From space, from the satellites, the route may look shorter.
But on the ground, it may not work.
State Highway Signage, US 11 and VA 56; near Steele’s Tavern, Virginia. “GPS Routing Not Advised” Photo by Linda Walcroft
At the View from Squirrel Ridge, comments suggest that Virginia has several places like this, where the GPS favoring the shortest route may include inclines and turns that trucks cannot make. It’s hell to back up a big truck for several miles of twisty, narrow roads.
More:
- A commenter called our attention to a recent Utah case, which reminded me of this post from long ago: “In the Utah desert, a GPS is no substitute for common sense“
I’ll look that one up, Bob.
In the meantime, there was this 2008 story on KSL by our old friend John Hollenhorst, about an extended family from California who used GPS to get a shortcut across the Utah desert — only to find that while the map showed the road going straight, at some point it made a sheer drop of several hundred feet off a cliff. By that time, the family was out of gasoline in all their vehicles . . .
https://timpanogos.wordpress.com/2008/08/10/in-the-utah-desert-a-gps-is-no-substitute-for-common-sense/
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Not too long ago, GPS led a vacationing couple in Utah into winter trouble down a nearly invisible and diminshing dirt track in snow… the sort of streambed and goat path Utah counties are trying to claim are “roads” in constant use to deny Federal regulation.
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