# Does Google Maps assume I'm speeding when giving me estimated time of arrival? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [September 12, 2022, 2:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-google-maps-assume-im-speeding-when-giving-me-estimated-time-of-arrival/971440 "2022-09-12T14:35:44Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![pulykamell](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pulykamell/32/3166_2.png) [@pulykamell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pulykamell)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2022, 5:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-google-maps-assume-im-speeding-when-giving-me-estimated-time-of-arrival/971440/41 "2022-09-12T17:02:27Z")
There’s one where Google tried to drive me into a wall on lower Michigan. Now, I would get it if it thought I was on upper Michigan Ave, but its own software routed me onto lower so it should have had an idea of where I plausibly was. ---
**Author:** ![pulykamell](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pulykamell/32/3166_2.png) [@pulykamell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pulykamell)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2022, 5:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-google-maps-assume-im-speeding-when-giving-me-estimated-time-of-arrival/971440/42 "2022-09-12T17:07:11Z")
At any rate, it gives me chuckles, as I can’t figure out the logic behind it. ---
**Author:** ![Ludovic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/7ab992/32.png) [@Ludovic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ludovic)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2022, 5:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-google-maps-assume-im-speeding-when-giving-me-estimated-time-of-arrival/971440/43 "2022-09-12T17:09:47Z")
> [@pulykamell](#): > > What I don’t get is when GMaps offers pointless “alternate” routes while driving that are not improvements (“about the same time” or somesuch it says) and completely gratuitous. (My favorite is one to get off the highway, only to get back on the highway at the same exit, all to LOSE 2 minutes. Why are you giving me that as an option? There’s no traffic or anything!") I’ve never run into those type of alternate routes, but last vacation I did run into a sequence of crossroads in the country where Google told me to turn onto the crossroad and then immediately turn back onto the road I was going down. I ignored that direction because I didn’t see the road zigzag but I wonder how that can occur. ---
**Author:** ![blondebear](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/blondebear/32/1022_2.png) [@blondebear](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/blondebear)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2022, 5:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-google-maps-assume-im-speeding-when-giving-me-estimated-time-of-arrival/971440/44 "2022-09-12T17:09:57Z")
> [@blondebear](#): > > My biggest peeve is when Google routes me through an endless series of rural back roads because it’s faster than taking a freeway. Faster maybe, but sometimes those routes take you _way_ out into the boonies. eta: I really shouldn’t be mad at Google…I’m the one who picks from the routes presented. But after a long hot day it’s frustrating to be driving on a two-lane road with cracked pavement and being able to see a freeway just a little ways away. ---
**Author:** ![Keeve](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/f07891/32.png) [@Keeve](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Keeve)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2022, 5:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-google-maps-assume-im-speeding-when-giving-me-estimated-time-of-arrival/971440/45 "2022-09-12T17:10:34Z")
> [@Riemann](#): > > The White House —\> Mar-a-Lago Club > I get 14h 43m (996 miles) I just tried that on my desktop at work, and it says 14h 30m for 997 miles. But for the sake of argument, let’s use your slower travel time. 996 miles in 14.717 hours is an average speed of 67.68 mph, meaning that for some portion of the route, you’d have to be going over 65 mph. Can someone tell me which part of that route has a speed limit over 65? (FWIW, 997 miles in 14.5 hours would be 68.76 mph.) In my experience, Google’s ETAs are eerily accurate every time, provided I am driving only on local roads (and there’s no major traffic). But if I (who tries very hard to stay no higher than the legal limit) am taking any sort of major highway, it is obvious that Google expects me to be going faster than the limit. Every 10-20 minutes or so, I see it adding a minute or so to the ETA. And this is most obvious on very long trips, and when the cars around me are speeding excessively. Further: When my wife and I are driving together (in the same car) we frequently both have the Google navigation on, because sometimes it will give a different route to each of us. But when we both have the same route, it gives us the same ETA (give or take one minute, which I attribute to rounding of the phone’s internal clock, or some such). So I am convinced that Google’s calculations are based on the general speed of all the drivers collectively. This frustrates me greatly, and I wish that they’d offer an option to calculate with never going over the limit. ---
**Author:** ![Just\_Asking\_Questions](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ba9def/32.png) [@Just\_Asking\_Questions](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Just_Asking_Questions)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2022, 5:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-google-maps-assume-im-speeding-when-giving-me-estimated-time-of-arrival/971440/46 "2022-09-12T17:13:52Z")
> [@pulykamell](#): > > I could either stay on I55 (the big blue line) or get off the highway and get right back on it. WTF? This is hardly the first time I’ve seen something like this. It does look like google is showing the route as the frontage road. I looked up where that is. (The Barack Obama Presidential Expressway! All we get is the Sheriff Joe non-expressway, featuring an illegal immigrant inspection checkpoint every mile.) ---
**Author:** ![pulykamell](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pulykamell/32/3166_2.png) [@pulykamell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pulykamell)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2022, 5:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-google-maps-assume-im-speeding-when-giving-me-estimated-time-of-arrival/971440/47 "2022-09-12T17:17:53Z")
That at least makes a hair more sense. Still an odd route to suggest unless it was an “avoid highways” route, which it is not. ---
**Author:** ![pulykamell](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pulykamell/32/3166_2.png) [@pulykamell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pulykamell)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2022, 5:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-google-maps-assume-im-speeding-when-giving-me-estimated-time-of-arrival/971440/48 "2022-09-12T17:21:47Z")
I’ve had something like that happen to me before as well. I usually default to Google Maps, but there have been a few times in the last year I had to use Apple Maps to correctly get me to where I needed to be using the exact same address because of some weird glitches. I expect were I a regular Apple Maps user, I’d find find similar inaccuracies. ---
**Author:** ![Whack-a-Mole](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/whack-a-mole/32/141_2.png) [@Whack-a-Mole](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Whack-a-Mole)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2022, 5:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-google-maps-assume-im-speeding-when-giving-me-estimated-time-of-arrival/971440/49 "2022-09-12T17:24:46Z")
I’ve noticed Google kinda breaks when I am on lower Wacker Drive\* (in Chicago). Partly GPS is not great down there. Partly it seems unable to discern if I am on the upper level or lower level. Usually it just opts out until I get somewhere it can figure out. Which is fine by me. Lower Wacker is nice because not as many people know it is there and you can zip across the city much more quickly with much less traffic. Also, I know how to navigate down there so I don’t actually need directions for that part. - For those unfamiliar, there is a lower and upper level of a street that runs around the edge of the downtown business district in Chicago. ---
**Author:** ![kayaker](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kayaker/32/441_2.png) [@kayaker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kayaker)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2022, 5:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-google-maps-assume-im-speeding-when-giving-me-estimated-time-of-arrival/971440/50 "2022-09-12T17:27:08Z")
> [@blondebear](#): > > it’s frustrating to be driving on a two-lane road with cracked pavement and being able to see a freeway just a little ways away. But then there are people like me who prefer the two lane road to the freeway. ---
**Author:** ![pulykamell](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pulykamell/32/3166_2.png) [@pulykamell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pulykamell)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2022, 5:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-google-maps-assume-im-speeding-when-giving-me-estimated-time-of-arrival/971440/51 "2022-09-12T17:30:11Z")
Sure. I don’t expect it to get good GPS down there. But it told me to go there, so I feel it should be programmed to realize I’m on the lower level, unless I have a levitating car that can go through objects. ---
**Author:** ![Whack-a-Mole](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/whack-a-mole/32/141_2.png) [@Whack-a-Mole](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Whack-a-Mole)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2022, 5:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-google-maps-assume-im-speeding-when-giving-me-estimated-time-of-arrival/971440/52 "2022-09-12T17:31:14Z")
> [@kayaker](#): > > But then there are people like me who prefer the two lane road to the freeway. I like that too…sometimes. I was driving from Chicago to Missouri and Google routed me through some back-roads. Basically farms. It was very nice and relaxing with little traffic. Then it got dark and there were no street lights on those roads and it was dark, dark, dark. Then it was not so great and I wished for the freeway. Nothing bad happened. I was just in the middle of nowhere and it felt like the beginning of many horror movies. ---
**Author:** ![Tired\_and\_Cranky](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/a87d85/32.png) [@Tired\_and\_Cranky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tired_and_Cranky)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2022, 5:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-google-maps-assume-im-speeding-when-giving-me-estimated-time-of-arrival/971440/53 "2022-09-12T17:31:24Z")
I was just about to do this but it won’t work because it dynamically factors delays and expected delays (like rush hour traffic) into the calculation. If we don’t all use the same starting time, we won’t get a reliable answer. For what it’s worth, I get 14 hours, 32 minutes if I leave now, and I get 14 hours 42 minutes if I leave at **noon on Sept. 30, 2022.** > [@pulykamell](#): > > What I don’t get is when GMaps offers pointless “alternate” routes while driving that are not improvements (“about the same time” or somesuch it says) and completely gratuitous. (My favorite is one to get off the highway, only to get back on the highway at the same exit, all to LOSE 2 minutes. Why are you giving me that as an option? There’s no traffic or anything!") I wonder if they are doing that to test alternate, little traveled routes. The database says no one took that exit for 20 minutes. Is it closed? Let’s send @pulykamell through it to check. Alternatively, they might be listing routes where people pull off to buy gas or go to the convenience store without changing their maps destination often enough that it looks to Google like people prefer that route. > [@pulykamell](#): > > No sane person would get off the highway and get right back on there. It’s not a human way to “beat Google.” (And it is possible to find a faster route than Google as it will understandably often not route you through residential side streets.) In that particular case, I have no idea. ---
**Author:** ![Keeve](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/f07891/32.png) [@Keeve](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Keeve)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2022, 5:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-google-maps-assume-im-speeding-when-giving-me-estimated-time-of-arrival/971440/54 "2022-09-12T17:35:44Z")
> [@Whack-a-Mole](#): > > Partly GPS is not great down there. Partly it seems unable to discern if I am on the upper level or lower level. Usually it just opts out until I get somewhere it can figure out. I accept this as a weakness of the whole GPS system, and not a fault of any particular mapping software. Good examples in NYC of upper and lower levels are the George Washington and Verrazano bridges. Another weakness is when you’re surrounded by tall skyscrapers, and the GPS just can’t figure out where you are. The most frustrating situations are when I come out of a tunnel, and I have to figure out where to turn, faster than the navigation is able to tell me. (Eastern end of either the Lincoln or Holland tunnels.) ---
**Author:** ![pulykamell](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pulykamell/32/3166_2.png) [@pulykamell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pulykamell)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2022, 5:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-google-maps-assume-im-speeding-when-giving-me-estimated-time-of-arrival/971440/55 "2022-09-12T17:36:59Z")
> [@Tired\_and\_Cranky](#): > > In that particular case, I have no idea. In that case, it does seem to be “get off the highway and drive alongside the frontage road next to the highway” because apparently some people love the scenery of frontage roads. ---
**Author:** ![AlsoNamedBort](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alsonamedbort/32/3213_2.png) [@AlsoNamedBort](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AlsoNamedBort)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2022, 5:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-google-maps-assume-im-speeding-when-giving-me-estimated-time-of-arrival/971440/56 "2022-09-12T17:40:30Z")
> [@pulykamell](#): > > Because it’s pointless info. It can nag me all the way to my destination with alternate routes if it wanted to give me “information.” I have no interest in seeing a route that is “18 minutes slower” mid-route (also happened). Why would I want that info? I doesn’t really nag you, it just shows them. Pretty easy to ignore. If an actual faster route happens (like if there’s an accident or something), then it will pop up asking if you want to change. ---
**Author:** ![pulykamell](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pulykamell/32/3166_2.png) [@pulykamell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pulykamell)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2022, 5:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-google-maps-assume-im-speeding-when-giving-me-estimated-time-of-arrival/971440/57 "2022-09-12T17:40:58Z")
> [@Keeve](#): > > The most frustrating situations are when I come out of a tunnel, and I have to figure out where to turn, faster than the navigation is able to tell me. (Eastern end of either the Lincoln or Holland tunnels.) I’m also fond of the “proceed to the route” when I have no clue where the “route” is and is the whole reason I’m using Google Maps. Might as well say “proceed to your destination.” OK, I’m exaggerating a bit here, but there have been a few times it took me a minute or two to figure out how to get to the route that Google is taking me to after Google got me here in the first place. ---
**Author:** ![pulykamell](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pulykamell/32/3166_2.png) [@pulykamell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pulykamell)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2022, 5:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-google-maps-assume-im-speeding-when-giving-me-estimated-time-of-arrival/971440/58 "2022-09-12T17:41:51Z")
“Nag” is too strong a word. “Distract” perhaps. ---
**Author:** ![Keeve](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/f07891/32.png) [@Keeve](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Keeve)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2022, 5:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-google-maps-assume-im-speeding-when-giving-me-estimated-time-of-arrival/971440/59 "2022-09-12T17:42:56Z")
There are two situations where I find the alternate routes very helpful: When the faster route requires a toll road, and the free route is only a few minutes slower, I appreciate the information, and I’ll decide one or the other based on how rushed I am. Sometimes there is unexpected traffic, or a road closure that Google doesn’t know about yet. Or I’m thinking about stopping for gas a few blocks off the route. Knowing how much time the diversion will cost me is very helpful, and when it just shows up on screen without me having to ask is great. ---
**Author:** ![Riemann](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/riemann/32/3133_2.png) [@Riemann](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Riemann)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2022, 5:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-google-maps-assume-im-speeding-when-giving-me-estimated-time-of-arrival/971440/60 "2022-09-12T17:56:58Z")
> [@Whack-a-Mole](#): > > I get 14h 42m (997 miles). > [@Johnny\_Bravo](#): > > If I put in a future date (departing 9/18 at 10:00 am) it tells me the ‘typical’ time is still 14h 42m. I rechecked it half an hour after I first posted, and mine had changed to exactly what you saw. So probably no creepy personalization here, unless there are discrete buckets and we both fall into the same bucket. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-google-maps-assume-im-speeding-when-giving-me-estimated-time-of-arrival/971440.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-google-maps-assume-im-speeding-when-giving-me-estimated-time-of-arrival/971440.md?page=4)