It’s not all that uncommon for me to loudly exclaim, “I hate you, Google Maps!” once I’m utilizing the app for GPS navigation in my automobile.
It’s not as a result of it doesn’t work, doesn’t get me to the place I’m going, or tells me to drive right into a lake or throughout somebody’s entrance garden.
It’s as a result of it intentionally takes me down the smallest, tightest, most inconvenient “roads” it could possibly discover in its single-minded efforts to get me to the place I’m going within the absolute quickest time attainable. My endurance has run out as a result of sooner or later, one in every of these roads will smash my automobile.
Roads will not be all alike
And neither are automobiles
You want some background data to completely perceive why Google Maps repeatedly irritates me.
First, I dwell within the UK, in a considerably rural space, and I typically drive a reasonably low, pretty broad automobile. More often than not, I drive on normal two-lane roads, the place one lane goes a technique and the opposite lane goes the alternative approach.
Generally I take advantage of a twin carriageway, which has two lanes stepping into each instructions, and on uncommon events I am going on a motorway, which has at the least three lanes stepping into each instructions. These are all effective.
Nevertheless, most rural areas of the UK are additionally linked by many small single-lane roads, the place one lane is used for each instructions of visitors, and “passing locations” are used to tuck your automobile in and let one other car coming in the wrong way move.
These roads reduce by the countryside, are sometimes poorly surfaced, have excessive banks lined in foliage on both aspect, and really restricted visibility.
They join farms and costly mansions to civilization, haven’t any streetlights, and are hardly ever totally maintained by native authorities. Quite a bit have width restrictions, which is normally all of the warning I have to not enterprise down one.
They aren’t high-traffic roads, however because of their nature, they’re utilized by tractors and different farm automobiles, supply vans, and native residents in Vary Rovers.
The others are individuals like me, the unwitting drivers following Google Maps’s instructions, as a result of the scenic route is at all times the one Maps will go for, and it drives me mad.
Roads to keep away from
However Google Maps loves them
Now I’ve painted the image, let me clarify why it is a ache with a local-to-me instance.
There’s a selected highway close to the place I dwell that’s the most direct connection between two places. It goes up and over a hill, moderately than round it.
Sadly, it’s probably the most horrendous “roads” I’ve ever pushed on. It’s a single lane, passing locations are rare at greatest, the banks on both aspect are excessive, and it’s affected by holes, jagged rocks, branches, and semi-obscured ditches.
It goes on for 2 miles, and whenever you’re on it, there’s no various however to hold on. It’s additionally both uphill or downhill, relying in your route of journey, making each maneuver extra awkward.
It’s a wonderful method to scratch your automobile’s paintwork, crack an alloy rim, puncture a tire, or scrape alongside both a department or one other car too impatient to attend so that you can transfer out of the way in which.
In a low, broad, sporty automobile, it’s the worst place you may probably think about. Even in my common automobile, it’s nonetheless hateful.
Roads similar to it are all over the place
Maps sees the prospect to avoid wasting time
But, that is the highway Google Maps needs me to observe each single time. It doesn’t care that I don’t prefer it, it doesn’t care if I intentionally go in the wrong way, and it doesn’t care if it solely saves me a couple of minutes in comparison with different, much less arduous routes.
That is the way in which it needs to take me, and it’ll at all times, endlessly re-route me in direction of it.
I’d like to say that is the one highway the place it does this, but it surely’s not. No matter the place I drive within the UK, if Maps can discover a farm observe that can keep away from a set of visitors lights, it’s going to take it. Even when, by doing so, you drive far slower together with your coronary heart in your mouth as a result of chances are you’ll meet a tractor or a fast-moving FedEx van across the subsequent blind nook.
Why does it do that? Google Maps is obsessive about saving you time, and it doesn’t differentiate between saving 30 seconds or half-hour.
That is typically very useful when confronted with loads of visitors on a selected route, and I’m not saying I would like it to intentionally pressure me to take a seat in a jam, but it surely’s much less useful when it’s not actively avoiding issues.
I’ll gladly arrive at my vacation spot a bit later if it means my automobile additionally arrives in a single piece, with all paint and trim intact, my forehead isn’t sweaty and furrowed, and my Google Pixel Watch 4 doesn’t suppose I’ve simply had a panic assault.
If you happen to’re studying and suppose Waze or Apple Maps will do a greater job, sadly, they don’t, and all three normally present me with precisely the identical route.
In any case this, am I simply moaning, or do I’ve an answer in thoughts?
There’s an answer to all this
Will it ever be added?
Sure, I’ve an answer. Inside Google Maps (and Waze and Apple Maps), there’s the choice to keep away from motorways, freeways, toll roads, and in some circumstances, unpaved roads too. There’s even the prospect to keep away from ferries.
What I would like is an “keep away from single-lane roads” possibility. This might finish the largest gripe I’ve with what’s in any other case a unbelievable GPS navigation app that I’ve relied on (and beloved) for years.
In the identical approach I can assess how totally different a journey is with motorways or with out, I might then see simply how totally different my journey could be once I solely journey on solely “regular” roads.
I do know from earlier expertise, on roads native to me, it’s normally lower than 10 minutes slower.
If that’s too difficult, I’ll take a “use solely A and B roads” possibility, which might cowl most common highway varieties within the UK, as these foolish single-lane roads typically solely have a reputation and never a chosen quantity. I recognize that that is extremely region-specific, however I’m additionally positive I’m not the one one who has skilled this irritating state of affairs.
Any various new function will certainly be higher than what I do now, which is to navigate to my vacation spot utilizing numerous totally different stops, all so I can pressure Maps to make use of regular roads. This works solely once I’m considerably accustomed to the realm, and is ineffective if not.
Both that, or I’ll simply need to resort to utilizing a paper map, simply so I may be positive my automobile will truly make it to my vacation spot in a single piece.