Blindly followling GPS in car, can be dangerous

http://driving.ca/auto-news/news/bli...-can-be-deadly It's the 2nd article after the lst one.

I know that my partner has occasionally complained about his GPS for cycle tours out of town, that it was slightly wrong. He has strong natural geospatial skills, so can spot strange things very early and can reroute himself in unfamiliar areas.

This is why I don't trust driverless cars....we are relying on preprogrammed noises, movements to trigger the car's actions.. When there is no human being present actually there to navigate with other less than perfectly navigated driverless cars.

It also makes me wonder about the drones, that Amazon is experimenting with small pkg. deliveries. No guarantee those drones would crash into a building or worse into a person

(I am a doubting Thomas when people now tell me ( a librarian who taught people how to research on fee-based databases) that you can find everything (info.) that you need via Google. No. Thousands of proprietary databases shut out Google search engine.)

[I] am too much of a control freak to ever use a driverless car. IAs far as navigation goes, I much prefer visual confirmation on a map so if I am going someplace unfamiliar I look it up on a map, use mapquest fir printed directions and use my out of date, plug in navigation system as back up.

As for physical orientation skills they used to be very good mostly because I lived in places with a large geographic reference point ie the rocky mountains and or an ocean either to the west or the east of me. Here in the flat plains and blowing grass of the Texas prairie I am totally lost.

I tend to look at directions first on Mapquest, and then use my slightly older Garmin plug in GPS as I drive. Truly, I don't drive in unfamiliar places much anymore. I just don't like it. I had to do it a lot in my last job, though, and it wore me out, as most of it was in less than desirable areas. I don't know how to use the navigation on my I Phone... I mean, I know that if I click on it, it starts at the place I'm at, but I don't know how to program in where I want to go. Nothing about technology is intuitive to me, so if I have to use it, someone will have to show me.
I used to read maps very well, but now I never use maps. I would say I have a good sense of direction, but mostly in places where I slightly know the area, not in totally unfamiliar places. I get slightly uncomfortable hiking in the woods or x country skiing, if I am not on a route I've been on before. We use GPS when doing those activities, mostly because I am overly cautious.

I drove from White Plains, NY to Virginia this past Sunday. I looked up the directions on Bing maps (I have grown to hate Google) and they wanted to send me into NYC then west into NJ on the George Washington Bridge. Only a crazy person does that, and my starting point was right off of I-287 so I took that west over the Tappan Zee Bridge and then followed signs to go south on the Palisades Parkway into NJ. I took this route once before, several years ago, and I recalled it got confusing as it neared the vicinity of the GW Bridge/NJ Turnpike. But I had a Garmin plugged in and programmed so I expected it to lead me through any confusing parts. I haven't updated the maps on the Garmin lately, but I really don't think the roads in that area have changed in the past few years.

The Garmin was telling me to turn right from the Palisades Parkway onto US-46 in about a mile, so I got in the right lane. Then without warning, the road forked. There were signs at that point that theoretically told you where each fork lead, but I was past them before I was able to comprehend what they said. There were no signs in advance of the fork to allow you to decide which lane you wanted to be in before you reached it, and the Garmin failed to warn me that I needed to stay in the left lanes until I passed the fork. The next thing I knew, I was on a ramp leading to toll booths and the GW Bridge eastbound lanes into NYC -- the opposite of the way I wanted to go.

I have an EZ Pass, but I pulled up to one of full-service booths and asked the woman inside what I should do. Basically my only option was to pay the $14 toll and cross into NYC (in slow traffic), take the first exit ramp, make two quick lefts and come back over the bridge into NJ. It was clear that she had given these directions many times before.

So I crossed the bridge twice (for a total of three times across the Hudson in one day) and started following signs for the NJ Turnpike. Again the Garmin failed me -- another big fork in the highway, this time I needed to bear right for the turnpike, but the Garmin remained silent and there was nothing on the screen to show which way to go. Fortunately these signs were clearer than the ones before the bridge so I was able to change lanes in time.

I usually find the the Garmin over-directs -- it tells me to "stay left" or "stay right" to remain on a highway anytime there is a major exit leading to a different highway, even when the correct route is obvious from the signage and road design. But in that part of New Jersey, it seemed to know the roads less than I did. I know this is a difficult area -- I've been confused and almost lost before when looking for the right exit after crossing the GW Bridge, and once my sister ended up going in circles for while trying to figure it out. But the whole point of having a navigation device is to get you through the confusing parts.

And that $14 toll would have paid for two decent lunches this week...

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/techn...ticle24451179/

I actually shudder at the idea of programming a heavy duty object like a car, to predict pedestrian behaviour (to avoid collision/injury). Can we guarantee this for small drones for dropping packages and flying around in our city skies without hurting someone?

I do have specific opinion of Google search engine --it scours only web pages and documents placed on the open Internet. I realize that Google has done some neat stuff for automatic semantic ranking/matching. It doesn't dig into proprietary meaty databases --that have their own software platforms, search engines, firewalls and also may require (hefty) access log-in fees. Google cannot help you in a few minutes to direct you to the right database(s) out of several similar databases if you don't know the scope/general coverage of a database. The sad thing is not everything has been digitized and most likely never will be. There is still a decent amount of brand new hard copy content that is not digitized -- since publishers have a vested interest financially while they also run their fee-based digital services/products division.