In Hawaii, GPS Keeps Sending Drivers Into the Ocean (sfgate.com) 173
Slashdot reader DevNull127 writes: In April a tourist in Hawaii followed GPS driving directions straight into a harbor. And one month later, another tourist did the exact same thing — driving into the same harbor. One onlooker remembers "screaming the whole time to get her attention but her GPS had told her to go there, so she drove right in."
When asked if they'd add warning signs, a state government spokeperson said no. "It's really clear that it is a ramp and it leads directly into the water." Although an information specialist for Hawaii's Department of Transportation did offer future tourists this advice.
"If you see a body of water, don't drive towards it."
When asked if they'd add warning signs, a state government spokeperson said no. "It's really clear that it is a ramp and it leads directly into the water." Although an information specialist for Hawaii's Department of Transportation did offer future tourists this advice.
"If you see a body of water, don't drive towards it."
let's be clear here (Score:5, Insightful)
It's not the "global positioning system" that's at fault here. It's the crappy routing and road info some jumped up advertising company has bolted together and barely tested.
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That the car rental company was glad to get for free, because advertising, but they can charge customers more $/day for the convenience of directions into the sea.
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: let's be clear here (Score:2)
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To clean up the gene pool as fast as possible, we need to kill them all off before any of them have children. The implicit IQ test for prospective parents might upset some people.
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The execution of the terminally stupid needs to be done before they have an average number of offspring - and since the average number of children is barely above 2 (in the west, overall), that means killing the majority of the stupid off before they have any children.
Yes, that's why the global elites ginned up the antivax movement.
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Sadly, it's not only the genes that cause chronic stupidity. Often it's hereditary not by genetics, but by the way parents teach their kids, as well as state/county legislated schooling stupidity. The latter is the really objectionable thing, when politicians do everything to keep kids stupid in order to ensure them to vote for bad politicians ...
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Just shoot these stupid fucking people and be done with their ignorance forever. Do you really want this idiot working in the ER when you code on the table? Darwinism for the win.
You can't shoot them cuz they probably have college degrees....
Re: let's be clear here (Score:3, Insightful)
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So, this is Darwin at work? Right?
Darwin would not have left the work unfinished. After all, he was a scientist.
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Re:let's be clear here (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:let's be clear here (Score:5, Insightful)
I always used the "driving your car off a cliff" scenario as a bit of hyperbole, but it's good to know I was pretty much on the mark. Smartphones give you cranial muscle atrophy. Or at the very least, people with cranial muscle atrophy are attracted to them.
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Just wait until cars are self driving. Passenger takes a nap, wakes up to cold feet as the water starts to pour in.
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If my phone told me? Without hesitation.....
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If you told me to? No. If my phone told me? Without hesitation.....
LOL, how does that expression go again... oh yea.. You gotta be 10% smarter than the equipment you are operating.
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It's the crappy routing and road info some jumped up advertising company has bolted together and barely tested.
That's surprising. I was expecting you to mention people being dumb enough to drive into the water. The first one did it during the day even.
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No, it is people that should not be behind the wheel of a car. I know the spot discussed; no sane person would think that was a good idea.
Re: let's be clear here (Score:3)
There are people who are absolutely lethal when driving. I don't mean the boy racer types, but those that know the routine but can't handle anything outside that.
A friend of mine once described seeing a multi car crash when he was walking. Something avoidable happened and instead of breaking a driver covered her eyes with hands and did nothing leaving the car to roll in a straight line into moving traffic. It hit a couple of other cars and caused a few more near misses.
I could well understand some drivers d
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Ah, the "Jesus, take the wheel!" approach.
Re:let's be clear here (Score:5, Insightful)
It's not the "global positioning system" that's at fault here. It's the crappy routing and road info some jumped up advertising company has bolted together and barely tested.
Ah, wrong. Let's be clear here. A meatsack with two hands, two feet, and a brain trained and certified to drive on American roadways, steered a human-powered conveyance meant for roadways, into the ocean.
The one deploying a shitty navigational solution, has a bug to address. The one who is at fault, is the moron behind the wheel that should have their license revoked. Assuming any other solution is valid, puts the rest of us at risk. Fuck that.
It's beyond time we start rewarding Stupid with consequences instead of excuses.
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This. Driving into the harbor because the GPS told you to is functionally no different than plowing through a "THIS ROAD CLOSED FOR MAINTENANCE" barrier because the GPS told you to. When driving you are supposed to have your eyes open and aware for changes to the road that the GPS has not been told about - which would include not just harbors and construction work, but also stuff like people walking across the road.
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As an engineer, as frustrating as human stupidity is, you still have to account for it.
A great example is that 11 foot 8 bridge that keeps ripping the roofs off passing trucks. They put flashing lights on it, but it didn't stop people trying to drive under it in their tall vehicles.
The solution here would be to make the slip road longer, giving the drive more time to brake. It seems like it's quite short, so they are distracted by trying to make the turn and then find themselves needing to do an emergency s
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A great example is that 11 foot 8 bridge that keeps ripping the roofs off passing trucks. They put flashing lights on it, but it didn't stop people trying to drive under it in their tall vehicles.
I don't understand why civil engineers aren't smart enough to simply install an 11' 8" tall horizontal pole BEFORE the 11' 8" bridge. People can ignore/fail to see flashing lights and signs. It's a little harder to ignore the fact that the top of your vehicle has smacked into something. And a damaged pole is much easier to fix/replace than a damaged bridge.
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Are you sure it isn't a confused fruit company sending them into the water?
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Excusing people who aren't paying attention because "it's someone else's fault!" is dumber than being the idiot texting and driving and then being shocked that this happens:
https://twitter.com/DailyLoud/... [twitter.com]
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And when an earthquake sounds through a girl's guitar, it's just another good vibration.
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Fault of the drivers, 100%. Always know where you're going, always have a good idea of the route to take before you start driving, and always LOOK where you're going. Blindly obeying a voice is just idiotic.
One possibility for a cause too is driving too fast, you make the turn a bit too fast and in the water before you can brake.
I rarely use it in my car, it's annoying and I have to stop to set up directions anway. So when I set up a destination and then on the way I stop to pick up a passenger the syste
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Man, I'm glad my GPS defaults to finding a new route to get back on track rather than demanding a U-turn, and assumes small deviations from the exact position of the road is stuff like picking someone up or stopping at a gas station.
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They drove down a ramp towards a large body of water and kept right on going.
Nothing to do with the GPS, and everything to do with that often overlooked but vitally important component: the nut behind the steering wheel.
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In the case of a harbour it might actually be that the route is valid: it's a route onto a ferry. The problem comes when someone tries to drive onto a ferry that's not there...
Re: let's be clear here (Score:4, Informative)
Stupid people are bad drivers (Score:5, Interesting)
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At least they were cited for distracted driving?
Re: Youth In Asia (Score:2)
I first heard the word spoken when I was in middle school. A teacher used it as an example topic we could choose for an essay assignment. I remember wondering, what was the issues with Asian kids? I didnâ(TM)t find out what the actual word was for quite some time after. Now, 40 years later, I still laugh when I think about how uninformed I was.
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That's a pretty heavy topic to bring up in middle school. As long as your teacher was able to guide kids through grappling with such things, good on them for shooting high.
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A yes, Emily Litella was concerned about this.. She was also very concerned about Saving Soviet Jewelry, and Violins on Television. I miss Gilda.
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Not to mention busting our schoolchildren.
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A yes, Emily Litella was concerned about this.. She was also very concerned about Saving Soviet Jewelry, and Violins on Television. I miss Gilda.
Ya gotta luv those days when you could laugh at stuff and not get cancelled the following morning....
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three step process (Score:3)
1. Rent a car.
2. Find the Maui Waui guy.
3. Follow the talking car into the sea.
Lol (Score:5, Funny)
"The computer said so!"
"If the computer said so would you drive off a cliff?"
"Well, yeah, if it said so..."
At least this isn't something that happens all day every day. It sounds like some moron drives into the water every month or so which implies a whole bunch of other people didn't do it.
I know that's a really low bar but some people still managed to fall under it.
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Indeed. The computer wouldn't lie; lol.
The really heartwarming thing here is they're refusing to add warning signs because such signs are obviously unnecessary. That's a very reasonable and level-headed response.
Also amusing, when the human "goes on autopilot", then the navigation system that likely isn't rated or certified to any standard ends up driving the car.
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It reminds me of a story from a zoo where a guy climbed over not just one, but two fences to get into the enclosure of some animal, and predictably got himself mauled. When asked what they would do to prevent this terrible, TERRIBLE tragedy from ever happening again, the zoo spokesman suggested they could put a wild animal behind the fences that would maul anyone who climbed in there. At some point you just can't keep trying to stop stupid people from being able to do stupid things.
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It's the "Do What The Car Says Challenge".
Re:Lol (Score:5, Funny)
Perhaps. I think it's a better moment to point out that artificial intelligence is no match for natural stupidity.
Runway in Fairbanks, Alaska (Score:5, Interesting)
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I actually almost drove onto a taxiway at a small airstrip recently because it looked like the logical way to go-- no signage due to ...airplanes. Were the Fairbanks incursions on the University Ave side? I can see how some of the areas there are a little tricky (There is/was a lot of points of entry via the GA ramps, but it is poor directions for sure.
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There's places where driving across the runway is normal. They have a traffic light that goes red for cars when an aircraft needs it. eg. Gibraltar.
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Now that is fascinating. Learned something today.
Maybe it's confused because ... (Score:5, Funny)
In Hawaii, GPS Keeps Sending Drivers Into the Ocean
There's an InterState Highway [wikipedia.org] in Hawaii.
Google: interstate highway in hawaii [google.com]
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Thank you for pointing this out; it made me chuckle. Life is strange.
Just imagine one of the people in this story driving into the ocean. Subsequently, a police officer pulls up to help them out of the situation, and the driver starts arguing about the linguistic construction of the word interstate.
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In Hawaii, GPS Keeps Sending Drivers Into the Ocean
There's an InterState Highway [wikipedia.org] in Hawaii.
Google: interstate highway in hawaii [google.com]
Hawaii has an InterState highway in the name of equality. All of the other states were getting InterState highways.
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Texas has 5 interstate highways that connect parts of Texas to other parts of Texas....
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That's because the full name of the system is the "Dwight D. Eisenhower National System of Interstate and Defense Highways."
Before he was President, Eisenhower was the Commander of the Allied Forces in World War II. There, he saw first hand the advantage that having high-speed roads had in keeping the forces supplied. When he was elected President, Eisenhower was very interested in creating a series of highways partially intended to allow the rapid movement of troops and supplies from one area to another,
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Because no state (or territory) wants to miss out on Federal funds allocated to the interstate highway system.
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I was thinking "a province is similar enough to a state that I'll accept it" while washing dishes, but your answer is much better. Well done.
Drive on a ferry (Score:5, Insightful)
I drove about 2/3rds of the way getting more and more suspicious and slowing down, then turned around. In a dark night it would have been entirely possible to drive into that lake.
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The ferry dock doesn't have a barrier with reflectors and perhaps flashing lights on it?
For a boat ramp, I'd expect a similar barrier. Put there to collect some exorbitant launch fee before raising the gate.
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I have seen plenty of government and private boat ramps (I live in Ontario, Canada where you can't throw a stone outside a city without hitting a lake of some kind), and not once have I seen any kind of indicator or barrier on them except a sign warning you about the angle.
Ferry docks, on the other hand, usually have a substantial gate.
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The public boat launch here doesn't have any kind of gate either. They've got their hands full finding people to check for mussel [wikipedia.org] stickers and that the boat has been properly cleaned to prevent said mussels from infecting the lake. A gate would just be one more thing to buy and operate, although there was talk of making inspection mandatory and gating all ramps, there's no budget. The lake is mussel free for now, knock on wood.
Re: Drive on a ferry (Score:2)
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100m from my house is a slipway leading into the river Thames.
No barrier, no lighting, just a road that leads straight into the river. It is intended to allow people to launch their boats.
I often wonder how long it will be before some idiot following the instructions of a bad map ends up launching their car by accident.
I have seen a satnav offer a route that involved driving to the end of a pier, swimming (maybe) to the next pier down the coast then resuming dry land travel. I didn't follow the suggested ro
Re: Drive on a ferry (Score:2)
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Wrong way in SF (Score:2)
Tourists started driving the wrong way on one way streets in San Francisco when GPS started becoming popular in rental cars. And let's pretend human beings can learn to take faulty map and GPS data and drive without crashing into something. The next question is can a self-driving car do the same thing? (spoiler: no, no it cannot)
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It's a well understood phenomenon. If you read air accident reports, often a major contributing factor is that the pilots were over-worked and lost situational awareness. A lot of effort goes into training them to divide tasks up, and in particular to have one pilot concentrating on just flying the aircraft while the other handles all the other stuff, including things like moving the throttle leavers.
Car drivers who have had little to no training in workload management are not hard to overwhelm. Another exa
Not GPS (Score:3)
The GPS just gives the position. The problem is map material made by somebody else.
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While you are certainly technically correct, linguistic usage has shifted such that people sometimes use the term "GPS" to refer to the navigation system in their smartphone or car that gives them driving directions.
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For usage I can see that. But it makes no sense when attributing errors.
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This is the thing though, linguistic usage just means people talking about stuff, which would include attributing errors. I certainly agree it confuses the issue. Proper technical terms are made for exactly this kind of thing.
GPS - the original chatGPT ? (Score:5, Interesting)
Won't admit wrongness (Score:2)
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I had Google maps send me to the top of the hill behind the UC Berkeley Greek Theater. The top of the hill is not near the Greek Theater.
honestly (Score:2)
...just remove all the warning signs. (Not my idea, but I agree with it.)
If you're that stupid, humanity is better off without you. There are nearly 8 billion of us...we can start culling a little, and this is an easy way.
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To be fair, a boat ramp should have a gate to close it, at least at night when it's much harder to see. This is somewhat common: stop the car, get out and open the gate then slowly back the boat down the ramp.
Think of it as evolution in action (Score:3)
The gene-pool will profit.
Self Driving Cars (Score:2)
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I was in Palo Alto headed to a job interview not too long ago.
Nav system told me to take a left turn into the parking lot. Except I would've had to cross over the island and drive through a tree.
None of the maps are perfect and in older cars using a DVD they're out of date after a few years anyway.
Shit happens. Don't drive into the ocean even if the computer says so.
Re: Self Driving Cars (Score:3)
You don't need a GPS to do this (Score:5, Insightful)
Turn Around, Don't Drown! (Score:2)
Even if the flood [weather.gov] in question has been there for millions of years and covers over 70% of the planet.
Good, lets clean the gene pool. (Score:2)
The people following GPS instructions into the water deserve to be left there.
My old Garmin use to tell me to do that (Score:2)
If it drives like a duck. (Score:2)
If you see a body of water, don't drive towards it.
Well I beg to differ. [dellsducks.com]
Not very helpful advice (Score:5, Funny)
"If you see a body of water, don't drive towards it"
that's quite challenging considering that Hawaii is a collection of small islands
Questions over coffee this morning.. (Score:2)
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Itâ(TM)s not uncommon to drive out of a cell zone or lose GPS due to freak weather changes. That happens a lot and your occasional âoetest drillâ inbound ICBM missile.
Anybody can figure out what that gibberish means? That bringing an iPhone to Hawaii may get you targeted by an ICBM missile or what?
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They're referring to the incident in 2018 where a real, live, "this is not a drill" ballistic missile alert message was sent out through Hawaii's emergency alert system during what was supposed to be a test exercise.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
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I believe this is referring to Hawaii's false alarm, which also stated "this is not a drill", panicking a lot of people.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
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it isn't stupidity, it's just a quirk of how the human brain works.
I would posit that these two things are not mutually exclusive.
Re: Haha (Score:2)