You’d think there would be some code in GPSs and online direction programs like Apple/Google Maps to override a “shortest possible” path to stay on a highway, or at least a gravel road. All roads aren’t equal, even when they look the same on the phone (ugh). In Los Angeles, Waze treated a steep city street as a functional detour for getting off the freeway.
Now, in Iowa, people are being directed onto a dirt road, KWWL reports. In fact, the word “road” is generous.
I have to argue with the GPS occasionally (current signature in the corner of this blog notwithstanding) because I want to stay on the signed road or just because I know what I’m doing. Take, for example, Google’s suggestion for going between Greenfield and Centerville. Looking at a paper map or atlas, the obvious route is IA 25, US 34, IA 14, and IA 2, but Google hits up some county roads on either end.
If I, the roadgeek, have this issue, what does that mean for the less geographically inclined? Should we treat this as a precursor of the eventual robot uprising? (As one of the remaining map-reading life-forms I’d be useful. Or a target for extermination. One of the two.)