(Originally published on mastodon.social: 2024-02-18)
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.
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.
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.
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.
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”
56 comments and nothing about the fact that you can submit edits to Google if the map is wrong
Submit your edits to OpenStreetMap instead. Fuck doing unpaid labor for Google; they can fucking pay somebody for it.
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.
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.
LOL, not surprised. Google Maps has really gone to shit. Just like their other products…