Morning Read: GPS leads travelers astray in Adirondacks

The Albany Times-Union ran a fun piece over the weekend looking at the way GPS navigation systems lead motorists astray when driving through the Adirondacks.

Writer Brian Nearing tells the tale of a couple returning home to Syracuse from a wedding in Plattsburgh who wound up axle-deep in snow on a snowmobile trail.

Asked how they got there — more than 100 miles from home — the sheepish driver said his GPS unit directed him to turn off Route 8 near Speculator, Hamilton County, and onto Fly Creek Road. But the seasonal road isn’t plowed during the winter, when it’s a marked snowmobile trail.

“The snowmobile trail was packed hard, so he could drive on it. But when he went off the trail, the vehicle sank into the powder,” [state forest ranger Tom] Eakin said. Despite being dressed for a wedding, the driver managed to hike up the trail until he got cell service to call 911 for help.

Eakin’s advice to travelers using GPS in the Park?  “As soon as it tells you to turn off a paved road you should start questioning it.”

Sounds like wisdom to me.  The sad part is that I’ve gotten that lost — and gotten stuck on roads that remote — without a GPS that I could blame.

Read the full article here.

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5 Comments on “Morning Read: GPS leads travelers astray in Adirondacks”

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  1. PNElba says:

    My GPS has my house on the wrong side of the road.

  2. Pete Klein says:

    One thing GPS is good for is allowing the FBI and CIA and a host of other government snoops to know where you are?
    GPS in phones and cars are like ankle bracelets criminals are forced to wear.
    The good news is that the tax payer doesn’t need to pay for you to be tracked by the government. The bad news is that you pay.
    By the way, taking a wrong turn in Speculator isn’t new. A year or two back, some trucker looking for a short cut ended up going down Elm Lake Rd. They were going east. They went east down a road that got worse and worse. It was a logging road and they had a hard time finding a place to turn around once they finally realized the mistake.

  3. Brian says:

    I often hear stories of people who want to get off at Exit 21 or 22 of the Thruway and end up getting off Exit 21 or 22 of the Northway… because both are I-87.

  4. Bret4207 says:

    This seems a fine example of Darwins theory at work. If you aren’t smart enough to be able to tell the difference between a highway and a snowmobile trail….well, there ya go.

  5. Paul says:

    Classic, I am with Bret. These GPS folks are like Lemming’s being led off a cliff. Don’t think just follow, see where that takes you!

    I shouldn’t be too hard. One winter many years ago I was on the Blue Mountain road and I got to the end where the plowing had stopped and the snowmobiles had really packed it down nice and wide. I seriously considered driving on and seeing if I could make it to Paul Smith’s. I drove a little ways before I decided this was a dumb idea and backed out. I am sure I would have been in tougher shape than this guy when I hiked out.

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