I am currently studying in college and part of my college course dictates that I most do a work experience placement. I ended being placed in a charity shop. The first couple of days went well. Its a small little shop in a shopping center so there wasn’t much for me to do. So they decided that today I’ll do some work in the warehouse where they receive their goods.
They gave me the address but they forgot the bus so I ended taking a bus that stopped at a 20 minutes walk away. I got off the bus and tried to find this warehouse with the help of Google maps. It kept constantly telling me to go in different directions for the next 40 minutes. So I was walking around in 0 degrees Celsius weather is just a jumper. I eventually managed to find the correct area but it was in a big industrial park. I went searching around for 40 minutes and it turns out all they had to identify them is like a tiny wooden sign. So I finally got to my placement nearly 2 hours late. They were quite forgiving about it though since apparently that has happened to a few other before.
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I’ve had a few experiences like this. I started using landmarks and the compass to navigate instead but that doesn’t take into account things like a sidewalk ending or obstructions which can result in major losses in time
The last time I used Google Maps for navigation (several years ago), it had me get off a highway, and then get back on it in some strange U-turn situation… I was a guest speaker at an event, but fortunately gave myself plenty of time to get to my destination, as it wasn’t a place I’ve been to before.
I couldn’t believe it had me do all that when “continue going straight” would have been the only real option!
So, yeah. It doesn’t surprise me that it also gave you and others the runaround. I’m surprised they haven’t fixed this problem in all these years. I bet they improved the ad delivery, though.
Had you accidentally turned on ‘avoid highways’ by chance? Because the one time that happened to me it was.
Maybe it’s a non-US thing, but here in Sweden GMaps will desperately force you onto roads that it has decided are highways or some other kind of “fast” roads I guess and it makes no sense.
Nope. Absolutely not, since highways were 90% of that trip. It did this like halfway through, for no reason that I could think of. No traffic. No accidents up a head. It quite literally had me get off the highway, and reenter at the same interchange!
The only options I would have enabled would have been “avoid tolls” and “avoid ferries”. Neither of which applied for this
This morning my colleague was sent to a school she didn’t know, so she used GMaps to get the directions. She parked her car, but wasn’t able to find the school. She called me and we found out that GMaps sent her almost 1km away from her destination. I gave her the correct address and she was able to find the place, but she was late for work (no big deal anyway). After further inspection, I found out that the school was mapped as an insurance office. I suspect it’s a case of vandalism, but who knows.
I’ve stopped using Google Maps for walking directions and use Apple Maps instead. Whenever I use Google Maps, it gave me the most winding, dark backstreet walking route possible, but the same way on Apple Maps was really straightforward.
I really feel like Google is overall degrading.
