Avoiding unpaved roads
Duracell Bunny
onto 40km of dirt road, during which my motorbike punctured & left me
stranded for a while till I could get mobile coverage. Map was CN NT
2009 Australia.
This happened to me last month with my other GPS in the car ( (but no
puncture that time) so it's not a GPS device error. That map was CN
2008 (non NT) Australia.
My experience in the past with reporting mapping errors to Garmin is
that they totally ignore reports - anyone had any successes, or even
acknowledgements from Garmin?
Karen
If you can't be a good example, then you'll just have to be a horrible warning.' Catherine Aird
John Henderson
> I've got my GPS set to avoid unpaved roads. Last weekend it
> routed me onto 40km of dirt road, during which my motorbike
> punctured & left me stranded for a while till I could get
> mobile coverage. Map was CN NT 2009 Australia.
>
> This happened to me last month with my other GPS in the car (
> (but no puncture that time) so it's not a GPS device error.
> That map was CN 2008 (non NT) Australia.
>
> My experience in the past with reporting mapping errors to
> Garmin is that they totally ignore reports - anyone had any
> successes, or even acknowledgements from Garmin?
>
> Karen
If I'm not mistaken, Australian mapping data sold by Garmin
comes from Sensis (a division of Telstra). Enough said?
I don't know if you can you use these free maps, or they're any
better for what you want:
http://shonkylogic.net/shonkymaps/
John
Jack Erbes
<snip>
> My experience in the past with reporting mapping errors to Garmin is
> that they totally ignore reports - anyone had any successes, or even
> acknowledgements from Garmin?
>
Garmin uses the mapping data that is supplied to them by various
commercial and government agencies. If you study the licensing details
you can figure out who that is for Oz by the credits and copyrights.
Garmin buys and packages the data and controls its presentation on the
GPS but, as far as I know, seldom if ever actually fixes any of the
errors or omissions in the actual data itself. That is something that
the agency or company that supplies the data would have to do.
For North American mapping, we have Tele-Atlas and NavTeq as the major
suppliers for mapping data and those companies use free data from U.S.
government agencies as a starting point. But both also have a pretty
extensive and ongoing programs for collecting data (people driving
around in cars and collecting info with GPS receivers, cameras, etc.) to
further improve their mapping data. And they have web sites where
anyone can report mapping errors and omissions. But if you submit a
correction today it won't be seen in the mapping until the company
involved gets around to fixing it (if ever) and until Garmin has
received and published, and you have purchased, a new version of the
mapping with the correction in it.
Maps have always had errors and omissions and always will. Some people
simply expect too much from their purchases.
Jack
--
Jack Erbes in Ellsworth, Maine, USA (jackerbes at roadrunner dot com)
(also receiving email at jacker at midmaine dot com)
** Posted from http://www.teranews.com **
Mickey
......
>
> Maps have always had errors and omissions and always will. Some people
> simply expect too much from their purchases.
>
> Jack
>
section marked as unpaved (has been paved for >30 yrs) and part of that
section is at the nearest intersection. If I have the gps set to avoid
unpaved roads, you can't get her from there, well at least not directly.
One needs to find out what the limitations are on their units and
mapping data and figure out how to deal with it.
Mickey
bgl
> ......
>> Maps have always had errors and omissions and always will. Some
>> people
>> simply expect too much from their purchases.
>>
"Mickey" <mic...@webster.com> wrote in message
news:bOGdnWf0T82vd3nV...@web-ster.com...
> So true. Shortly after my purchase I noticed the road I live on has a
> section marked as unpaved (has been paved for >30 yrs) and part of
> that section is at the nearest intersection. If I have the gps set to
> avoid unpaved roads, you can't get her from there, well at least not
> directly.
>
> One needs to find out what the limitations are on their units and
> mapping data and figure out how to deal with it.
>
There was a news report the other day about somebody who drove onto a
railroad track because his GPS told him to. At least everybody got out
of the car before the train hit it.
Sometimes you have to actually look where you're going, not just blindly
follow the computer.
Why would OP go so far on an unpaved road, anyway, if he didn't like
being on it? AND do it TWICE? Why not turn back right away -- or was
there really no alternative?
bj
Capt. Tuttle
> In article <48a8e41sn098qltvm...@4ax.com>,
> Duracell Bunny <xner...@ubgznvy.pbz> wrote:
>
>> My experience in the past with reporting mapping errors to Garmin is
>> that they totally ignore reports - anyone had any successes, or even
>> acknowledgements from Garmin?
>
>
> Sure, it doesn't happen overnight. But they do read the reports and
> acknowledge them.
I reported two corrections to NavTeq. I'm sure I'm not the only one on
one of them, but the second was a bit unusual.
When the new maps came out both corrections had been made.
Jack Erbes
If people see it as a contribution to society, they can go to the NavTeq
and Tele-Atlas pages and tell them about flaws. Garmin can be told too
but if it in the raw data, it is probably better to hope that it will
wind up on the "to do" list at the people that are building the data sets.
I've reported a few. One of them is still there and has survived three
editions of City Navigator North America.
Jack
Mike Lane
(in article <gc3hmk$jin$1...@registered.motzarella.org>):
With City Navigator (Europe) I've noticed that the majority of errors
are with the road classification, i.e. 'major', 'medium', or 'minor'
roads. Quite often very small single track roads which should be
classed as 'minor' are wrongly categorised as 'medium' or even major.
The result is that my StreetPilot will sometimes try to take 'short
cuts' which involve leaving the main road and taking very narrow
minor roads for a few miles before re-joining the main road.
I've sometimes tried to report these errors to Navteq via their 'Map
Reporter' web page. (http://tinyurl.com/y8go3w)
The problem is they don't make it very easy as they provide a check
list which just doesn't include 'road type' errors. I've tried to
describe the error in the 'comments' field they provide. I think I
might have succeeded in one case near where I live, where my Garmin
used to try to send me (and a lot of trucks) down a small farm road
instead of the slightly longer main road. The most recent update to
CN has corrected this.
--
Mike Lane (UK North Yorkshire)
To contact me replace invalid with mike underscore lane
Duracell Bunny
>
>Sometimes you have to actually look where you're going, not just blindly
>follow the computer.
>
>Why would OP go so far on an unpaved road, anyway, if he didn't like
>being on it? AND do it TWICE? Why not turn back right away -- or was
>there really no alternative?
>bj
>
Don't get all self righteous & all-knowing without more facts.
I think you don't understand the situation I was in. Firstly,
Australian roads are not too plentiful once you're off the coastal
strip. We rode for some 30 kms on bitumen road before the tar ran out.
That's not unusual, especially if maintenance is being carried out.
But the bitumen disappeared for many kms and dusk was approaching -
not a good time to be riding a motorcycle as the marsupials have no
road sense.
And why twice, you ask? Difference roads, in a different state. Each
time by the time we hit the dirt it would have meant a detour of well
over 100kms to backtrack and find an alternative route.
These roads had obviously NEVER been sealed and I maintain we have a
right to expect a road to exist if it's marked as a sealed road -
which is not always the case.
We don't have the luxury of detailed paper maps of much of Australia,
and if they did, we could not carry too much more on motorbikes. We
don't like to take unnecessary risks (hence we don't ride alone on
long rides), and many others riding to that destination had the same
experience of being routed along this long dirt track.
Thibaud Taudin Chabot
the reports of july 2008 are still open.