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Re: GPS unhelpful in Death Valley; visitors narrowly escape with their lives

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GPS unhelpful in Death Valley; visitors narrowly escape with their lives
July 31, 2010 11:18AM
Three women left Pahrump Thursday, July 22, expecting to take a sightseeing tour to Scotty’s Castle in Death Valley and be home in time for dinner.

That was not to be.

http://pvtimes.com/news/lost-and-found-in-death-valley/
avatar Re: GPS unhelpful in Death Valley; visitors narrowly escape with their lives
August 01, 2010 12:38PM
The following paragraph is from the NPS Death Valley website (http://www.nps.gov/deva/planyourvisit/directions.htm):
"Using GPS Navigation
GPS Navigation to sites to remote locations like Death Valley are notoriously unreliable. Numerous travelers have been directed to the wrong location or even dead-end or closed roads. Travelers should always carry up-to-date road maps to check the accuracy of GPS directions. DO NOT DEPEND ONLY ON YOUR VEHICLE GPS NAVIGATION SYSTEM."  




Added notes:
Practically all maps larger than city-level contain longitude and latitude information along the edges; unfortunately, the NPS park maps seem to be universally devoid of this data. Assuming that the automobile GPS-DFI (Global Positioning System – Directions For Idiots) units actually allow one to view your coordinates, it is trivial to determine your location assuming that you are in possession of any sort of road map.

Even if a map doesn't contain any long./lat. information, one can still easily determine their location if the automobile units allow one to also access the coordinates of any two locations on the map (assuming that reasonably large differential long. & lat. coordinates exist between the two). The NPS map of Death Valley, for example, also extends to Panamint Springs, Lone Pine, Beatty, and Death Valley Junction in addition to showing locations inside the park boundries.
avatar Re: GPS unhelpful in Death Valley; visitors narrowly escape with their lives
August 01, 2010 04:28PM
And the GPS people do not care. I've sent several emails to google maps, and yahoo maps, offering to correct their maps on Yosemite and the surrounding area or give them the correct information and let them fix it. I have gotten no response at all.
avatar Re: GPS unhelpful in Death Valley; visitors narrowly escape with their lives
August 01, 2010 05:47PM
Quote
Dave
And the GPS people do not care. I've sent several emails to google maps, and yahoo maps, offering to correct their maps on Yosemite and the surrounding area or give them the correct information and let them fix it. I have gotten no response at all.

They'll start caring when some lawyer figures out a way around their disclaimers.
avatar Re: GPS unhelpful in Death Valley; visitors narrowly escape with their lives
August 02, 2010 10:19AM
I suspect the missing road signs were made of aluminum, a high theft item due to their scrap value.
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