually to a confusing three-way crossroads. They chose the one that seemed to point in the direction they wanted to go. And here their troubles began."

This line seems to suggest that the GPS wasn't ultimately at fault?

My GPS has options for avoiding tolls and the like, but I've not seen one giving the ability to define the capability of the car. That said, there is huge variability in quality of unpaved roads, especially when impacted by weather.

mikestew3• 10 years ago

This line seems to suggest that the GPS wasn't ultimately at fault?

There's lots to the story that isnt the fault of Magellan or their data providers, starting with the fact that they ignored the GPS that told them to take US 93. And ID 51 isnt "a few miles to the west" of US 93, it's got to be a good hundred miles or more. It sounds like they had a paper map, which even the most undetailed of which would have told them the two roads are separated by wilderness areas, meaning there were probably no roads to get from one to the other. All of this before they got to the confusing crossroads. Had they stayed on 51 instead of trying to outsmart the GPS algorithm, they would have eventually hit I-84, arrived in Vegas a little late, and would laugh later about how they should listen to the GPS next time.

As another commenter pointed out, had they simply entered "destination='Las Vegas'" and blindly followed it (as the article ironically seems to argue against), they would have been fine.

EDIT: As for GPS options, the BMW-branded Garmin for my motorcycle has an "offroad" option. Because middle-aged men riding 600lb. "dirt bikes" like to pretend they're mighty adventurers. Better know what you're doing, because that thing will lead you down roads that aren't passable the majority of the year (or passable at all on an R1200GS, in some cases). What you propose isn't practical because one good rain and the road can go from "okay if you don't mind dings in your minivan" to "you brought a lifted Jeep, right?" very quickly. Or as a more recent example from my other comment in this thread, that road i bailed on this weekend needs snow tires and preferably 4wd right now due to snow. I'll bet in just a few weeks you can take a lowered Civic over the pass.

wglb2• 10 years ago

A very harrowing story.

This seems to be an extension of what my family called "the Jeep principle". A jeep, and now a GPS, enables you to get stuck further from help.

omegaham• 10 years ago

The best example of equipment-induced hubris that I grew up with was people buying a 4-wheel drive pickup to drive during Massachusetts winters.

Yes, it raises your performance. It doesn't magically turn icy, snowy Massachusetts roads into Arizona highway.

The result is that lots and lots of high-performance trucks end up in ditches and smashed into trees.

wglb2• 10 years ago

Yep.

I saw a similar incident in Michigan. Big snow comes up suddenly, work lets out early. Someone with a new four-wheel drive vehicle becomes impatient waiting for clogged traffic to clear, and decides to go over a berm. Wasn't all that high of a berm. Vehicle sat there for three weeks. Kind as of a reminder to all.

ascagnel_• 10 years ago

People forget that all- and four-wheel _drive_ don't necessarily mean all- and four-wheel _stop_. Especially when you're asking a tire to exceed it's grip level with a sudden braking input.

nathancahill3• 10 years ago

I was following a GPS at night just across the border in Mexico near Laredo. After driving for 5 minutes or so down a highway, I stopped because it seemed oddly dark and quiet. Checked the GPS for another route, and when I pulled a U-turn to head back, my headlights shown over the end of the road 20 feet ahead of where I'd stopped. The pavement just ended with a 15ft drop to a creek gully. I would have driven straight off it at 60 mph if I hadn't stopped.

Mahn• 10 years ago

Makes you wonder how autonomous self driving systems are going to handle cases like these. How far could a self driving car "see" to realize the navigation data it has is incomplete and should instead improvise?

clarkmoody• 10 years ago

If they have medium-range laser rangefinders, then they may be able to sense obstacles like this just at the edge of braking distance. Would work fine at night but maybe not so well in a sandstorm.

Nicholas_C• 10 years ago

The system could switch to manual or more cautious autonomous driving when a confidence score is not met. The confidence score could be a score based on how many other cars have driven the road, number of accidents, satellite footage, etc.

kalleboo• 10 years ago

I'm also waiting for people to exploit these errors and DDoS the systems. Know a particular route will get an autonomous car into a dead end or off a cliff? Order 100 pizzas to the address with stolen credit cards...

krschultz• 10 years ago

Back when I worked on self driving cars we called it the cliff problem. It's pretty straightforward to spot things that are in your way (trees, cones, broken down car) using LIDAR. It's really hard to notice when a road abruptly ends. From the perspective of the cars' LIDAR a roll over and a sheer cliff look pretty similar. Either way you just won't hit any targets at all with the laser beam. There was a silly obstacle on many self driving car courses that basically had the car drive up and over a relatively steep bump. At the crest of the hill the cliff detection would usually trigger and a lot of cars would just pause there, the roll over looked like a sheer cliff when the car was at a 15 degree up angle.

I assume we can make it work with computer vision for much the same reason humans don't routinely (though sometimes) drive off cliffs.

bmmayer1• 10 years ago

This happened to me, in Guatemala. Was using a rental car Garmin GPS whose map had some serious errors. The worst was, driving at night, thanks to my brights being on, I saw the road drop off ahead and slowed us to a stop. It was a sheer cliff into a ravine. The actual road had been knocked out and a replacement road had been built 100 feet away. We had to backtrack to find it.

nathancahill3• 10 years ago

Ay, what part of Guatemala? That's my home country.

Here's another story: Driving across Guatemala on the Panamerican highway during hurricane Stan[0] (although we didn't know how devastating it was going to be at the time), we saw half of the highway that we had just passed collapse behind us down the side of mountain. We were one of the last 2 or 3 cars to drive west-bound that day. On that drive, we also saw full grown trees sliding down the mountainside, still rooted and standing vertically.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hurricane_Stan#Guatemala

pdabbadabba• 10 years ago

This happened to me in the U.S. (Virginia), not long ago. Google maps tried to have me drive straight through a river. It may technically be true that the road crosses the river, but the crossing is impossible for most vehicles unless the river is VERY low. Reported this issue to the Google Maps team months ago, but it's still there... https://www.google.com/maps/place/37%C2%B029'34.7%22N+79%C2%...

pfarnsworth2• 10 years ago

I still remember vividly the death of James Kim, the CNET reporter who died because GPS lead him and his family onto a small mountain road that shouldn't have been opened in the first place. I didn't know him personally, but he was a close friend of a friend, and as the events were unfolding, daily I could see the worry and pain in my friend's face, until he was found dead (but his family was miraculously found alive). This happened about 10 years ago in the mountains in Oregon, notoriously treacherous during the winter.

Surprisingly, my neighbor revently described to me how she almost died in the same area by following GPS, just last winter, almost 9 years later. They blindly went up a mountain road in the snow as they were trying to drive to Portland from the Bay Area, and they went to the point where they could barely turn their car around. Had they attempted to stop later, they would have gotten stuck and it would have turned into a similar story.

Unfortunately, GPS needs a setting labelled "follow the safest, biggest roads".

markbnj• 10 years ago

> the CNET reporter who died because GPS lead him and his family onto a small mountain road that shouldn't have been opened in the first place.

I feel for James Kim, but why is that a reason for the road not to have been open? I make a hobby of exploring back roads. I sometimes use a GPS, but almost always for locating myself and getting a view of my surroundings, rarely for directions. I don't like to see bad things happen to people, but I'm sincerely puzzled when the reaction is to try and prevent them happening through prohibitions. When there are no roads left to close people will still get themselves into trouble by not observing enough, not thinking enough, or putting their faith in untrustworthy sources.

lmm2• 10 years ago

When there are no roads left to close people will still get themselves into trouble by not observing enough, not thinking enough, or putting their faith in untrustworthy sources.

Perfect is the enemy of good. Sure, closing dangerous roads won't prevent all deaths, but if it has a good lives saved:cost ratio then it's worth doing.

pfarnsworth2• 10 years ago

They closed the road during the winter because it was known to be dangerous. Someone came and cut the chains and opened it back up which is why they were able to take that road

ghaff2• 10 years ago

My recollection (and a quick review of Wikipedia) of the James Kim case was that GPS wasn't involved; it was a matter of following a seasonal road shown on a highway map.

The problem isn't so much GPS--although I imagine doing what a GPS "tells you to" can make the problem more severe. It's that in large areas of the Western US in particular there are a wide range of road conditions once you get off major paved roads.

ADD: As for closing off roads, there are a huge number of minor roads in the West that are more or less drivable depending upon weather, vehicle type, driver skill, and other factors. If you drive off paved roads in those areas, it's important to be careful and often to obtain more info than what's on the map.

happyopossum• 10 years ago

I still remember vividly the death of James Kim, the CNET reporter who died because GPS lead him and his family onto a small mountain road

Unfortunately you are vividly remembering some of the early speculation, and not what actually happened. James Kim died following a paper map - not a GPS or an online map, both of which were postulated but not true.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Kim

jaza• 10 years ago

Makes me think that this article I wrote on my blog several years ago is more pertinent than ever:

http://greenash.net.au/thoughts/2010/08/boycott-gps/

Seriously, folks. Turn off the GPS, and start observing the world around you. And if you really do need route navigation, do it the old-fashioned way: study a map! (Printed or online, doesn't matter).

willidiots• 10 years ago

If you're the type of person who ever takes scenic routes, do yourself a favor and buy a PLB. You can get an ACR ResQLink for $250, they last up to 10 years, and they work nearly everywhere.

eggy• 10 years ago

The younger generation is increasingly reliant on gadgets too for many things. When I was 11 my friends and I would take the subway to Manhattan from Brooklyn to go to Central Park, walking and the museums. We always agreed on a meeting spot at a set time, since this was 1975. Payphones were the only option.

I've been to the mall with my friends and their children, and there is no pre-planning, since they rely on the phones to meetup. However, when the battery dies, they're lost, or they rely on a friend's phone or charging station being available. There's an implicit reliance on redundancy, and blind faith somebody has a gadget.

I always taught my children to pre-plan. I have taken them around the world at young ages, and I think they have become better planners and thinkers when they are taught 'the old ways':)

I have traveled a lot, and I have lived in other countries, some remote places, and I have been lulled by technology too. Fortunately, not life-threatening situations, but I can easily see it happening.

A few days ago while driving in East Java, we followed the GPS into a sugar cane field. The road narrowed, was muddy, and started to diminish to almost just field. The road was on the GPS, and valid, but the van almost got stuck in the mud from the day's rain. This has happened to me about 2 to 3 times in 7 years, because smaller and smaller roads have made their way to the maps as mapping increases, and the GPS uses a traffic/length of route algorithm that sometimes has you turning off and back on to main roads to make time. I never would have followed that last turn-off several years ago.

I usually set the GPS to 'main roads and highways', but in some less-developed places this will put you at the mercy of weather, the vehicle's capabilities, and hoping that the routes have not changed since they were mapped. I also agree with other posters here in leaving it in overhead view with North as up. On a highway, no, but on twisty roads, yes. It is the only way you maintain orientation and a sense of the actual location you are in.

sammyo• 10 years ago

There was an increase in boats hitting buoys when GPS became common, out on the water there really is very little traffic so setting an autopilot is often practical, but if you set a waypoint exactly on the coordinates of a buoy and forget to keep a close watch or proximity alarm, it tracks right into a big iron marker.

bigger_cheese• 10 years ago

It's not only blindly following GPS that can lead you to problems. Sometimes road signs can be inaccurate or misleading too.

I was driving on a reasonably remote highway in Victoria Australia. My car was running low on petrol. As I approached an exit there was a sign that said last service for 90km or something like this. I did some mental maths and decided I could make it another 90km so pushed on. The fuel warning light came on about half way through the 90km. When I reached the exit the pump was out of order and station closed (tiny rural station). Now I was forced either to turn back or push on to next station. I decided to push on and ended up running out of petrol I had to call roadside assistance. If I hadn't seen the sign saying the next service was 90 km away I would have pulled in then and there.

hoppa_liza• 10 years ago

After a couple of similar close encounters I just decided it is not worth it. The gas I have must be enough for the trip with a margin. Even if I am late, or if it is inconvenient or any other reason, does not matter, I follow this rule like a robot.

nickpsecurity3• 10 years ago

Actually, I ran into a situation you all might like on this topic. I was visiting a friend staying with someone in a shady area somewhat between OK areas and The Hood. Easy route to get there on a major highway that keeps you away from harm. Now, I have to see another friend in Middle America (aka "the burbs") which can be reached same way with one exit leading to Interstate. Just use the GPS to find last, odd roads on the route. Results surprised me.

Route 1: Turn left here, right here, right here, left here, highway here, odd roads here. 30 minutes.

Route 2: Get back on highway, drive a while, Interstate, drive a while, odd roads. 33 minutes.

Thing is, I recognized each street in route 1: The Hood(s) with about 300 cops a shift who can't keep up with the amount of stuff that goes down. The other was a straight, safe shot. I thought, "Is Google really trying to send me through all the worst areas of my city... areas where you have to stop right next to potential carjackers and killers... just to save three minutes?"

Now I know why people coming through think my city is just a shithole. It's a mix of great, good, OK, bad, and ugly but Google keeps sending people through The Hood. No wonder they think it's nothing but poverty and crime. So, then I got the idea for a movie or TV show where there's a serial killer that, SAW-style, makes people kill themselves. By Google Maps instructions they follow blindly into the worst areas. You might see it on TV but you heard it here first.

Yeah, don't trust the GPS's until they know the difference between an armed robbery and an Interstate. At the least, they need to realize we won't take that kind of risk unless we're talking about saving 30min to hours, the interview is too important for Interstate traffic, or she was one bad-ass lady. Not over three minutes, though. ;)

thirdsun• 10 years ago

What's the alternative? Google taking social backgrounds of certain areas into account when calculating routes? That sounds like a recipe for a discrimination scandal and public outcry - I can already see the headlines: "Don't want to be murdered? Google Maps with SafeNav now tells you which areas to avoid!"

nickpsecurity3• 10 years ago

Violent crime numbers being factored into pathfinding. Just like we do with videogames like StarCraft. That simple.

lurker_primo• 10 years ago

I have a somewhat similar situation. There are three routes: A, B, and C from my home to work. A has a lot of intersections, which would mean more time spent in stops. It also has slower moving traffic due to narrower roads. B also has lots of intersections, but wider roads. Between A and B, depending on your luck, one of the routes might be faster.

C has very few intersections. But it has a 1 km stretch which takes 25 mins to cross if traffic is bad. Google maps always shows C to be the fastest. But local knowledge will tell you either A or B will be faster at peak traffic times.

chippy• 10 years ago

By Google Maps instructions they follow blindly into the worst areas. You might see it on TV but you heard it here first.

sounds very similar to the beginning to Bonfire of the Vanities

nickpsecurity3• 10 years ago

Darn. Not as original as I hoped. There's a Wikipedia entry for that where they take a wrong turn. I see what you're saying about the similarity. Yeah, that's the exact kind of thing I was thinking of. :)

blt• 10 years ago

App idea: a "city trainer" GPS navigator. You input your destination, but it doesn't give directions. You still try to navigate to the destination using your mental map. The app warns you if you seem to be getting lost.

It probably wouldn't be very popular...

Doctor_Fegg3• 10 years ago

This is clearly traceable to TIGER, the US Census data that most map providers use as the bedrock of their map data in the rural US, yet was never meant for automotive navigation.

TIGER classes pretty much any rural "road" uniformly - class A41, if you're interested. That might be a paved two-lane road, it might be a forest track. Just as often, it's a drainage ditch or a non-existent path or other such nonsense. It's wholly unreliable.

You can see this in OpenStreetMap easily. Navigate to the backwoods and look at the road types. It's predominantly highway=residential, the road type that A41 was mapped to in the TIGER import. highway=residential is usually meant for city streets and suburban residential roads. Not this.

So: help! I've genuinely spent weeks on this but it's a massive job. Paved road? Reclassify it as highway=tertiary (wider with centreline) or highway=unclassified (narrower, no centreline). Gravel or dirt graded road? highway=unclassified, surface=gravel (or =dirt). Rough, not recommended for most cars? highway=track. Genuinely a paved residential road? Keep the highway tag as it is, but delete the tiger:reviewed=no tag. Nothing there at all? Just delete it.

(My particular interest in this is bicycle routing. Bike routing usually prefers the smallest paved roads in the grid. It breaks if those "paved roads" are impassable desert tracks in reality. I take a very conservative view for my site, http://cycle.travel/map, precisely because I'm anxious about situations such as that described in the Ars article.)

ygra3• 10 years ago

Oh wow. That seems like a horrible state of affairs. I've worked in bicycle routing before (Germany) and we had a very good, curated mesh of bicycle paths, tagged for suitability for certain bike types. We also used OSM and previously Navteq for roads to also use for routing and at least in Europe the tagging seems to be mostly useful.

But I can see now why navigation breaks so horribly when all you have is an essentially uncategorised road network.

lmm2• 10 years ago

As a cyclist I've been looking for a way to get cycle routes that avoid unpaved surfaces (in the UK). Does/can your site do that? Is there an android app that can do that?

Doctor_Fegg3• 10 years ago

cycle.travel prefers paved surfaces but will route via (good) unpaved surfaces if it'd save a long detour or avoid a busy road. It highlights unpaved sections in green so you can easily drag the route away. Alternatively, bikeroutetoaster.com has a paved-only routing option, and maybe gpxeditor.co.uk too, though the sites can be a bit flaky.

data_hope• 10 years ago

Another issue: In my experience, in north america, navigation is more focused on compass points (take Road XYZ north, southwest, etc) whereas in Europe it is more focused on semantic directions (turn right on highway towards Groningen). The european way allows for easier verification if the road is actually the road you want to take (as in: do I really want to drive to Hobbington? The street sign says I should take the second exit, so I go with that.

iiiggglll• 10 years ago

So: help! I've genuinely spent weeks on this but it's a massive job.

I'd love to help, but how? Is the only option for people to go driving all these "roads" in person to see which ones are actually roads, or is there another source of data that can be used to compare against?

Doctor_Fegg3• 10 years ago

You can do lots of it from aerial imagery: it's usually apparent whether something is a rough track, a gravel road, a paved road, or nothing at all.

chrissnell• 10 years ago

I spent several weeks exploring this very area--Jarbidge, NV--last summer in my old Land Rover. It's no joke. There are many Forest Service "roads" that are completely impassible, even by a very capable 4WD vehicle such as the one I drive. I spent over a year planning routes before I took my trip. I had plotted out a route from Jarbdige to Silver City, ID that's completely on dirt and--incidentally--probably crossed some of the same roads this couple took. I was traveling with other trucks and we ended up driving through ankle-deep mud and thick tamarisk trees before giving up. What looks like a passable route on USGS topos and Google Earth doesn't always pan out.

You can see some photos from the trip here:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/defender90/albums/721576543876...

I also did a detailed write-up with photos:

http://www.expeditionportal.com/forum/threads/146545-The-Owy...

withdavidli• 10 years ago

Used a GPS with outdated map (too cheap to buy the new update) a few years back. Construction with ramps in Boston, thing almost had me driving off a 200ft cliff.

jeffwass• 10 years ago

You should check out Mapkin. Boston based startup with crowd-sourced GPS directions.

http://www.mapkin.co

kriro• 10 years ago

Since there are no citations which kind of sucks (or did I miss them somehow?)...the 2006 base study mentioned in the article is called: "Computer-assisted navigation and the acquisition of route and survey knowledge" by Münzer, Zimmer, Schwalm, Baus and Aslan

johngalt• 10 years ago

This has nothing to do with GPS imho. Plenty of people died in the past by following an out of date map, or incorrect directions. The most common theme in situations like this is not realizing when you are crossing over from an inconvenience to a life threating situation. Driving somewhere without thinking "what happens if I break down out here? Does anyone know where I am?" Then taking additional risks without understanding what the stakes are.

lamontcg• 10 years ago

The more mundane case of reliance on GPSes is to not know the route you're taking and blindly following the GPS. Then if (for example) there's two exits close together it leads to distracted drivers, focused mostly on reading the GPS device trying to figure out which exit the GPS is telling them to exit to -- which can lead to rapid, panicked lane changes.

Source: was hit a few weeks ago by a car that did a sudden lane change with no signal right before an exit by a guy who was trying to follow his GPS...

Death by GPS

Related Stories