The weirdest shit GPS/the post office has done to me in terms of addresses is a certain two small towns I have to verify the address is in the correct city, because for some reason a couple neighborhoods in one of the towns, which is like 20 miles away from the other, have an address that says the other city’s name and not the one they are actually in. If you go to the address and it’s the wrong city, there’s a good chance you’ll just be taken into the middle of an empty field.
🥀
That sign has so many practical applications!
They are consistently horrible at navigating downtown Providence.
They do put a lot of “access roads” that are not open to the public.
My new favorite is google maps telling me a route is shorter but it tells me it’s a toll road. But in reality, it’s a ferry across a river that’s only available certain hours during part of the year.
Lmao I experienced the same thing a few years ago, except it’s not a ferry, but an actual bamboo raft operated by the locals.
Try OpenStreetMap, if it’s wrong you can edit the access rights yourself
Do you know of a good OSM mobile client for Android?
OSMAnd, Organic Maps, Magic Earth (my favourite but not open source)
When “I did my own research!” goes wrong.
I’m impressed by the kerning on that sign given that it’s entirely handwritten in a large font.
I live at the end of a cul-de-sac and the main road runs next to my house. However you cannot access my house from the main road. The roads do not connect and there is a wall and fence. That doesn’t stop every GPS and delivery app from telling people you can get to my house from there. I can’t tell you how many food delivery drivers who never read my directions about turning into the neighborhood. A few have been so dense that I’ve had to go climb the fence and meet them at the main road because they just couldn’t figure it out.
I remember years ago I went to a concert with a friend, we used Google Maps to get back home. It told us to drive straight through a cul-de-sac. I am sure the home owners wouldn’t have appreciated it.
This happened to me at my old apartment randomly. After giving the correct directions for month, one day Google decided “no, you have to go to this OTHER road and walk through the alley!”
But of course, there was no alley.
That being said, I put in the request with Google Maps to fix it and it was fixed in about 3 weeks. Took 2 weeks to even figure out why all my deliveries were being delivered a street over, though.
At least with open street map, you can login to openstreetmap.org/edit and mark the bad road as private/gated or even delete it entirely. I did it on a bad road segment in my neighborhood and ride-sharing drivers no longer made wrong turns there (Grab apparently uses OSM instead of Google Maps data).
Crowdsourcing is nice but I’m not happy about the “don’t mark temporary hindrances” thing in OSM, some of them last for months and I can’t warn others. Sometimes I even forget the hindrance myself and feel real
unsmartdumb.Nice. The only place I know uses Grab is Vietnam and other se asian countries like maybe Indonesia
That’s why Apple Maps, HERE WeGo and OpenStreetMap exist.
Did you just unironically plug Apple maps oh lordy
You can submit edits to Google Maps. I’ve done it on a handful of roads in our neighborhood and they were approved within a few weeks…
I’ve done it a few times, usually by your fifth submission about an issue over a year or two they finally don’t say no we’re right you are wrong and edit the driveway\farmers field\60 meter drop into a gully to not be drivable.
This is a true general statement about the existence of Google.
Should have bought a squirrel.
I get that reference. Rat Race!
Hey Lois remember that one time I drove my car off a bridge because the map told me to?
