Dan Warne26 November 2008, 11:25 AM
Three tourists have been shot at, after their GPS navigator guided them into a notorious slum ruled by drug traffickers.
The three Norwegian tourists came under fire, with one sustaining a gunshot wound, after their GPS navigator guided them into one of Rio de Janeiro's most dangerous slum areas, Reuters reports today.
"Keep left, and stay right" is bad enough when it comes to GPS navigator instructions, but when the tourists' rental car came under fire, they realised their mistake in relying on the GPS navigator's instructions. The driver of the car, who was hit by one of the bullets, managed to keep driving the car to safety.
The tourists got lost on the way back to their beach resort in Rio de Janeiro, and used their GPS navigator to find the quickest route back to the hotel. It steered them off the main highway and into the backstreets of the Mare shantytown slum, where drug traffickers rule the streets.
Manufacturers are quick to trot out the line that GPS navigators are aids to driving only, and that drivers should use their own common sense and road knowledge, rather than relying on the navigator's instructions. The brand of navigator in the Rio de Janeiro incident wasn't disclosed.
It's not the first time a GPS navigator has made a major error, although in this case it wasn't a straight navigational error — but rather the navigator lacking the knowledge that the slums should have been a "no go zone" for casual visitors.
The Wall Street Journal reports that a Mr Norman Sussman requested his GPS calculate an alternate route after getting stuck in traffic in Santa Fe, New Mexico. The navigator steered him onto a narrow mountain road, replete with sudden hairpin turns, which ended at a guardrail stopping him plunging off a 200 foot cliff.
This writer has been directed to drive up a national park walking path, which ended in a cliff, and also to turn hard-right off a bridge (a lesson that using even a one year-old map can be dangerous — the navigator didn't know the bridge was there.)
Fixing the problem
GPS navigator makers say they are working on improving the reliability of map data. TomTom has launched a "mapshare" feature which allows users to report errors in maps, which are then checked by TomTom staff and then sent out to other TomToms when they are connected to a computer and updated.
TomTom has also launched "IQ routes" in Australia, which plot the fastest routes based on the real speed that traffic passes through roads.
TomTom marketing manager Chris Kearney explains: "Traditionally, GPS devices calculate routes based on driving at variable percentage of the posted road speeds. This could be anywhere from 80-90% of the speed limit. When TomTom users choose to share data with us when they connect their GPS unit via our Home software to the internet, we can collect anonymous historical road speeds and build a very accurate picture of how roads are really driven, not how we assume they are driven. TomTom IQ Routes builds this historical road data into our GPS maps to give users the genuinely fastest route most of the time and much more precise arrival times."
The cost of map updates is also an issue TomTom is hoping to address. Although Kearney says the $149 to $169 cost of a map update is good value compared to buying a printed street directory for every state in Australia, he admits it's still a cost barrier that puts people off updating their GPS annually, and says TomTom is negotiating with map suppliers to try to get lower prices for users.