The Wall Street Journal
Steered Wrong: Drivers Trust GPS Even to a Fault
Blind Faith in Devices Trumps Common Sense; A Road to Nowhere
By JENNIFER SARANOW
March 18, 2008; Page A1
If your GPS device told you to drive off a cliff would you do it? Norman Sussman nearly did. Mr. Sussman recently queried his GPS for an alternate route home after hitting traffic outside Santa Fe, N.M. Following the machine's directions, he veered up a winding mountain road, expecting to rejoin the interstate. After a half-hour of hairpin turns, Mr. Sussman stepped on the brakes: The road ended at a guardrail and a 200-foot cliff. "It looked like a small version of the Grand Canyon," he says.
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As GPS devices spread, drivers are finding that satellite navigation may replace paper maps but not common sense. By blindly following the gadgets' not-always-reliable directions, they're getting lost, hitting dead ends, and even swerving into oncoming traffic. Driving the problem are plummeting prices for GPS devices, which have taken the technology more into the mainstream. The average price of a car navigation device over the 2007 holiday season was $225, nearly half what it was the previous year, according to market researcher NPD Group. An estimated 49 million navigation devices, including in-car systems, portable and handheld units and smart phones, will be in use in the U.S. this year, says Telematics Research Group in Minnetonka, Minn.
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Transportation officials in some cities say wayward GPS users are starting to pose safety problems. Truck drivers erroneously sent to residential streets have crashed into fences and damaged walls and trees on narrow roads. Last May, the North Yorkshire County Council in England put up signs at the entrance to a gravel track declaring it "unsuitable for motor vehicles" after navigation systems had sent drivers on it as a shortcut between two valleys. The rough road quickly turns stony with steep drops in some places, and locals have had to help cars turn around. In Dyke, Va., Stone Mountain Vineyards says it has had so many complaints from visitors who have been led astray by high-tech directions that it recently added a note to its Web site: "Warning: Please follow the driving directions on the webpage. If you use GPS, or services such as MapQuest or Google maps, they WILL send you the wrong way!"
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Where problems sometimes arise is in the information the devices use to put together a route and come up with directions. Map data companies like Tele Atlas and Navteq have employees in the field recording everything from street names to lane counts and speed limits. To build their map databases, which they supply to GPS makers, they also rely on sources including transportation departments, building associations and public records. But this information can become outdated quickly as businesses move or close shop, new roads are built, and old ones are closed for repairs. Sometimes, addresses are just wrong. In Worcester, Mass., GPS users with a craving for cannolis have pulled up at the home of Thomas and Elizabeth Scano, instead of Scano's Bakery about two miles away.
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