Defeating 'Death by GPS' | Inside GNSS
Excerpt:
"But it really isnt the GPS, its the maps in their navigation systems database.
People are blindly following this GIS [geographic information system] data, Rick Hamilton, a member of the Civil GPS Service Interface Committee Executive Secretariat, told a September 13 session of the CGSIC. [GIS-based navigation maps] are getting so good at tying Point A and point B together that they are blindly following this data down roads that barely exist, that were abandoned years ago.
Drivers have died stuck on remote mountain roads or in deserts. Others have driven onto closed bridges, down animal trails, or into lakes sometimes with disastrous results. The problem has gotten so bad that the U.S. Department of Transportation launched a campaign to mandate truck guidance systems that are different from automobile guidance systems to help keep them out of places that theyre are not supposed to be, said Hamilton.
Part of the problem is out-of-date maps and users who dont know to update the maps. But many times critical information was never entered into mapping databases in the first place.
It is not enough to just enter GIS data into GIS databases anymore. We need to attribute this data, said Hamilton, who was speaking solely for himself. We need voice-over software that will give us turn by turn directions that will identify the GIS data as to what it is a private driveway, a treacherous mountain road or a goat path and warn the users when they make a turn that is not appropriate for the vehicle that they are in. People are dying.
Yeah tell me about it. The only thing there that I haven't done yet so far is driven into a lake and/or died. The worst thing I did was follow what looked like a nice shortcut through the woods to the beach - and lo and behold I wound up in some sort of secret compound filled up with people with dark glasses and killer eyes right by their shooting range. And then they motioned me over...
Another time I wound up on private road and then the gps signal suddenly stopped - it must have been jammed - and just after I pulled over some mob looking guy pulled in right next to me and asked me what I was doing on that private road...
Yeah, lots of busted up dirt roads and abandoned roads and private roads and very very private roads and roads to nowhere and cliffside roads with one narrow dirt lane and a 500 foot dropoff and hoping against hope that I don't meet someone going the other way...but I have ...Sometimes my GPS seems to love me, sometimes it seems mischievous, like on Rt 46 in New Jersey where it kept saying get off get back on until I figured out its game, and sometimes it seems to hate my guts and want to kill me!
Excerpt:
"But it really isnt the GPS, its the maps in their navigation systems database.
People are blindly following this GIS [geographic information system] data, Rick Hamilton, a member of the Civil GPS Service Interface Committee Executive Secretariat, told a September 13 session of the CGSIC. [GIS-based navigation maps] are getting so good at tying Point A and point B together that they are blindly following this data down roads that barely exist, that were abandoned years ago.
Drivers have died stuck on remote mountain roads or in deserts. Others have driven onto closed bridges, down animal trails, or into lakes sometimes with disastrous results. The problem has gotten so bad that the U.S. Department of Transportation launched a campaign to mandate truck guidance systems that are different from automobile guidance systems to help keep them out of places that theyre are not supposed to be, said Hamilton.
Part of the problem is out-of-date maps and users who dont know to update the maps. But many times critical information was never entered into mapping databases in the first place.
It is not enough to just enter GIS data into GIS databases anymore. We need to attribute this data, said Hamilton, who was speaking solely for himself. We need voice-over software that will give us turn by turn directions that will identify the GIS data as to what it is a private driveway, a treacherous mountain road or a goat path and warn the users when they make a turn that is not appropriate for the vehicle that they are in. People are dying.
Yeah tell me about it. The only thing there that I haven't done yet so far is driven into a lake and/or died. The worst thing I did was follow what looked like a nice shortcut through the woods to the beach - and lo and behold I wound up in some sort of secret compound filled up with people with dark glasses and killer eyes right by their shooting range. And then they motioned me over...
Another time I wound up on private road and then the gps signal suddenly stopped - it must have been jammed - and just after I pulled over some mob looking guy pulled in right next to me and asked me what I was doing on that private road...
Yeah, lots of busted up dirt roads and abandoned roads and private roads and very very private roads and roads to nowhere and cliffside roads with one narrow dirt lane and a 500 foot dropoff and hoping against hope that I don't meet someone going the other way...but I have ...Sometimes my GPS seems to love me, sometimes it seems mischievous, like on Rt 46 in New Jersey where it kept saying get off get back on until I figured out its game, and sometimes it seems to hate my guts and want to kill me!