Following Google Maps directions in rural Tasmania and encountered this sign.

This has always been the case. I lived on a road that did not go through, Google and Apple said it did, people would argue with me and I would say ‘I have lived here for eight years, go ahead I will see you again in twenty minutes’. The would come back twenty minutes later and be mad at me.

One day when I was really bored I looked through our city archives and found a map from the 1930’s showing the road went through(proposed, never happened). No other map did including the current city map, or my paper map.

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The problem is the way Maps determines routes makes a lot of assumptions but there’s rarely, if ever, a human to correct it until it gets reported a significant number of times. It also tends to fine-tune the routes based on data from drivers. If enough drivers drive down a road and onto another road with Maps open, Google takes that to mean the road is open and the route connects.

In these kind of backwater, low population places, there often isn’t enough data. Not enough people driving down these roads with Maps open, and not enough people that encounter a bad route bother to report it to Google. So no human ever corrects it.

Yet another example of how terrible Google makes its services by refusing to hire humans to manage these things.

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- Sure there are rough edges, but I’ve got to say Google maps is one of the most valuable tools I use, I used it more days than not, and it’s free. I remember the days of printing out directions from MapQuest or having a whole map of the country you keep in your car. Modern map apps are kind of a miracle.
  
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- There was a story of a guy whose property had exits on either side. Google/Apple/whatever picked up on his data and everyone started using it like a public thruway. He said he had to put up an earthen berm and wood fence (losing his own access to one side).
  
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- I know, but being a beta tester for a map sucks, and this road had a ’ dead end’ sign.
  
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Do you happen to remember what the basis of their arguments were?

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- It was always the same, ‘Maps says this road goes through/ it’s a shortcut’.
  
  It made me wonder what nefarious things they thought I was up to by telling them the road ended at a small tree covered hill.
  
  4

I had to rescue people here in Ecuador as well. Two cloud forest roads on both sides were somehow connected magically! I mean it’s a road but not passable when any rain you get stuck in biggg hill mud slide shit. Believe me you can die, damage your car, etc. Ppl were there cutting off the last part of 10hours drive, 3cars with like ten kids no water food was dark already. Scary man how people follow Google maps. Openstreetmap was same and don’t worry by now my update there has been copied by Google somehow… I did mark as emergency so maybe then they share.

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Thanks man, lo agradesco!

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- They were my own clients so was my responsibility but yeah it’s crazy they actually had a road on line from Pedro Cabro direct to Olón… MAYBE IF YOU HAVE A DONKEY (or good motorbike) jaaja
  
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in Germany close to were I live we have an “official” sign saying “your navigation system is lying”

Image transcription: German sign saying “your navi is lying, no passage to the castle”

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56 comments and nothing about the fact that you can submit edits to Google if the map is wrong

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Submit your edits to OpenStreetMap instead. Fuck doing unpaid labor for Google; they can fucking pay somebody for it.

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- I have thousands of edits on OSM for over a decade, but people getting lost is less cool than spending 3 minutes trying to help people
  
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- Normally I’d agree with you but a lot of people use Google and driving for a few hours in the wrong direction in Tasmania can kill you. Fixing something like this might well be a humanitarian action.
  
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- This is the way.
  
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I had to submit a trail edit 4 times to make it stick after many others had done the same already. You can only do what you can do. I always tell them they are liable for any incident if they have prior knowledge as if that would make a difference.

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I did that once, they rejected it. Wasn’t until they eventually did another pass for updated photos did they update it.

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I heard stories about that feature, apparently sometimes they accept the changes and then revert them again for some reason. Like sometimes the wrong information comes from the government that classified a dirt road as a highway and Google eventually reverts any changes because they trust the government data more.

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- You can have gravel highways.
  
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Actually the second top comment is about that. 😜(yours)

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- ¯_(ツ)_/¯
  
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LOL, not surprised. Google Maps has really gone to shit. Just like their other products...

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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.”

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How many had to go that way be for to get this sign put up though ?

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Saw a similar thing while traveling in the Colorado mountains - I guess the third time they had to wait for a tow truck to rescue a tourist from what essentially is the loooong start of their driveway?

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In Bolinas (small coastal town in West Marin County, north of San Francisco) google maps is accurate but the locals hate out of towners so much (esp surfers) there’s a concerted community effort over the years to file false reports on Google maps so tourists get lost and can’t find their way to Bolinas.

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I caretake a tiny off-grid cottage, nestled in the protected dunes of a beach community and surrounded by conservation land. There are a lot of paper roads (also known as an Unformed legal road - a street or road that appears on maps but has not been built) in the area, but one in particular also appears on both Google and Apple’s maps. I can not tell you how many vehicles I’ve seen stuck in sand up to the door panels because they were told by their device to drive that way.

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When two-headers save your bacon. Thanks bro!

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Boy do I know that one.
Google maps marks my (admittedly very long) driveway as a road actually located a quarter mile south of my place.
As a result I get three or four people a month driving past my 'keep out' and 'private road' signs to whom I must explain that Google is wrong.
Then I explain that driving past keep out signs up here in the mountains is a REALLY BAD IDEA and they are incredibly lucky they did it at my place and not one of my neighbors, who come out with a gun.

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Would people really shoot someone for getting lost? I know the answer is yes but damn

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- @can
  
  Maybe not. But you still don't want someone with a gun berating you for ignoring a sign they feel strongly about.
  
  I try to be a little nicer, but I feel pretty strongly about that sign myself. It means what it means.
  
  FWIW: There's a whole code of conduct thing up here about going onto people's property. If you aren't a friend or a delivery, even if they know who you are, you park at the end of the road and honk your horn. If they want to talk to you they will come out and wave you in.
  
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when you're stuck, just relax and stay awhile, can't hurt 🤕

Image transcription: If you can't go left or right or stright, just relax an stay awhile

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use and support based on #OpenStreetMaps and rectify any errors you find yourself. Saves you and others the expense of wasted time, Spraypaint and Board. #OrganicMaps

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I think "Google is wrong! Go back!" is just good advice in general these days

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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.

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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.

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took several years to get Gargle to remove a street name from a neighbour's driveway. Tourists were trying to drive through their house to get to another imaginary road.

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read this somewhere and it seems accurate for this “google maps will take you through a lake if it saves 36 seconds”

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Google 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.

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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.

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Don’t even think of using GoogleMaps for bushwalking in Tasmania! Thousands of lakes on the map that don’t actually exist.

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LOL, that screenshot looks more like Canada.

Edit: unlike the immediate area you screenshotted, the area just northwest of it (Walls of Jerusalem National Park) looks like it legitimately does have a whole bunch of lakes, 'cause they show up in the aerial photography as well as the map layer. What’s up with that? Are they glacial or karst or what?

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isn't the only Australian state where this is an issue
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-11-30/grazier-makes-sign-trust-me-not-google-after-maps-confusion/103142386

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my kid goes to the oldest freaking high school in Southern Florida if not the whole state.
Google maps cannot navigate you to the front of the school. Always takes you to a secured gate on the side of the school.

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a recent trip to Tassie confirmed we really need an “avoid unsealed roads” option in Australia

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just got added to my desktop wallpaper collection.
Now I need to figure out the best way to add it graphically as an email signature...

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I thought this was a comment on how much google search isn't regexpr anymore and totally (*&#$*^* #SmashesComputer

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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.

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Sadly, Suburbitanks just ain’t what they used to be.

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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...

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What’s your day job?

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did you go back?

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If I see this sign, I get a lot more curious to go that route lmao.

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There was a wide dirt road near my city in Mexico that appeared as “paved” for decades in printed maps, looks to me like some corrupt politicians in power back in the 70s skimmed more than just the cream off the top, all they managed was to scrape the wide road with no budget left over for the asphalt phase.
This road finally got paved around 15 years ago, since then the old map are now correct.

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this sign works on a number of levels

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This would probably be a good addition to 's images folder.

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I mean paper maps had the same problem. That road going north from Arco, Idaho that cuts 150 miles off your trip?

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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

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dont use google maps!

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I’ve had that happen at backwoods gas stations, I’ve always politely said thank you 😊

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lol city kids. The lesson: The terrain isn’t the data (map). #GroundTruth

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This is true of so many things

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“sign of the times”, as you do.

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There are quite a few signs like this across Australia.
Some even resemble official council signs.
I've even met property owners who regularly have to put drivers back on the right path after they have ventured into the middle of someone's place.
Relying on google in the bush is a very bad idea.

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so what did you do? Did you go back? I’m curious now!

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it’s right in so many levels 😅

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Well, if that isn't a message the whole world needs to hear!

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Ah yes, a classic case of midlands madness.

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I might have to start putting up some of these signs!

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Well, that's not a good sign.

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We've(USA) had issues with mapping programs, not just Google maps, routing people down rough two tracks who didn't have the skills, nor the vehicle, to handle those rough two tracks. Many mapping programs deleted those roads. I think they should have marked them as not available for routing.

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A really on-the-ball mapping program would give a “high-clearance 4x4 only” option to route over them.

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#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

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Google maps does not work well, try use

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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.

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there’s quite a few like that
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-12-28/google-maps-sending-people-wrong-way-quairading-shire/103207090

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Need one on my street. People put the suburb in and it takes them to the middle of the suburb. Yet the people want to go to the beach. Some even get out and start looking around for the beach. Instead they find a creek and oval. Not that many beaches where you drive to a base of a hill.

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LoL Here be dragons

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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.

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