Giselinde
Mike ElganFollowing Google Maps directions in rural Tasmania and encountered this sign.
Lazarou Monkey Terror 🚀💙🌈@MikeElgan this sign works on a number of levels
danwwilson 
@Lazarou @MikeElgan I remember camping a few years back and google nav giving wrong directions to the camp ground. We realised the at it was giving us a bum steer. Later that night we went to rescue a woman whose car had gone off the side of the track google directed her up incorrectly to get to the camp ground.
Paladin 
@Lazarou @MikeElgan It is the Tasmanian Devil no doubt
Sean Kennedy@MikeElgan I might have to start putting up some of these signs!
@pineywoozle ‘s #3WordNote@MikeElgan LoL Here be dragons
otheorange_tag@MikeElgan I thought this was a comment on how much google search isn't regexpr anymore and totally (*&#$*^* @#*&$^(#$&*((*^*#$ @#$&^(*^#@$ #SmashesComputer
Everyday.Human Derek@MikeElgan
I’ve had that happen at backwoods gas stations, I’ve always politely said thank you 😊
I’ve had that happen at backwoods gas stations, I’ve always politely said thank you 😊
John Watson 🇺🇸🇨🇦@MikeElgan Love this.
seanA “sign of the times”, as you do.
Marly Salazar
arceuthobium@MikeElgan I mean paper maps had the same problem. That road going north from Arco, Idaho that cuts 150 miles off your trip?
Jim. From Kansas.@MikeElgan There's a music festival in small town Kansas that attracts people from the cities. Every year, the local Sheriff's office is all over Facebook warning people that Google Maps lies, and even your Suburbitank will get stuck if you follow the suggested route down an unmaintained farm path.
random thoughts
Jef Poskanzer@MikeElgan This would probably be a good addition to @pluralistic 's images folder.
it's B! Cavello 🐝@MikeElgan #Alt4You image description (you may be able to update your post to make it more accessible): “Google is wrong. Go back” spray painted on plywood propped up by roadblock hazard indicators in front of a long dirt road
Mark Shane Hayden@MikeElgan I think "Google is wrong! Go back!" is just good advice in general these days
Jérôme@MikeElgan so what did you do? Did you go back? I’m curious now!
@jerome We went back! : )
Gwyn@MikeElgan LOL, not surprised. Google Maps has really gone to shit. Just like their other products...
🇸🇵🇪🇨🇺🇱🇦🇹🇪🇷They sent me down a non-serviceable back road in the middle of a snow storm. There’s literally no option for, “Stay on main roads, avoid back roads.”
Lightning Bjornsson* 
@MikeElgan i’m so sorry
RealGene ☣️@MikeElgan
Y'know though, if you report a problem to Maps, they can and will fix it.
There's a closed bridge in a town nearby, it's been closed for almost 3 years waiting for state funding to repair it, but nobody, not even the town highway department thought to report it to Google, so Maps routed over it all the time.
I reported it, and 3 weeks later it showed up as closed.
It may be flawed, but it's dynamic.
njsg@RealGene @MikeElgan So whether Google acts on feedback depends on the product? Or is this something where they'll only act if it's submitted from a device that (according to location data) has been near the place you suggest a correction about?
I mean, they never got back to me or did anything about unblocking
https://groups.google.com/g/mozilla.support.seamonkey, and I think I used some contact/feedback feature in the Google Groups interface.
@njsg @MikeElgan
I specifically said "Maps".
Asking GOOG to fix anything with Groups is like expecting a fossil to grow as it gets older. It's a zombie, but they probably fired the only person who knows how to shut it off.
@RealGene I’ve reported screwed up directions for stores I sold jewelry to. The owners never thought to complain to Google. @MikeElgan
Jeff Turner ⛵@MikeElgan was in Queensland heading back to Perth during covid. Had to decide which of the two roads into Western Australia we should take. Google suggested (and still does) the dirt road that goes via Warburton. It is shorter but needs permits and a decent vehicle.
J. Steven York@MikeElgan
Pre Google maps I had a Garmin navigator that, if I'd followed ANY directions from my still-current house, would have driven me down a steep embankment (in one direction, through a guard-rail) and possibly killed me within a couple blocks. It was mostly useful otherwise, but I never trusted it entirely. Earlier, I lived outside Seattle on a street that Thomas Brothers Maps had intentionally made wrong as a copyright defense. Half the traffic on our side street was people who were lost from following the map, trying to find a through street that didn't exist.
Pre Google maps I had a Garmin navigator that, if I'd followed ANY directions from my still-current house, would have driven me down a steep embankment (in one direction, through a guard-rail) and possibly killed me within a couple blocks. It was mostly useful otherwise, but I never trusted it entirely. Earlier, I lived outside Seattle on a street that Thomas Brothers Maps had intentionally made wrong as a copyright defense. Half the traffic on our side street was people who were lost from following the map, trying to find a through street that didn't exist.
CuriousMatter@JStevenYork @MikeElgan Back before I had a smartphone, out driving in the American Southwest, my TomTom navigator kept desperately trying to get me to turn off of the beautiful, scenic Utah state route I was driving, into a vast, featureless expanse with not even a pair of tire ruts to mark a path. Only a car-wide break in the seemingly endless fence, with a long untouched livestock gate marked the point at which I was to make this left in my rental Pontiac G6 coupe. Nice try, TomTom...
Robert Stainsby@MikeElgan a recent trip to Tassie confirmed we really need an “avoid unsealed roads” option in Australia
tastrax@MikeElgan Don’t even think of using GoogleMaps for bushwalking in Tasmania! Thousands of lakes on the map that don’t actually exist.
myska 
@tastrax @MikeElgan I'm pretty sure they're...'intermittent' lakes, if that makes sense
that said, it does say that there is a lake at the pinnacle of the mountain, which I'm not so sure about...
@mightyspaceman @tastrax @MikeElgan Nope, just poor mapping of “wet areas” and “marshes” from LIST Open Data https://listdata.thelist.tas.gov.au/opendata/
@tastrax @MikeElgan interesting
@tastrax @MikeElgan I was camping at lake st clair recently and I do remember seeing a whole bunch of nonexistent lakes on the map to the north-west. Went on a section of the overland track to the labyrinth and looking back I can see why some areas would get misinterpreted
Eagle Globe & Flanker
ajft [SEC=continvoucly morged]@MikeElgan my sister's farm has a council right-of-way through it, has never had a road or even a grader along the ROW. For years google would show it as a route to the nearest town, extra fun when hwy blocked by crash & the clueless tried to blindly follow google maps
🇵🇸 servisoficial 🇲🇽🇷🇺@MikeElgan jajajjajaja la filosofía del software libre, el liberalismo y anarquismo pusieron un cartel.
Clifton RoystonGoogle Maps once directed me and my family up a logging road in Washington state which became fainter and fainter and finally ended in a dead-end clearing. There had once been a further road (maybe connecting to someplace) but it was now blocked with boulders, and closed for so long that trees were growing in the middle of it. By this point all GPS and cell reception had cut out.
I was lucky that my sense of direction is good enough that we could backtrack out again.
Mastokarl 🇺🇦@MikeElgan @PeterLG in Germany close to were I live we have an “official” sign saying “your navigation system is lying”
Peter@MikeElgan Ah yes, a classic case of midlands madness.
@MikeElgan I feel obliged to find this now
Dave@MikeElgan Every couple of months or so, in my day job, I get asked to "fix Google Maps". No, I don't work at Google... I eventually drafted up a "how to do it yourself" document so that people could lodge corrections with Google themselves...
Stefan Monnier@Daveosaurus @MikeElgan "Fixing" Google Maps benefits only Google since noone else has access to their actual data. So instead of reinforcing their stranglehold, use OpenStreetMap (via applications like Osmand, OrganicsMaps, ...).
They even respect your #DigitalIntegrity.
They even respect your #DigitalIntegrity.
Twobiscuits🚴♂️ 
@MikeElgan Well, if that isn't a message the whole world needs to hear!
Cat West@MikeElgan We had a sign a couple years ago: “This is not a road. It’s a private Driveway”. We had 3-5 cars a day driving down our driveway, looking lost, trying to do U turns on our grass, it was nuts.
FREE🇵🇸PALESTINE, Says @Sine@MikeElgan dont use google maps!
JanPV@MikeElgan In Wales, Google is also often wrong, not least in the way it accepts 'suggestions' from tourists for places to be added to their maps and Earth. These names are usually English or English corruptions.
Well it’s Wales, so the correct spelling probably looks like someone removed all the vowels from a keyboard and then rolled their face back and forth a few times.
@zurohki From the country that deemed the land to be empty. Back to diplomacy school, eh?
Brian Grinter@MikeElgan there’s quite a few like that
giuseppe@MikeElgan it’s right in so many levels 😅