If your GPS device told you to drive off a cliff, would you do it?

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB120578983252543135.html?mod=hpp_us_autos

by rglovejoy • 18 years ago

11 12 18 years ago

online.wsj.com

tlrobinson• 18 years ago

One of my friends always follows his GPS navigation system, even if he knows it's wrong.

In particular, there's this one point on a freeway where the freeway signs clearly indicate the correct route, but his GPS always tells him something else. Without fail, he follows the GPS directions, which tell him to exit the freeway and almost immediately get back on the freeway.

It drives me nuts.

xlnt2• 18 years ago

To avoid hurting his feelings, I recommend having the freeway changed.

cglee• 18 years ago

Just wondering, did he receive very high marks in school?

icky3• 18 years ago

Almost certainly so, considering his tendency towards unthinking obedience... ;)

wallflower• 18 years ago

My brother-in-law calls his Garmin "the girlfriend" Sometimes she is right and sometimes he has to ignore her sexy British accented commands. "Recalculating coordinates"

yangyang42• 18 years ago

uh, no. i would not do it.

icky3• 18 years ago

I work in this industry.

The article mentioned trucks being sent into residential areas (or through tunnels/bridges that weren't meant for them). Google maps doesn't know what type of vehicle you're driving, but if you bought a vehicle with a navigation device factory-installed, then (at least for newer models), it does know, and any decent (and recent!) in-vehicle device won't send, for example, a commercial truck through a road not classed for it.

You also (again, with any sane, recent device) won't be routed through unpaved or construction roads. The device might not even be loaded with those non-routes.

Another consideration is, whether the maps were installed in the factory, or whether the device goes online to pull more recent maps (the obvious trade-offs apply), real road conditions, lane closures, detours, etc., happen faster and more ephemerally than any data provider can or will update their source data.

When driving, always use your eyes and your brain. No device, however useful as an aide to navigation, can substitute for them.

xlnt2• 18 years ago

Are you implying the article might have cherry picked examples to be more sensationalist?

icky3• 18 years ago

No, these are real issues, but the navigation device market is highly competitive, and a lot of these things have been getting fixed very fast in newer models.

I repeat the caveat to always trust your own eyes and brain over any machine.

Zak• 18 years ago

I had a GPS tell me to drive through a field in rural Germany once. Evidently, the two ruts going through the field were, technically a road and did get me where I was going.

I've also had various GPS units tell me to drive off the side of bridges, in to concrete walls and on train tracks.

mattmaroon• 18 years ago

That depends, is my wife nagging at me at the time?

thomasswift• 18 years ago

haha the office (us), when they drive into the lake...

If your GPS device told you to drive off a cliff, would you do it?

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