The "shortcut" doesn't always work out!

 

Yep Ross, a 7 mile shortcut "as the bird flies" can be 60 miles on tarmac

Frank

 

Google, Mapquest......... none of them actually know what they are doing. Just taking a sat picutre and adding numbers. My driveway is at the end of a dead end road. Many years ago it was a path through the woods for folks cutting off a bit to get to the road that is a mile behind me. It has been kept open by deer hunters and lastly myself (at least to my property line) as a way to get around in my place. it is not an unusual occurrence for someone to drive .4 miles up my driveway and get to the house and wonder what went wrong. Well, the GPS, Google and Mapquest all show Cemetery Rd. going all the way over to the next road. Not the case. I've sent many back the way they came, right past the sign that says "Private Drive..... No Sightseeing".

 

If you have a Gmail account you can go into maps and tell them that it's not a road. I've done r numerous times. The more you do it the faster maps updates, but if you lie about it then you will be ignored. A few years ago I fixed almost all of n Idaho. I believe you can do the same with apple maps.

 

GPS - we are paying for our own surveillance these days. Along with Ring, smart phones, Alexa, etc.

If the government tried to pass the funds to monitor us at home, while driving, and listening to our calls, we would be upset. Or maybe not.

Yet we willing pay and put everything in place so anyone, now or tomorrow, can monitor us.

I'll risk being lost for awhile over tracked all the time.

 

Short story

If you travel west from our place, you can go over the Coast Ranges and eventually get to the ocean. Most of this is by quality dirt/gravel roads.....

Years ago I met a car up there traveling east. The car had New York plates, they had taken the "shortcut", you could see the fear in the peoples eyes..........!

 

nothing new....

iirc, someone driving in the UK wanted to head to Ireland and drove into the ocean?

we had a Californian family get stuck on a really snowy road down south. The father died of hypothermia.

we have a hilly road across some local hills that have a few switch backs. Ive recently seen some semis on it. Eventhough there is a NO TRUCKS posted at the top of the hill.

i think some older lady drove her car into the river from a boat ramp. Dont know if she didnt know or what happened.

 

nothing new....

iirc, someone driving in the UK wanted to head to Ireland and drove into the ocean?

we had a Californian family get stuck on a really snowy road down south. The father died of hypothermia.

we have a hilly road across some local hills that have a few switch backs. Ive recently seen some semis on it. Eventhough there is a NO TRUCKS posted at the top of the hill.

i think some older lady drove her car into the river from a boat ramp. Dont know if she didnt know or what happened.

Dementia based wander offs/drive offs are a separate potential Darwin Award category with pretty frequent contestants BangBang.

We've got some family with 800 acres of rolling woods and bean fields along the Chariton river in Northeast Missouri. A lady in her 80's turned off the country paved road onto their farm rock road one evening and drove herself all the way down to and into the river. No one saw her drive onto the property and it was too late when they found her a week or so later. No idea what she had in mind when it happened.

Wintertime's the worst for those but they say freezing to death isn't that bad of a way to go

Frank

 

Stupid people doing stupid things. Open your eyes and LOOK at what you're about to drive into. GPS is a tool not an infallible autopilot.

 

Stupid people doing stupid things. Open your eyes and LOOK at what you're about to drive into. GPS is a tool not an infallible autopilot.

Yeah, and turn around ASAP & head back............! Don't think that things will get better if you keep plundering on.

 

Working most of my life on an Interstate 5 interchange, I was asked many times for directions.... After a few years, I got smart, I would ask their destination, then this would clear things up.

The little Burg of Kirkwood is about 5 miles south of me(valley floor). We would have people show up here wanting to go to Kirkwood Meadows, the Ski Resort in the Sierras.

 

We have an issue with GPS. I live at the end of a dead end road and there is a permanently locked gate to the BLM. There is a campsite on the BLM that I can actually see the tree it is under. This campsite is listed by it GPS coordinates on a website called Freecampsite.xxx and access if from a well road about a mile north of my property.

But if you come from the west, your GPS system will lead you right up our gravel road to the locked gate on the BLM that used to access an old ranch road that connects to the well road. So now every Friday or so, we have campers looking for access to the campsite through the locked gate. One girl actually camped on my property for 2 days until I chased her.

After conflict with the web site owner, he/she still hasn't changed anything even in the face of comments about the faulty GPS coordinates.

Now the subdivision just put a huge turn around on the road which takes up some of my property so folks can turn around in their long campers without using my driveway. In addition they will be putting a sign at the entrance of the subdivision saying "STOP - NO ACCESS TO BLM CAMPSITE" and another on the road at my place also saying "NO OVERNIGHT PARKING". Other people often park off the road to walk on the BLM. Access is through a walking gate that horses fit through.

 

Last year I was quail hunting with my buddy in the Southern Sierras. Me in my 4Runner, he in his Jeep. He has the onX GPS app on his phone and we've found it to be useful for seeing if we're on public or private land, etc.

Last day of the trip we decided to explore a road that went way back into an area we hadn't been before. Cell service was spotty and we had none when we started down the road. We were already ~15 miles from the highway. My buddy likes to drive fast, I like to look at the scenery. He got way ahead of me and I wasn't able to call him.

It was mid-afternoon and I needed to be at work the next day. The road (unmaintained) was getting really rough/winding and I decided that I wasn't going to continue on into who knows where, so I just stopped the truck and waited for him to come back. It was time to turn around and head toward the highway IMO.

An hour later he came back and I called him an idiot (He's accustomed to hearing that from me after 20 years) for allowing us to get separated in a situation like that. He said he didn't know that I'd fallen so far behind.

We had cell service at that spot and he pulled up the onX app. It showed that the road we were on met a highway 12 miles ahead us, so it was "no problem."

I called him an idiot again, and asked if the app shows wash-outs, down trees on the road or locked gates.

 

I can still read a road map!

 

I prefer a USGS Quad Map

 

..

I was given false imfo or so I thought after voyaging ahead on my motorcycle over in John Day close to the Strawberry; turned out it was just a short cut

Turned out to be true, but more than challenging, almost to the point of an accident ready to happen

-your topo would have been a better choice

pipestone

 

GPS

GPS ? It's a shame people can't think for them shelves anymore . I guess the bottom line is most are just too stupid and lazy . A sign of the times . Sad .

 

GPS ? It's a shame people can't think for them shelves anymore . I guess the bottom line is most are just too stupid and lazy . A sign of the times . Sad .

I agree and it's been that way awhile!

My dad teaching me to read a micrometer 60 years ago, now they are digital. I actually like the digital.....

 

Not a good place to be, even in the right vehicle

I have been jeeping on both Ophir and Engineer. It is beyond me how ANYONE could look at the start of those paths and think there was any way to get a truck through. You would have to be about 39 kinds of stupid.

Last time I was on these trails there were places that my passengers insisted on getting out and **walking** and watching to see if I could drive through....

 

I have been jeeping on both Ophir and Engineer. It is beyond me how ANYONE could look at the start of those paths and think there was any way to get a truck through. You would have to be about 39 kinds of stupid.

Last time I was on these trails there were places that my passengers insisted on getting out and **walking** and watching to see if I could drive through....

My uncle taught me 4-wheeling in an old Jeep Commando Dave. Good ground clearance, plenty of torque, and a stick shift with a 2 MPH grandma 1st gear in low range. A fine vehicle for the purpose _except_ it had a long hood like a Lincoln Continental.

More than once we'd crest a ridge at 12,000 feet and see nothing but blue sky in front of us. That's when I'd hop out and take look see before we committed to the down side

My only explanation on delivery drivers trying it is that a lot of them are immigrants from the flat lands. The map or GPS says it's a state highway so they give it a go not realizing exactly how deep the doo doo is they're stepping in till they're up to their neck in it...and then it's too late.

Frank

 

At my age I stay on the pavement!

 

google maps are the worst - directions to adress only 3 miles from my house sends me 9 miles in opposite direction + circles destination twice on next block - common occurrence - bing maps better , but not perfect - street maps much more reliable -

 

I used to have a gps, notice the “used to have” part of this sentence, that would show me the closest way to town was to take a road running southwest into town. There is not and never has been a road there. It once showed me driving in the middle of a long lake in Colorado. It’s replacement is considerably smarter plus it shows me some of the new oilfield roads that have been built since I retired and am out boondocking. It’s main use is as speedometer in my jeep because of it’s oversized tires plus it is easier to see than looking down at the dash speedometer. Yes, I know how much faster I am going than the speedometer shows but the gps gives me my true speed or at least close enough that I never get stopped for speeding.

 

Not to split hairs, but the issue isn't really with GPS, rather it's the software applications that use it. I'm sure that if you pull up the coordinates of your location with the GPS it will be very accurate, but the mapping software might have you on the wrong road. When I was new to my area I used the nav system in my car to find a store I wanted to go to. I put the address into the system and the darned thing sent me going in the opposite direction that I needed to go, which I realized after a nice ride into the country. For some darned reason the mapping application in my car doesn't know the difference between East and West on one particular road!

Was driving in Boston once (and it will only ever be once) and I went into an underground tunnel that I think they called the "Big Dig" and because your satellite receiver can't pick up a signal, the system uses your speed and location parameters to "project" where you are while you are incommunicado. Well, if traffic suddenly slows you down and you aren't where you are "projected" to be, you can easily be instructed to take the wrong exit from the tunnel and be totally screwed! Trust me, I know.

 

In further news they still haven't snagged the truck off of Ophir Pass yet and here's a guy in a 38' RV with a toad trying to do some 4-wheeling.

https://www.durangoherald.com/articles/rv-is-free-after-spending-a-week-stuck-on-lime-creek-road/

Yikes!

Frank

 

Reminds me of the long long trailer with Lucy and Desi.

 

Been driving around five years with my outdated truck GPS. They are updating the interstate system in one place I go and have been waiting for it to be completed before I spend the $150 for the update. The next update should have the new road I drive on (completed three years ago) which isn't on the GPS so I have been driving about five miles on a paved four-lane highway thru a cornfield.

 

Google Maps used to have an extra non-existent road coming up our little mountain ( foothill of the Appalachians). It was just the clear cutting they did when they brought the second water main up from the valley. Once the trees grew over the gap, 10 years or so, the phantom road disappeared from the app.

 

Just ask directions from the locals.

 

I like to plan my routes using Mk I eyeballs and a map. We just got back from a ten day trip to New England. For kicks I put on the GPS routing to compare with my routes. We eventually started calling the voice The Crazy Lady(PG version) because she tried to get us on some ridiculous paths that would have taken us way out of the way. She did save my bacon once when I missed an exit in Boston trying to get to the USS Constitution. Who knew they were changing all of the exit numbers?