GPS: When common sense flees
Sibling site Engadget reports what may be a trend among GPS-using drivers at least in the U.K.
According to The Times, drivers going through the village of Luckington have driven right into the river by following their navigation systems. This is despite all the warning signs that the bridge has been closed. The village has had to tow two cars a day on average. And we at Autoblog reported on the village of Crackpot where following GPS has nearly lead several drivers over a cliff.
Maybe it's time to add 'Using navigation systems' to Driver's Ed?
[Source: The Times and BBC via Engadget]
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Bonita 6:10PM (4/24/2006)
Read the whole story and find out that these are all GM vehicles. Anyone stupid enough to buy one of these is stupid enough to drive into a raging river . . .
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Keith 6:23PM (4/24/2006)
Darwin would be proud, I say put a bottomless pit there.
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John Smith 6:41PM (4/24/2006)
Well, it's a European thing. They are so used to following orders over there. Always sitting around waiting for directions from on high. They can never use their own brains.
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Car Loans 7:05PM (4/24/2006)
Wow, this is hilarious. I definitely watch my GPS too closely from time to time. I always wondered if accidents happened from people watching their GPS screens too closely. There is just no excuse for this though.
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RossL 7:06PM (4/24/2006)
Sorry to spoil the fun, but contrary to #1, these aren't all GM vehicles. The only brand I saw mentioned in The Times story was Rover. A Rover 220, in fact, which I believe was a rebadged Honda.
More to the point, the entire item is pretty specious, as this post on enGadget makes clear:
The story being reported all morning on TV in the UK is that GPS is sending drivers on an *alternative route* because the bridge is closed and that alternative is a perfectly useable ford. Drivers have been getting stuck because it's rained a lot recently on higher ground, making the route too deep for a car (still fine for a 4x4 though).
AND they're still using their eyes, but unfortunately the depth guage in the ford is not at the deepest point, so drivers going down that route *THINK* it's passable when it isn't at the minute.
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Car Loans 7:09PM (4/24/2006)
Wow, this is incredibly funny. I watch my GPS screen too closely sometimes and I realize how dangerous it can be. I have wondered if accidents happen due to people relying on their GPS too much but this is just completely ridiculous. I agree with the above comment that maybe it is time to add GPS to driver's education. However, I wouldn't be surprised if most of these wrecks involve the less technology savvy elderly population. In which case adding GPS to driver's ed wouldn't make much of a difference.
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Niles 7:17PM (4/24/2006)
This has happened in the US too - to tragic results. I talked with a friend of mine recently who works at TeleAtlas, one of the companies that supplies data to companies using GPS. He heard about the death in Montana of a mother and son out on a desolate logging road last month and wondered, like everyone else, why they would take that route. Since he had access to all his competitors' data as well as his own company's, he ran the route they were supposed to be taking and saw that several companies DID plot the route not via highway, but up this logging road. He called the local sheriffs, but they didn't believe him and haven't investigated that angle of it.
Here's the story:
http://www.startribune.com/462/story/351316.html
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RossL 7:28PM (4/24/2006)
Very interesting, #6. Except ... there's not a single word in that Star Tribune article that suggests the woman was using GPS. Presumably the same problem could result from someone using a web-based mapping service such as Mapquest or Yahoo Maps, etc.
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Niles 7:35PM (4/24/2006)
Yep - you're right RossL. No nav system or printouts were found, but the trail they died on could only have been found by directions from a faulty computer algorithm. So it's not open & shut, but suspicious.
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Ted K 7:46PM (4/24/2006)
Wow, how and why did you guys load in the racism and brand elitism into this article?
What a joke some of you are.
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Jaymez 7:46PM (4/24/2006)
GPS are completely unnessicary. Maps have worked perfectly for thousands of years. I've driven all over this country without having a clue as to where my current location was. I never got lost, though. I had my trusty Rand McNally Truckers map by my side. (I once drove through Oklahoma and didn't even realize it.)
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Vexorg 8:14PM (4/24/2006)
I have machines to think for me now...
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Stoneman 10:18PM (4/24/2006)
"As I lit my Cuban cigar and blew smoke out the window at homeless people, the GPS lady told me to turn right, and by God, so I did".
Last thoughts of the GPS driver.
Stoneman
http://www.stonemanautoreview.com
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gbh 11:02PM (4/24/2006)
Anybody out there STILL not believe in evolution?
Can't hunt,fish,cook,grow vegetables,build a lean-to (let alone a cabin), wire a lightswitch, plumb a toilet, change a flat tire (let alone an engine)...
Now more and more, morons can't even drive a car on their own. Even more pathetic, they'll try and blame someone other than themselves.
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Balabok 2:43AM (4/25/2006)
Haha, I use Mapopolis on my pda which uses text to speech so I never have to look at the screen. GPS is not fool proof. It takes some commonsense to use it properly.
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Gundar 5:21AM (4/25/2006)
"14. Anybody out there STILL not believe in evolution?
Can't hunt,fish,cook,grow vegetables,build a lean-to (let alone a cabin), wire a lightswitch, plumb a toilet, change a flat tire (let alone an engine)..."
Thanks for that, Rambo.
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MrWankel 6:05AM (4/25/2006)
Maps are completely unnessicary. Instincts have worked perfectly for millions of years. I've driven all over this country without having a clue as to where my current location was. I never got lost, though. I had my trusty instinct by my side. (I once drove through Oklahoma and didn't even realize it.)
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Tim UF 9:58AM (4/25/2006)
yeam i agree with the rotary driver, MrWankel, though not to the same extent. maps are good if you have a general destination, but the best option for finding where you are trying to get is still keeping your eyes looking ahead and searching. i cant believe that nav systems have taken off as much as they have, they must be a distraction to the driver, especially a hopelessly lost one, the last thing this driver needs is something to take his attention off the road!
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Christian J 11:15AM (4/25/2006)
GPS and Navigation systems in cars are just about the crappiest, gimicky junk ever conceived. People talk about how a car doesn't measure up to another because it doesn't have a navi option. How dumb are you that you can't use maps, instinct and experience based on precedent to drive?
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gbh 1:17PM (4/25/2006)
Gundar,
I'm hardly Rambo. Those are incredibly basic skills that most anyone can aquire in a short period of time. Most people had to have them to survive, just a blink of time ago.
The greater point is this: Once you cannot do ANYTHING for yourself (and to me, driving is pretty freakin' basic) you have given away control over your own life. You have no right to expect the world to save you from your own lack of knowledge, especially if you do nothing to help yourself.
On some level, we all trade some control for comfort. My concern is how divorced the average Joe/Jane is from any ability to care for him/herself.
Example: Post Katrina, about the ONLY people who could even communicate with the outside world, were the amateur radio operators. For years many have said that ham radio was an anachronism, that 'our modern systems' will be able to handle any emergency. Yeah, right.
In the scope of what naturally happens on this planet, Katrina was a tiny little blip. What will we do when something REALLY bad happens?
Most folks just have no clue how tenuous our luxurious lifestyle is. Or, that people still die everyday because they just didn't know NOT to do something really stupid.
To me, that's the real tragedy. A little useful learning, and bad stuff doesn't happen quite so often.
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