this post was submitted on 26 Sep 2024
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My dad uses Google Maps, and he mentioned that it seems to be getting worse. Like, giving him directions that are obviously worse than alternatives. Has anyone else here experienced this?

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[โ€“] [email protected] 29 points 2 months ago (11 children)

Yes, it is. I use it every day to visit multiple locations. My personal pet peeve is when it displays "In 1.5 miles, continue straight". On a road where there's no changes in that distance. That's not part of the directions, that's just continuing. Not only is it unhelpful because I can't not do this "step", but I can't see the next, actual step, which could be "In 200 ft, turn left" and won't know which lane to be in.

I can't prove it, but I think at some point they applied an automatic algorithm that added intermediate steps to all their routing (for when a road curves a certain way, etc), but it was too aggressive and not human-reviewed.

[โ€“] [email protected] 3 points 2 months ago (6 children)

I've seen it do that for decades now, and in at least two cases I see it happen is when a highway enters town and gains a name, like how Florida Route 92 becomes International Speedway Boulevard when you enter Daytona Beach. Or, when another route joins the corridor you're on, like throughout North Carolina US-1, US-15 and US-501 weave in and out of each other a few times along with a few state routes joining and leaving.

So I think when it hits points like this, it sometimes interprets them as intersections rather than junctions, and its programming requires it to issue a direction for an intersection. YOU might not see it as an intersection but IT does.

[โ€“] [email protected] 1 points 2 months ago (1 children)

That's exactly what it is. I just had this happen where two US highways merge, and it told me to "keep straight on HWY 20" at that location. You'll also often see this where two interstates merge for a while in and around cities.

[โ€“] [email protected] 5 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (1 children)

A bigger problem I have than occasionally hearing "Keep straight on Highway 20" is "Keep straight on US-20, US-94, US-1, US-15, US-501, US-99, US-98, NC-24, NC-27, NC-17, PG-13, PS-5, N-64, I-95, I-85, I-40, Bragg Boulevard for 1.3 miles."

It puts the instruction at the beginning, and then it talks so long you forgot what it told you to do. It's how you stack overflow a human.

[โ€“] [email protected] 2 points 2 months ago

I'm sorry, I wasn't paying attention. What were you saying?

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