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[-] Cheradenine@sh.itjust.works 94 points 8 months ago

This has always been the case. I lived on a road that did not go through, Google and Apple said it did, people would argue with me and I would say ‘I have lived here for eight years, go ahead I will see you again in twenty minutes’. The would come back twenty minutes later and be mad at me.

One day when I was really bored I looked through our city archives and found a map from the 1930’s showing the road went through(proposed, never happened). No other map did including the current city map, or my paper map.

[-] deweydecibel@lemmy.world 34 points 8 months ago

The problem is the way Maps determines routes makes a lot of assumptions but there’s rarely, if ever, a human to correct it until it gets reported a significant number of times. It also tends to fine-tune the routes based on data from drivers. If enough drivers drive down a road and onto another road with Maps open, Google takes that to mean the road is open and the route connects.

In these kind of backwater, low population places, there often isn’t enough data. Not enough people driving down these roads with Maps open, and not enough people that encounter a bad route bother to report it to Google. So no human ever corrects it.

Yet another example of how terrible Google makes its services by refusing to hire humans to manage these things.

[-] LesserAbe@lemmy.world 24 points 8 months ago

Sure there are rough edges, but I’ve got to say Google maps is one of the most valuable tools I use, I used it more days than not, and it’s free. I remember the days of printing out directions from MapQuest or having a whole map of the country you keep in your car. Modern map apps are kind of a miracle.

[-] brbposting@sh.itjust.works 7 points 8 months ago

It’s been a good run. Now I’m bound to be influenced by the pay-for-prominence highlighted locations.

Time to try out some offline FOSS solutions!

[-] someguy3@lemmy.world 7 points 8 months ago

There was a story of a guy whose property had exits on either side. Google/Apple/whatever picked up on his data and everyone started using it like a public thruway. He said he had to put up an earthen berm and wood fence (losing his own access to one side).

[-] Cheradenine@sh.itjust.works 3 points 8 months ago

I know, but being a beta tester for a map sucks, and this road had a ’ dead end’ sign.

[-] MadBob@feddit.nl 3 points 8 months ago

Do you happen to remember what the basis of their arguments were?

[-] Cheradenine@sh.itjust.works 4 points 8 months ago

It was always the same, ‘Maps says this road goes through/ it’s a shortcut’.

It made me wonder what nefarious things they thought I was up to by telling them the road ended at a small tree covered hill.

[-] JustMy2c@lemm.ee 30 points 8 months ago

I had to rescue people here in Ecuador as well. Two cloud forest roads on both sides were somehow connected magically! I mean it’s a road but not passable when any rain you get stuck in biggg hill mud slide shit. Believe me you can die, damage your car, etc. Ppl were there cutting off the last part of 10hours drive, 3cars with like ten kids no water food was dark already. Scary man how people follow Google maps. Openstreetmap was same and don’t worry by now my update there has been copied by Google somehow… I did mark as emergency so maybe then they share.

[-] RubberElectrons@lemmy.world 4 points 8 months ago
[-] JustMy2c@lemm.ee 4 points 8 months ago

They were my own clients so was my responsibility but yeah it’s crazy they actually had a road on line from Pedro Cabro direct to Olón… MAYBE IF YOU HAVE A DONKEY (or good motorbike) jaaja

[-] Mastokarl@mastodon.social 27 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago)

in Germany close to were I live we have an “official” sign saying “your navigation system is lying”

Image transcription: German sign saying “your navi is lying, no passage to the castle”

[-] lol_idk@lemmy.ml 27 points 8 months ago

56 comments and nothing about the fact that you can submit edits to Google if the map is wrong

[-] grue@lemmy.world 42 points 8 months ago

Submit your edits to OpenStreetMap instead. Fuck doing unpaid labor for Google; they can fucking pay somebody for it.

[-] lol_idk@lemmy.ml 24 points 8 months ago

I have thousands of edits on OSM for over a decade, but people getting lost is less cool than spending 3 minutes trying to help people

[-] xantoxis@lemmy.world 14 points 8 months ago

Normally I’d agree with you but a lot of people use Google and driving for a few hours in the wrong direction in Tasmania can kill you. Fixing something like this might well be a humanitarian action.

[-] lntl@lemmy.ml 10 points 8 months ago

this sign is the “humanitarian action.” fuck Google

[-] JustMy2c@lemm.ee 7 points 8 months ago

This is the way.

[-] lol_idk@lemmy.ml 9 points 8 months ago

I had to submit a trail edit 4 times to make it stick after many others had done the same already. You can only do what you can do. I always tell them they are liable for any incident if they have prior knowledge as if that would make a difference.

[-] CaptPretentious@lemmy.world 8 points 8 months ago

I did that once, they rejected it. Wasn’t until they eventually did another pass for updated photos did they update it.

[-] zaphod@feddit.de 6 points 8 months ago

I heard stories about that feature, apparently sometimes they accept the changes and then revert them again for some reason. Like sometimes the wrong information comes from the government that classified a dirt road as a highway and Google eventually reverts any changes because they trust the government data more.

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[-] Venat0r@lemmy.world 3 points 8 months ago

Actually the second top comment is about that. 😜(yours)

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[-] GwynHannay@mastodon.social 20 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago)

LOL, not surprised. Google Maps has really gone to shit. Just like their other products...

[-] Speculater@lemmy.world 18 points 8 months ago

They sent me down a non-serviceable back road in the middle of a snow storm. There’s literally no option for, “Stay on main roads, avoid back roads.”

[-] v_krishna@lemmy.ml 19 points 8 months ago

In Bolinas (small coastal town in West Marin County, north of San Francisco) google maps is accurate but the locals hate out of towners so much (esp surfers) there’s a concerted community effort over the years to file false reports on Google maps so tourists get lost and can’t find their way to Bolinas.

[-] THE_MASTERMIND@feddit.ch 19 points 8 months ago

How many had to go that way be for to get this sign put up though ?

[-] Milk_Sheikh@lemm.ee 3 points 8 months ago

Saw a similar thing while traveling in the Colorado mountains - I guess the third time they had to wait for a tow truck to rescue a tourist from what essentially is the loooong start of their driveway?

[-] Agrivar@lemmy.world 13 points 8 months ago

I caretake a tiny off-grid cottage, nestled in the protected dunes of a beach community and surrounded by conservation land. There are a lot of paper roads (also known as an Unformed legal road - a street or road that appears on maps but has not been built) in the area, but one in particular also appears on both Google and Apple’s maps. I can not tell you how many vehicles I’ve seen stuck in sand up to the door panels because they were told by their device to drive that way.

[-] CanadaPlus@lemmy.sdf.org 7 points 8 months ago

When two-headers save your bacon. Thanks bro!

[-] 6G@mastodon.social 6 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago)

when you're stuck, just relax and stay awhile, can't hurt 🤕

Image transcription: If you can't go left or right or stright, just relax an stay awhile

[-] jackwilliambell@rustedneuron.com 6 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago)

Boy do I know that one.
Google maps marks my (admittedly very long) driveway as a road actually located a quarter mile south of my place.
As a result I get three or four people a month driving past my 'keep out' and 'private road' signs to whom I must explain that Google is wrong.
Then I explain that driving past keep out signs up here in the mountains is a REALLY BAD IDEA and they are incredibly lucky they did it at my place and not one of my neighbors, who come out with a gun.

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[-] JanPV@mastodon.social 5 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago)

In Wales, Google is also often wrong, not least in the way it accepts 'suggestions' from tourists for places to be added to their maps and Earth. These names are usually English or English corruptions.

[-] zurohki@aussie.zone 7 points 8 months ago

Well it’s Wales, so the correct spelling probably looks like someone removed all the vowels from a keyboard and then rolled their face back and forth a few times.

[-] chiefbongo@mastodon.social 5 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago)

use and support based on #OpenStreetMaps and rectify any errors you find yourself. Saves you and others the expense of wasted time, Spraypaint and Board. #OrganicMaps

[-] msh@coales.co 5 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago)

I think "Google is wrong! Go back!" is just good advice in general these days

[-] weezmgk@mastodon.social 4 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago)

took several years to get Gargle to remove a street name from a neighbour's driveway. Tourists were trying to drive through their house to get to another imaginary road.

[-] tastrax@aus.social 4 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago)

Don’t even think of using GoogleMaps for bushwalking in Tasmania! Thousands of lakes on the map that don’t actually exist.

[-] grue@lemmy.world 3 points 8 months ago

LOL, that screenshot looks more like Canada.

Edit: unlike the immediate area you screenshotted, the area just northwest of it (Walls of Jerusalem National Park) looks like it legitimately does have a whole bunch of lakes, 'cause they show up in the aerial photography as well as the map layer. What’s up with that? Are they glacial or karst or what?

[-] Catawu@mastodon.social 4 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago)

We had a sign a couple years ago: “This is not a road. It’s a private Driveway”. We had 3-5 cars a day driving down our driveway, looking lost, trying to do U turns on our grass, it was nuts.

[-] niko@furry.engineer 4 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago)

read this somewhere and it seems accurate for this “google maps will take you through a lake if it saves 36 seconds”

[-] CliftonR@wandering.shop 4 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago)

Google Maps once directed me and my family up a logging road in Washington state which became fainter and fainter and finally ended in a dead-end clearing. There had once been a further road (maybe connecting to someplace) but it was now blocked with boulders, and closed for so long that trees were growing in the middle of it. By this point all GPS and cell reception had cut out.
I was lucky that my sense of direction is good enough that we could backtrack out again.

[-] philip_cardella@historians.social 3 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago)

my kid goes to the oldest freaking high school in Southern Florida if not the whole state.
Google maps cannot navigate you to the front of the school. Always takes you to a secured gate on the side of the school.

[-] boomfish@hachyderm.io 3 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago)
[-] ErictheCerise@kolektiva.social 3 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago)

just got added to my desktop wallpaper collection.
Now I need to figure out the best way to add it graphically as an email signature...

[-] robertstainsby@aus.social 3 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago)

a recent trip to Tassie confirmed we really need an “avoid unsealed roads” option in Australia

[-] jimbush@beige.party 2 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago)

There's a music festival in small town Kansas that attracts people from the cities. Every year, the local Sheriff's office is all over Facebook warning people that Google Maps lies, and even your Suburbitank will get stuck if you follow the suggested route down an unmaintained farm path.

[-] grue@lemmy.world 2 points 8 months ago

Sadly, Suburbitanks just ain’t what they used to be.

[-] mahenderkar@mstdn.social 2 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago)

If I see this sign, I get a lot more curious to go that route lmao.

[-] otheorange_tag@mstdn.social 2 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago)

I thought this was a comment on how much google search isn't regexpr anymore and totally (*&#$*^* #SmashesComputer

[-] Daveosaurus@mastodon.nz 2 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago)

Every couple of months or so, in my day job, I get asked to "fix Google Maps". No, I don't work at Google... I eventually drafted up a "how to do it yourself" document so that people could lodge corrections with Google themselves...

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this post was submitted on 18 Feb 2024
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