Photo: WY Police Dogs
A few days ago, we sadly told you about two teenagers who ended up stuck on an abandoned road in Russia in brutal winter weather after taking a shorter route suggested by Google Maps.
One of them was frozen to death, and the other was hospitalized in critical condition, all because they just trusted the navigation software they were using blindly.
And if you still need another sign that doing this isn’t by any means recommended, here’s another less tragic story, this time shared by the West Yorkshire Police Dog support unit on Twitter.
While the specifics they provided are missing, the officers published photos with a delivery driver whose van got stuck in the mud in the middle of nowhere, once again after following the GPS navigation installed in his car. In other words, the driver just wanted to do their job and took everything the navigation system said for granted, eventually being directed on a muddy road that’s more appropriate for off-roading rather than for a van.
“You’d have thought at some point this delivery driver may have started to consider that his sat nav wasn’t taking him on the most ideal route. Apparently not! Muddy walk home,” the police said.
It goes without saying this isn’t something as terrible as the story we highlighted earlier, but it once again shows that no matter who makes these GPS solutions, they can always send you on a bad route.
The good news is that apps like Google Maps, Waze, and Apple Maps are constantly being updated, and map errors reported by the community are typically resolved pretty fast by the parent companies or by local editors.
However, if any of these apps send you a road that doesn’t seem appropriate for your car, the best thing to do is search for an alternate route, one that seems safer and doesn’t get you all alone in the middle of nowhere.
And if you still need another sign that doing this isn’t by any means recommended, here’s another less tragic story, this time shared by the West Yorkshire Police Dog support unit on Twitter.
While the specifics they provided are missing, the officers published photos with a delivery driver whose van got stuck in the mud in the middle of nowhere, once again after following the GPS navigation installed in his car. In other words, the driver just wanted to do their job and took everything the navigation system said for granted, eventually being directed on a muddy road that’s more appropriate for off-roading rather than for a van.
“You’d have thought at some point this delivery driver may have started to consider that his sat nav wasn’t taking him on the most ideal route. Apparently not! Muddy walk home,” the police said.
It goes without saying this isn’t something as terrible as the story we highlighted earlier, but it once again shows that no matter who makes these GPS solutions, they can always send you on a bad route.
The good news is that apps like Google Maps, Waze, and Apple Maps are constantly being updated, and map errors reported by the community are typically resolved pretty fast by the parent companies or by local editors.
However, if any of these apps send you a road that doesn’t seem appropriate for your car, the best thing to do is search for an alternate route, one that seems safer and doesn’t get you all alone in the middle of nowhere.
Google News