I’ve grown addicted to driving with a GPS unit. I realized the other day that I have grown so accustomed to it, that I leave home on trips without even first checking a map.
I am this way despite all the stories you hear of GPS units choosing lousy routes, or not even showing streets that actually exist because the maps are out-of-date. And I’ve experienced routing that is not always the best or fastest. Buy if I know I prefer a different route, I just drive that direction and sooner or later the GPS figures out what route I am bent on traveling. In fact, my Lowrance 600c (no longer available) was very good at determining my route preference when I intentionally "missed a turn."
But the other day I ran into a situation that I did not anticipate at all. My grandchildren wanted to see some buffalo, so we headed to a ranch 20 miles out of town. I was a little surprised to see that my Garmin showed what looked like a driveway was actually a road. I was even more surprised when the Garmin continued showing road when the path was nothing more than matted down prairie grass with mud ruts to guide the way. But imagine my shock when the “road” headed down a ravine and across a river that had no bridge. The water had to be two foot deep and there was so much mud along the banks that I doubt even a 4x4 truck could get through without getting stuck! But according to my GPS, it was a road.
It was not Garmin's fault. That same “road” appears on Google Maps. But with satellite view, it is a bit more apparent this is no highway. But it sure would be useful to know when the road is made of grass & dirt, and the bridge across the river is only imaginary. If I had been crazy enough to follow that route, I would have been stuck in mud so deep I couldn’t open the doors to get out. Next time we’ll look for buffalo in Custer State Park.
1 comment:
I once worked for an organization that was contracted to map all the roads in several counties via a GPS device connected to a laptop. It's amazing to see, first-hand, just how accurate that technology is.
However, the same is not necessarily true about maps--digital or otherwise. It's one thing for satellite signals to pinpoint your location on the earth. It's another thing entirely to know whether or not the roads are in the same state they were when the data was originally collected, or even if that data was accurate in the first place! Some of the people collecting that data tended to cut corners, so to speak, and it's no wonder. After driving for thousands upon thousands of miles, back and forth down every road in every town/city, and every run-down old country road, making sure to stop the vehicle at every intersection, every bridge, every building off to the side, every time the road width/material/lanes/curb/gutter/etc changes...
Maps, regardless if they're printed in a pamplet/atlas or displayed by a fancy GPS device, are truly no substitute for eyes, ears, and brains.
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