Years ago around the Apple Maps fiasco, I read a very good article titled (paraphrased) "Why people follow GPS into very obviously bad places". At the time there were reports of people driving into empty fields, lakes, despite very obvious visual cues that they were about to drive into fields, lakes. The reasons were primarily the implicit trusts people have in computers, and secondarily, the ur-map on which all maps were built had roads marked but not necessarily their usability. A map would contain a secondary road which would be closed in winter due to snow, but path-finding software will not know this. The article detailed a case of a couple (I think?) following such a path to their deaths - by the time they began having doubts about the GPS, they were too far enmired in their situation to turn around and save themselves. I regret not being able to find that article again, I thought it was at Wired or The Atlantic.
The trouble I see is in how these GPS based driving systems give directions.
Even when the directions are accurate and the pronunciation is good (ha) and the turns are correct, they're completely mechanical. Every turn is given with exactly the same precision and urgency as every other turn. If I were telling you how to get where I'm going this afternoon, I'd start by saying "get on I-5 north". My phone would say "go 50 feet, then take a left onto X, then go 200 feet, then take a right onto Y", and so on. I don't know until 5 seconds before I hit the on-ramp that I'm just supposed to get on the freeway.
Worse, often it'll be the case that the instructions are given late enough that if you wait to consider or second-guess them, you'll miss the turn. (And roads are not in general designed to make recovery easy, so missing a turn can add quite a bit of time, especially if it sends you into a tunnel, across a bridge -- or worse, waiting in line for a drawbridge.) There's many places where it will say "take a right ... now take a left", and I've got half a block to get across 4 lanes of traffic. Get moving now! (Lane sweeping is legal in California but nowhere else I know of.)
In essence, it's treating me like a computer, and feeding me literal instructions one at a time. It's training me to blindly accept and immediately act on them. It's not surprising that people do.
I care less about improving the (comically bad) pronunciation of local names than I do about getting instructions that are phrased like a human being does. "Get on I-5 north -- it's just like you're going to ${other_place_you_go_every_week} but you'll turn right on ${other_street} instead of ${normal_street}." Then there could be a giant button for "Break it down for me -- I need more details".
I'd like them to keep all the turns within the next 10 min of driving without stoplight waits on the display at all times.
Little in GPS navigation is worse than not knowing which lane the phone wants me to be in on a freeway exit that has 5 lanes at the first light and traffic jams for the next 4 lights next to the freeway because civic planners just haven't been able to get the flow moving away from the injection site fast enough.
If you use CarPlay, the map is shown on your car display and your phone display gets used as a secondary display with a list of upcoming directions.
Here in Japan I use a local navigation app called NAVITIME and it has a mode to show a list of upcoming turns normally as well. On the highway it also shows upcoming rest stops and what facilities they have.
> Worse, often it'll be the case that the instructions are given late enough that if you wait to consider or second-guess them, you'll miss the turn.
Also, it will often recalculate with the assumption that you can immediately follow its directions, even though by the time it's finished saying them you're already past the next turn (and then the next, and then the next...).
In the Western US there is a huge variation in roads from very well-maintained gravel to high clearance 4WD with experienced driver to impassable because of rain or snow. The distinction is mostly lacking in the ur-databases. Somewhere like Death Valley Google Maps seems pretty good about not taking you on silly shortcuts even if you try to force it. I’m sure it’s less good in less travelled areas.
Somewhere like Death Valley Google Maps seems pretty good about not taking you on silly shortcuts even if you try to force it
From personal experience, Apple Maps is more useful in Death Valley than Google Maps. But the National Parks Service is very clear that the only maps that should be used in that area are paper maps, and not GPS of any brand. I agree.
Oh I do as well. But I was curious if Google Maps would take me on a “shortcut” over the mountains and I couldn’t seem to make it even if I stacked the deck. Agree you need a map and current knowledge about anything off-road (and the right vehicle).
