Arthur T Knackerbracket has processed the following story:
German motorists likely felt disheartened at the sight of all the stop signs on Google Maps [last] Thursday. The Guardian reports that major roads in western, northern, south-western and central parts of the country were shown as closed. Even parts of Belgium and the Netherlands appeared to have ground to a halt.
The situation was exacerbated by the incident taking place at the start of a four-day break for the Ascension holiday, when many Germans were travelling. It led to a huge number of Google Maps users heading for alternative routes to avoid the non-existent closures. Somewhat ironically, this caused huge jams and delays on these smaller roads.
Drivers not relying on Google Maps – and any Google users who decided to check another service or the news – didn't have to deal with these problems. Apple Maps, Waze, and the traffic reports all showed that everything was moving freely. The major highways were likely quieter than usual as so many Google Maps users were avoiding them.
The apparent mass closure of so many roads caused panic among those who believed Google Maps' warning. Some thought there had been a terrorist attack or state-sponsored hack, while others speculated about a natural disaster.
When asked about the glitch, which lasted around two hours, Google said the company wouldn't comment on the specific case. It added that Google Maps draws information from three key sources: individual users, public sources such as transportation authorities, and a mix of third-party providers.
Ars Technica contacted Google to ask about the cause of the problem. A spokesperson said the company "investigated a technical issue that temporarily showed inaccurate road closures on the map" and has "since removed them."
With Google Maps drawing information from third parties, the issue could partly have been related to the German Automobile Club's warning that there may be heavy traffic at the start of the holiday. Google also added AI features to Maps recently, and we all know how reliable they can be.
There have been plenty of other incidents in which Google Maps got things very wrong. Germany was cursing the service again earlier this month when it showed highway tunnels being closed in part of the country when they were open.
In 2023, Google was sued by the family of a North Carolina man who drove his car off a collapsed bridge as he followed directions given by Google Maps. The case is ongoing.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 05, @01:53PM (2 children)
Check other map services if Google Maps shows anything unusual.
I don't use the in-car turn-by-turn, so I'm not too worried about being directed off a broken bridge, or into a river...
(Score: 4, Funny) by Tork on Thursday June 05, @02:20PM (1 child)
Dammit, my alternative is Apple Maps.
🏳️🌈 Proud Ally 🏳️🌈
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 06, @01:29AM
My main is Waze (owned by Google but the suggested routes often seem different from Google Maps), alternative is Here WeGo which can work 100% offline (download the maps).
In the context of this story, it has significant German ownership:
https://www.here.com/about/investors [here.com]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Here_WeGo [wikipedia.org]
As for the collapsed bridge incident in the summary, I don't think Google should be at fault unless a widely published paper map has been marking that collapsed bridge for years/decades... 😉
(Score: 3, Interesting) by JoeMerchant on Thursday June 05, @01:59PM (7 children)
There's a particular route here that runs along the riverfront, two lanes passing a long stretch of multi-million dollar homes. It's the original route through the area (Bartram Trail), it's a State Road, it has only three stoplights in over ten miles, it's a picturesque tree shaded drive. Google Maps will consistently re-route you off that road anytime you ask for directions in the area. It will route you on other two lane roads with more traffic, more turns, more stoplights, and even longer distances, anything to get you off that road short of telling you to make a U-turn and go back to the last alternate route.
🌻🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 05, @03:54PM (4 children)
Years ago, I used the Google Maps "Send Product Feedback" button. In my case, the aerial of a small dirt road was several hundred feet away from their road-only view -- mismatch between map and aerial photos. After a week or two, I got a nice thanks back and they fixed it.
I wonder what would happen if you sent in fake feedback, "This old road is poorly maintained, continuous potholes, don't recommend this route." Of course it would have to be a road that they had not photographed recently.
Or maybe they are open to bribes, "Please don't send people down our exclusive road. My company will up our Google Adwords budget if you can make this happen."
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Thursday June 05, @04:06PM (2 children)
> maybe they are open to bribes, "Please don't send people down our exclusive road.
We strongly suspect this, but those people are hopelessly screwed. The only traffic down their road used to be a small number of people leaving town by "the scenic route." Now, there are multi-thousand home suburb developments "on the other side" of their riverfront homes and all those people have the option to commute to their jobs in the nearby city down that road past their homes.
We live "townside" so we just go there on our way out of town, because we don't use the interstates like we're supposed to. For about 5000 new families that have moved into the new construction down there, the interstate is out of their way for trips into about half of the big city.
🌻🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by Username on Thursday June 05, @04:38PM
Might be Google employees on that road too.
(Score: 2) by istartedi on Thursday June 05, @07:02PM
When I lived in Virginia, the big outlet mall in Prince William County, Potomac Mills I think, explained how to get there without using I-95. That route was (probably still is) a scenic country road near historic Clifton and a bunch of 5 acre "estates" where a lot of rich people live. They complained and told the mall to stop telling people about it. I don't know if the mall complied or not; but the complaints made the news which might have backfired on them (Streisand effect). I had already known about it because Clifton was a long but doable bike ride, so I had checked out all the maps in the area and occasionally drove the route just for the joy of it. IIRC, there was also a trail head nearby that I used. I didn't care about getting to the mall, but plenty of people did.
Appended to the end of comments you post. Max: 120 chars.
(Score: 2) by VLM on Thursday June 05, @10:59PM
That seems overcomplicated. I have two realistic proposals:
1) Google and other authoritarian overlords accept GIS data with weights for construction / traffic planning reasons. Look we're going to rebuild the roundabout on that parallel road, boost the "OSPF-alike" distance to keep traffic on the alternative road. All they need to do it alter it a bit.
2) Someone defines which roads connect to which location based on easements and legal nonsense. All you need is one guy to "buy" a ten foot strip of land across a street and legally its no longer a thru-road in the legal system and probably driving maps. There's actually a road like that near my house that terminates a "T" into a gas station but you can drive thru their parking lot if you want to the other main road. Half the residences are closer to the other "real" exit and half the time they're headed the wrong way. I imagine the gas station / convenience store likes the idea of 1/4 of trips passing by his store, so he's not going to complain. Legally, that road access does not exist, of course. Another example, a local legacy brick and mortar mall parking lot was the easiest way to get to an office building I had a client at, so I'd get to his office by driving thru the mall. Legally there's some insane route thru residential streets to get there, but I went from one parking lot to another. My son had a job at a planned urban development type of thing with a similar arrangement where the legal street access was some ridiculous sphagetti drive to get to the back door, but everyone who's a human driver simply drive thru the food store strip mall to get there. I suspect GPS drivers and self-driving-cars will result in more weirdness like this in the future.
(Score: 2) by VLM on Thursday June 05, @04:44PM (1 child)
Is it officially a legally designated "scenic road" "rustic route" or similar?
Google Maps won't route me over those, not without some work.
What might be different in your case, is our roads with those local/state designators and signs are very nice to look at, but also very slow with reduced speed limits for obvious safety reasons.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Thursday June 05, @08:23PM
I don't think it's officially designated, but maybe...
This road is 45mph all the way, 55 in a few rare spots. The alternate roads they route you onto are 45 and 35mph, with much higher density housing, more children living on the roads, etc.
🌻🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by SomeGuy on Thursday June 05, @05:57PM (3 children)
Seriously, can one still buy paper maps, and if so, where?
I've seen those small fold-out maps for various local areas, but those don't have enough detail. Would really like a larger detailed map book. The old one I have has multiple cities covering a good chunk of the state.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 05, @06:29PM
> can one still buy paper maps
I get mine from AAA (in USA, the national auto club). I mostly pay the annual membership for free towing, because we have older cars, but membership also includes free maps. These are as good as ever (not as good as the very best road maps that I remember, but close). Some of the detailed city maps are excellent. For road trip planning, there's nothing better than opening up some paper maps and spreading them out.
There is still one person at the local office who will produce TripTiks (I haven't used one of these in a very long time). It's the flip book version of turn-by-turn navigation, including AAA making motel reservations and other travel agent services.
Book stores still stock road atlases, so that is another option if you can get by with smaller maps.
(Score: 1) by anubi on Saturday June 07, @12:05AM
https://duckduckgo.com/?q="thomas+maps" [duckduckgo.com]
"Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]
(Score: 2) by bart9h on Wednesday June 11, @02:48PM
Paper maps works. I used them all the time decades ago.
But digital maps with GPS are way more practical to use. You don't have to rely on Google or any online provider, just use OpenStreetMap [openstreetmap.org] or something like that. There are a few good apps [openstreetmap.org] that use their data.
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 05, @06:09PM
Expect to see "Godzilla Crossing" signs soon.
(Score: 2) by istartedi on Thursday June 05, @06:54PM
You know AM radio? That thing they want to remove from cars because "Wah, wah, wah, protecting from interference is too hard"? It's run by humans. They're not fail safe; but I've never heard of them making this big a mistake. Something of that magnitude will frequently be displayed as a warning by the highway department too on those big overhead signs. Those might even be less reliable than AM, because they've been hacked before but you'll know it's real when you see cops and cones.
OK, but AM is not going to get you the finesse that these real-time mapping apps do but I still don't care. First, anything can happen so you should always pad your time a bit. Secondly, I've seen plenty of cases where you're actually better off driving towards the backup because by the time you get there it's gone and every body else was discouraged from going that way. This is just a huge example of that, and it's pretty hilarious.
Appended to the end of comments you post. Max: 120 chars.
(Score: 2) by cereal_burpist on Friday June 06, @03:26AM
Load 99 Androids in a cart and walk slowly
Which, coincidentally, also happened in Germany.