Driving Directions

Following Signs, Asking for Directions Beats Maps, GPS
Reader’s Digest organized a race from one end of Britain to the other, with each of three teams using a different means of navigation. The Scotsman reports on the results: “The race was won by a team relying on road… »
Posted on Friday, July 11, 2008 at 10:23 AM
Categories: Driving Directions
A Roundup of Interesting Map Links
A few quick map and map-related gems to share with you: Claire showcases another collection of map tattoos. Indiana Jones and the Fonts on the Maps: Mark Simonson notes that the maps used in the Indiana Jones movies are anachronistic…. »
Posted on Sunday, June 22, 2008 at 8:24 PM
Categories: Driving Directions, Fun, Miscellany, Paris, Triangulations (Links)
GPS Isn’t Making Us Dumb
The problem with the ABC News article entitled “Will GPS Make Us Dumb?” is that it makes a false juxtaposition: map-reading skills with navigation devices’ turn-by-turn directions: “One effect of an increased dependence on GPS will be that peoples’ ability… »
Posted on Sunday, June 22, 2008 at 3:21 PM
Categories: Driving Directions, GPS
Longest Drives in Google Maps
Alan Taylor: “I set out to find the longest distance for which Google Maps would give Driving Directions. Now that they’ve shut down the fun ‘swim the Atlantic’ feature, things have changed a bit. It turns out there are multiple… »
Posted on Sunday, May 4, 2008 at 6:47 PM
Categories: Driving Directions, Online Maps
The Office
GPS Review has a clip from an episode of (the U.S. version of) The Office that satirizes the news stories about GPS-navigation-related accidents…. »
Posted on Thursday, April 10, 2008 at 2:58 PM
Categories: Driving Directions, Fun, Video
Pittsburgh GPS Review
“GPS units are like friends with personality quirks that sometimes can be hard to figure,” writes Bob Karlovits in the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review. “They know all the answers. They are insistent on telling you them. They never admit to being wrong.”… »
Posted on Sunday, February 24, 2008 at 10:50 AM
Categories: Driving Directions, Pittsburgh
‘When GPS Turns Bad’
Computerworld’s David Ramel sums up the rash of stories about drivers getting into trouble by (blindly) following directions from their GPS navigation device. “These things actually seem to happen fairly often,” he writes. “For some reason, most of them occur… »
Posted on Tuesday, February 19, 2008 at 3:24 PM
Categories: Driving Directions
Navigation and Liability
Via Spatial Law, an interesting question about GPS navigation and legal liability: if somebody who follows faulty directions from a GPS navigation system gets into an accident, and is held liable for that accident (as has in fact occurred), can… »
Posted on Saturday, January 26, 2008 at 12:48 PM
Categories: Driving Directions
A News Roundup and a Programming Note
A few links to news stories to tide you over during the holidays: The Montreal Gazette on OpenStreetMap The Chicago Tribune on map collecting The Times rambles about the technology behind in-car navigation devices I’ll be off for about a… »
Posted on Saturday, December 22, 2007 at 9:25 PM
Categories: Collecting, Driving Directions, Site News, Surveying
Yahoo Adds Draggable Driving Directions
Yahoo follows Google’s lead, adding user-adjustable driving directions with a click-and-drag interface. Now that I’ve this feature for a while, I now consider it essential, especially when you have some sense of what the best route will be for at… »
Posted on Saturday, December 22, 2007 at 9:10 PM
Categories: Driving Directions, Online Maps
New York Times on GPS Navigation Accidents
Sure, stories about drivers getting into trouble because they blindly obey their GPS navigation stories are fun, but, as I mentioned in a previous entry, you can’t help but wonder about the bigger picture — i.e., why is this happening?… »
Posted on Tuesday, December 4, 2007 at 12:46 PM
Categories: Driving Directions
Another GPS Navigation Incident: Some Questions
It’s more of the same: truck drivers sent down narrow streets in Llangadog, Wales, by their satellite-navigation systems are crashing into buildings. Via Engadget. This is happening too often to fall under the “random idiot” section of the news, however… »
Posted on Monday, November 12, 2007 at 2:13 PM
Categories: Driving Directions
Truck Lodged in Lane for Three Days: Guess Why
I am required to report the following item from the Daily Mail: “A lorry driver who was led off course by his sat nav got his HGV [heavy goods vehicle] so tightly wedged in a narrow country lane he had… »
Posted on Sunday, November 4, 2007 at 10:07 AM
Categories: Driving Directions
Baffling Welsh No-GPS Sign
Sky News: “New signs are warning motorists to ignore their sat-navs on narrow Welsh lanes — but drivers may have a tricky time working out the symbols on the design.” You think? Four signs have been erected in a… »
Posted on Tuesday, August 28, 2007 at 9:08 PM
Categories: Driving Directions
Audacia Ray on GPS Navigation Systems
Author, blogger and adult filmmaker Audacia Ray, writing about her road trip to LA, has this to say about in-dash GPS systems: I like not having maps crumpled up on the floor of my car, or misfolded in my bag… »
Posted on Friday, July 20, 2007 at 12:55 PM
Categories: Driving Directions
More on GPS Driving Mistakes
Travel blog Gadling has a post warning against blind faith in the directions given by a GPS navigation system — a subject near and dear to my heart, as previous entries will attest. The latest example comes from Italy, where… »
Posted on Sunday, July 1, 2007 at 9:57 AM
Categories: Driving Directions
Google Maps: Draggable Driving Directions
The driving directions feature on Google Maps has just received a major upgrade. Multiple stops and traffic conditions have (apparently) been added, but the big one is that you can now change the route you’re given to your destination… »
Posted on Thursday, June 28, 2007 at 7:10 PM
Categories: Driving Directions, Online Maps, Video
Why Do People Follow Bad Directions?
Nicholas Forbes writes with an interesting question about why people follow bad directions — covered here ad nauseaum — that is above my pay grade: I am a Ph.D. student at the University of Nottingham UK. I have been running… »
Posted on Sunday, June 17, 2007 at 10:10 AM
Categories: Driving Directions, Mapping Errors, Questions
Some Google Maps Updates
Google Transit adds Reno and San Diego; I must have missed when they added the Japanese rail networks, domestic airlines and ferries. Google Maps for mobile supports GPS on certain devices — for example, the BlackBerry 8800 and some Windows… »
Posted on Monday, May 28, 2007 at 8:42 AM
Categories: Driving Directions, GPS, Mass Transit, Mobile Devices, Online Maps
MacArthur Maze vs. U.S. Route 90
Some more material about updating road data after disasters that I missed the first time around (and am only getting to now). Via Mapping Hacks, a San Francisco Chronicle article that discussed updating driving directions in the wake of… »
Posted on Wednesday, May 16, 2007 at 5:03 PM
Categories: Driving Directions, Hurricanes 2005, Online Maps, Roads, San Francisco
Case in Point: Driver Obeys Directions, Gets Car Hit by Train
And this is exactly the sort of thing I was on about before: trusting her GPS navigation system implicitly, a British woman drives onto the tracks; while closing the level crossing gate (first clue) behind her, her car is hit… »
Posted on Friday, May 11, 2007 at 2:57 PM
Categories: Driving Directions
Apparently I’m a Pundit Now
Three weeks ago, I was contacted by a writer for iPass who was working on an article about the accuracy of driving directions on online mapping sites. I provided some pithy comments. Her article is now online and to my… »
Posted on Friday, May 11, 2007 at 12:28 PM
Categories: Driving Directions, Mapping Errors
How Online Maps Update Their Data After Major Road Closures
This week has revealed a lot about how the online mapping sites respond to disasters that close major routes and affect driving directions. Within two days of the MacArthur Maze freeway collapse in Oakland, Google Maps, Yahoo Maps and MapQuest… »
Posted on Thursday, May 3, 2007 at 8:28 PM
Categories: Driving Directions, Online Maps, Roads, San Francisco, Seattle
A GPS News Roundup: Car Navigation Security, Robust Surface Navigation, Solar Flares
Security experts — who, to be fair, have an interest in crying wolf — warn that hackers can use off-the-shelf equipment to send messages to car navigation systems using the FM channel for traffic and weather data. Remember: if your… »
Posted on Tuesday, April 24, 2007 at 10:03 AM
Categories: Driving Directions, GPS, Traffic Conditions
Trans-Atlantic Driving Directions
For a giggle, have a look at Google Maps’s driving directions from New York to Dublin, Ireland. Take special note of step 23. Lord help us if this makes its way into dashboard navigation systems. Via Kottke. Update: The MetaFilter… »
Posted on Thursday, March 29, 2007 at 9:33 AM
Categories: Driving Directions, Online Maps
Plunging into a River — That Makes Sense
Here we go again. Another story proving that an onboard GPS is a poor substitute for common sense, or at least some signs of neural activity. A woman drove her expensive Mercedes into a river in Leicestershire, and needed to… »
Posted on Tuesday, March 27, 2007 at 10:48 AM
Categories: Driving Directions
‘Do Not Follow Sat Nav’
Fed up with large trucks getting stuck along a narrow laneway that their navigation systems sent them down, residents of the Hampshire village of Exton asked for, and received, signs warning drivers to disregard their GPS receivers, The Mail… »
Posted on Tuesday, February 20, 2007 at 11:12 AM
Categories: Driving Directions
Toyota’s Customized Map Updates
Just how hard is it to update the maps on in-dash GPS navigation systems? The fact that Toyota’s announcement — that it has developed a way to simplify and speed up the process by only updating the maps relevant to… »
Posted on Saturday, February 10, 2007 at 12:44 PM
Categories: Driving Directions
Around and Around and Around and Around
Google gets a bit confused on the road to North Brunswick, New Jersey, Valleywag reports. Update, 1/23: Google has corrected the directions, but Chad has screenshots if you missed it…. »
Posted on Monday, January 22, 2007 at 10:20 AM
Categories: Driving Directions, Mapping Errors, Online Maps
Correcting Directions
Dave Winer discovers a better route than the directions suggested by Google Maps, and wonders: “So — when does mapping become a two-way app? I’d be willing to tell their software that I have a better route, it’s one that… »
Posted on Saturday, January 20, 2007 at 7:05 AM
Categories: Driving Directions, Online Maps
Roadnav
Roadnav is open-source navigation software meant to be run on an in-car computer connected to a GPS; it runs on Windows, Mac OS X and Linux. “Roadnav can obtain a car’s present location from a GPS unit, plot street… »
Posted on Wednesday, January 3, 2007 at 5:18 PM
Categories: Driving Directions, Software
Were the Kims Led Astray by Online Maps?
On the other hand, sometimes stories about being led astray by navigation systems aren’t so amusing. The tech community has been concerned about the disappearance of CNet senior editor James Kim and his family while on vacation: his family was… »
Posted on Tuesday, December 5, 2006 at 10:00 PM
Categories: Driving Directions, Mapping Errors, Online Maps
Ambulance Goes Slightly Astray
Another screwup thanks to blindly following a GPS navigation system instead of, well, thinking, this time by a British ambulance that went 200 miles off-course on what was supposed to be a routine, 20-minute transfer. The drivers, according to the… »
Posted on Tuesday, December 5, 2006 at 9:51 PM
Categories: Driving Directions
Allan Doyle: ‘Georectifying My Mental Map’
Allan Doyle on the “life-changing” impact of a GPS: “I don’t know about you, but my mental map of greater Boston has been simplified to an abstraction that borders on the scary. Of course, I didn’t realize that until I… »
Posted on Monday, November 13, 2006 at 9:14 AM
Categories: Driving Directions
Dvorak on GPS: ‘Buy a Friggin’ Map!’
Dvorak, being Dvorak, disses GPS devices: “I’ve had the various DeLorme and Microsoft systems and a number of nifty handheld devices. My conclusion: Buy a friggin’ map! Much of the appeal of the GPS is that the general public today… »
Posted on Tuesday, October 31, 2006 at 11:10 AM
Categories: Driving Directions
Discriminav
“Discriminav” is a dark bit of humour from Talkshow with Spike Feresten: Via GPS Tracklog. This skit is teh funny, but what it describes is also totally possible: all you’d need to do is mash up census data with driving… »
Posted on Tuesday, October 24, 2006 at 12:50 PM
Categories: Driving Directions, Video
More German Driving Misadventures
As God as my witness, I thought Germans could drive. But we have two more stories of drivers following their GPS navigation systems to unusual ends: last Monday, a driver rammed a staircase in Rudolstadt, and on Thursday a… »
Posted on Monday, October 23, 2006 at 8:38 PM
Categories: Driving Directions
Hang a Left at the Pile of Sand
Aged German driver obeys navigation system, ignores construction barricades, crashes into pile of sand. Via Engadget. See previous entries: Getting Stuck in a Narrow Welsh Laneway; Because My Car Said So; Crackpot Directions Send Drivers Along a Cliff…. »
Posted on Wednesday, October 11, 2006 at 10:36 AM
Categories: Driving Directions
NY Times: Navteq in New York
The New York Times adds to the pile of coverage about digital mapping data providers with this piece about Navteq’s field surveyors, tagging along as they survey a part of Queens. Since Navteq and TeleAtlas don’t sell directly to consumers,… »
Posted on Saturday, July 8, 2006 at 8:15 AM
Categories: Driving Directions, Surveying
MapQuest: Multi-stop Route Builder
All Points Blog reports that MapQuest has released a beta of a new (for them) thing for their directions feature: multi-point route building (press release). See previous entry: More About MapQuest’s Future…. »
Posted on Thursday, June 29, 2006 at 9:25 PM
Categories: Driving Directions, Online Maps
Getting Stuck in a Narrow Welsh Laneway
On We Make Money Not Art, Régine rounds up previous stories about drivers in the UK being led astray (into rivers, along cliffs) by their dashboard GPS navigation units. (Or rather, about drivers in the UK allowing themselves to be… »
Posted on Monday, June 19, 2006 at 7:45 AM
Categories: Driving Directions, GPS
Major Google Maps European Update
First there was a massive update of Google Earth’s satellite and aerial photography, much of which affected (and improved) the imagery for Europe. Then that imagery was carried over to Google Maps, which again had an impact on European views…. »
Posted on Tuesday, April 25, 2006 at 7:27 AM
Categories: Driving Directions, Google Earth, Online Maps, Satellite & Aerial
Because My Car Said So
If you thought sending drivers along a 100-foot cliff was crazy enough, you won’t believe this entry from the annals of bad directions from wonky British in-car navigation systems. Except this time I’m not so sure if it’s the fault… »
Posted on Saturday, April 22, 2006 at 10:24 AM
Categories: Driving Directions, GPS
The New Yorker on Road Maps and Directions
This week’s New Yorker has a long article by Nick Paumgarten on mapping, the principal focus of which is driving directions, but which has lots of little digressions into cognate areas like road maps (and their history) and digital mapping… »
Posted on Monday, April 17, 2006 at 9:46 AM
Categories: Driving Directions, Roads, Surveying
Crackpot Directions Send Drivers Along a Cliff
BBC News: “Drivers following satellite navigation systems through a village called Crackpot have been directed along a track at the edge of a 100-ft cliff.” Another entry in the annals of errors made by in-car navigation systems. Via Slashgeo. See… »
Posted on Sunday, April 9, 2006 at 4:06 PM
Categories: Driving Directions, GPS, Mapping Errors

Note: Entries from 2003 were not categorized and will not appear in the category archives. Please consult the monthly archives.