The systems I deal with (older cars mostly) tend to have only a very few road speeds/categories. They also tend to plot really convoluted routes that claim to shave off fractions of a minute if you con’t account for having to slow down or stop at intersections, and accelerated afterwards, but that’s another rant. (I have yet to meet a map/nav system that minimizes cognitive load on the driver, or that responds sensibly to off-route deviations.)
Or for other reasons such as perceived straightness. Last fall, I asked Google Maps for a route from upstate NY (on Interstate 81) to Richmond, Virginia. It suggested I-83 from Harrisburg ¶ to Baltimore (MD), then its beltway to I-95 to Washington’s beltway, then some county road to some local street to more beltway to I-95 down to Richmond. Same route that it suggested three years earlier, so user complaints obviously hadn’t gotten it changed.
This was right after the hurricane had closed many roads and highways in coastal states, and 95 and the Beltways had major traffic jams that day, so I saved several hours by taking I-81 all the way to Staunton (VA) and I-64 east to Richmond. For an extra thirty or forty miles, I even spent less on gas and tolls than if I had followed their advice and sat in traffic jams, let alone gotten stuck on a DC-area street.
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And that’s before you get to the part where they classify things as roads that aren’t. I live in vermont, so there are power-line rights of way that are shown as extensions of the nearest street, roads that existed on some map once long ago…
I know a guy who lives on a Lower somethingorother road, and it turns out there’s an Upper somethingorother road in the next town over, and 70-plus years ago there was a logging trail that mostly connected the two. So a few years back (he runs a garage) he was called out try an help an RV that had gotten its frame hung up on a boulder right about the top of the mountain. The driver’s GPS claimed a perfectly graded road the whole way. (Oh, and also the update thing – when I called our dealer to get the updated DVD for our nav system, they told me not to bother, half a dozen people had already returned it because it didn’t have road changes from 5 years back)
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I once heard a firsthand report from a friend whose nav system had sent him via one of those “trap streets” that map companies use to identify plagiarism.
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Brilliant! I remember once seeing a family member’s driveway (it was one of those things that connected to the local street at two points for easement reasons) called out as a street on a map. Don’t know if it was an error or a trap.
Now I finally have an explanation for all of the dirt paths I have been directed to in the Lakes Region, NH - power line easements and logging trails. I can’t wait for this to come up at a party - thank you Sir!
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