# Your GPS will not get you to my house!!! **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [December 8, 2012, 7:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-gps-will-not-get-you-to-my-house/643404 "2012-12-08T07:35:49Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Dickerman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/8baadc/32.png) [@Dickerman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dickerman)\ **Post date:** [December 8, 2012, 9:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-gps-will-not-get-you-to-my-house/643404/21 "2012-12-08T21:20:02Z")
> [@Frosty\_Camel](#): > > Me: My address is 123 Mystreet, Mytown, Mystate. Now let me tell you how to get here. Maybe the conversation needs to start out differently. The second sentence should come first, and perhaps the address should be left out entirely in lieu of accurate and descriptive directions, ending something like “…after 1.5 miles turn left on Mystreet. My house is the big blue one on the left, three house down with the numbers 123 on it.” ---
**Author:** ![bot3](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/41988e/32.png) [@bot3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bot3)\ **Post date:** [December 8, 2012, 9:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-gps-will-not-get-you-to-my-house/643404/22 "2012-12-08T21:59:20Z")
I’ve noticed that GPS’s seem to work in quadrants. Even if a route or road can be faster or shorter (more direct) if another road is within the quadrant that is in the current location then that road or route will be used. Even if the better route is with in a few feet of the “poorer” route. ---
**Author:** ![Peremensoe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ce7236/32.png) [@Peremensoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Peremensoe)\ **Post date:** [December 8, 2012, 10:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-gps-will-not-get-you-to-my-house/643404/23 "2012-12-08T22:00:29Z")
Unless the destination street itself is missing from navigator databases, there’s nothing really wrong with people wanting to use GPS. Your directions may not be the best ones from their other stops that day, for example. The problem is people not knowing how to use their devices. ---
**Author:** ![Enright3](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/enright3/32/2897_2.png) [@Enright3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Enright3)\ **Post date:** [December 8, 2012, 10:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-gps-will-not-get-you-to-my-house/643404/24 "2012-12-08T22:38:08Z")
> [@Peremensoe](#): > > Unless the destination street itself is missing from navigator databases, there’s nothing really wrong with people wanting to use GPS. Your directions may not be the best ones from their other stops that day, for example. > > The problem is people not knowing how to use their devices. No it’s not. The problem is that sometimes GPS units don’t work like their supposed to. As an example, my address isn’t found in most GPSs unless you put in the neighboring city. Regarding your statement about directions not being the best one… regardless of where you’re coming from my corrected address I give over the phone is correct as they all involve correcting a highway exit. :rolleyes: ---
**Author:** ![Senegoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/senegoid/32/6606_2.png) [@Senegoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Senegoid)\ **Post date:** [December 8, 2012, 11:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-gps-will-not-get-you-to-my-house/643404/25 "2012-12-08T23:30:13Z")
> [@ftg](#): > > I was riding with one person and they got really panicked. The GPS said take an exit and go left. But there was no left. They wanted to stop and look for the left. **The exit was instead one of those 270 degree loop arounds.** Jeez, just follow the ramp, there are no turns to take, pay attention to the road and not the idiot GPS. You are a human being, you’re smarter than it, figure it out. And still that person continued to consider the GPS gospel that could not be challenged. > > (I am a ex-Computer Science prof . . . Ah, the ways of the minds of you Comp Sci guys. 🆒 I had that conversation once, circa 1986 (long before Internet was widely available, let alone GPS): Guy giving me driving instructions. Take a certain off-ramp, head towards downtown Sunnyvale – well, it’s actually a 270-degree loop offramp, so you turn _right_ at the bottom of the ramp . . . I interjected: So I just make a _logical left turn_ off the freeway. (For those Comp Sci types in Silicon Gulch: This was 237 westbound onto Mathilda.) Other guy: There you go! ---
**Author:** ![April\_R](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/3da27b/32.png) [@April\_R](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/April_R)\ **Post date:** [December 8, 2012, 11:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-gps-will-not-get-you-to-my-house/643404/26 "2012-12-08T23:44:04Z")
> [@Moonlitherial](#): > > It’s all a test, when we all blindly follow GPS directions without question thats when the machines will execute their take over the world plan. Mine regularly tells me to turn north when my destination is south of me just so I can get to the specific road it thinks is best but I know is clogged day and night by people turning into the malls on both sides of the street. > > Resist for the sake of humanity! LOL. I do this a lot. I drive past where it tells me to turn and keep going past the turn until it no longer asks me to make a U turn just to see if it can recalculate a new route properly. I have done this a few times when I was going to be way too early for a client appointment and needed to kill some time. I no longer worry too much about getting lost because of my GPS, but I am sure it is a false sense of security 😉 ---
**Author:** ![GusNSpot](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gusnspot/32/436_2.png) [@GusNSpot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GusNSpot)\ **Post date:** [December 9, 2012, 1:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-gps-will-not-get-you-to-my-house/643404/27 "2012-12-09T01:38:37Z")
I know before I start where I want to go. The GPS is just a handy moving map. No voice commands, no 3D, I have them set so that routing times come out close to my driving style. ‘Left & Right’ cause more lost people that anything else. Due to cross overs, 270 degree exits, coming in from a different direction than the directions were given from, learning N,S,E, & W should be even more important than learning to swim. Anyone who disregards my directions or blindly follows a GPS only gets one chance. After that he is not looked for nor waited on. Usually not invited back either. I do love them for curvy neighborhoods that are new to me where I enter in the daytime and leave much later after dark when everything looks so much different. It is a handy map, but I do not allow it to direct me. YMMV :::: all maps lie :::: ---
**Author:** ![MLS](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/919ad9/32.png) [@MLS](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MLS)\ **Post date:** [December 9, 2012, 2:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-gps-will-not-get-you-to-my-house/643404/28 "2012-12-09T02:33:02Z")
The street we live on is interrupted a block and a half from our house by a stream. This interruption does not show up on maps and GPS devices. Most of the time people we’re giving directions to will accept this information and take the roads we suggest in order to get to the right part of it. Every once in a while a delivery person will insist on trying to follow their GPS or for some other reason ignore our directions and eventually wind up calling us complaining that our house number does not exist. Once a few decades ago there was a brush fire in the woods next to our house. The local fire department is about 10 blocks away. We could see the fire truck on the other side of the stream. By the time they figured out where we were the local neighbors had mostly put it out themselves. ---
**Author:** ![Eyebrows\_0f\_Doom](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eyebrows_0f_doom/32/3119_2.png) [@Eyebrows\_0f\_Doom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eyebrows_0f_Doom)\ **Post date:** [December 9, 2012, 6:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-gps-will-not-get-you-to-my-house/643404/29 "2012-12-09T06:55:48Z")
> [@FairyChatMom](#): > > We have a GPS, but when I’m going somewhere, I’ll look up the route on MapQuest or google maps. Be aware that even Google maps can give wrong directions. Earlier in the year I punched in an address in Google maps for a location in Brooklyn, and it told me the location was about 10 blocks (or a full subway stop) east of where it really was. You would think that for a place with 2.5 million people they would get their info correct. In fact I just searched for that address again, and it still gives the incorrect location. :rolleyes: ---
**Author:** ![Projammer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/projammer/32/559_2.png) [@Projammer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Projammer)\ **Post date:** [December 9, 2012, 7:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-gps-will-not-get-you-to-my-house/643404/30 "2012-12-09T07:30:49Z")
As of the last update, Garmin is only about 2 miles off trying to get to my house, but at least it’s on the right road so people can read the numbers on the mailboxes to get the rest of the way here. Prior to that it was closer to 5 miles off and insisting that my home was in the middle of a creek. I usually give directions to my house in Lat/Long format. I’ve also wondered if I should be concerned that my friends have no problem with this. ---
**Author:** ![BigT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigt/32/12044_2.png) [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)\ **Post date:** [December 9, 2012, 7:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-gps-will-not-get-you-to-my-house/643404/31 "2012-12-09T07:49:09Z")
> [@Peremensoe](#): > > Unless the destination street itself is missing from navigator databases, there’s nothing really wrong with people wanting to use GPS. Your directions may not be the best ones from their other stops that day, for example. > > The problem is people not knowing how to use their devices. Yeah, there is, when you’ve told them the GPS is wrong. Why would you not trust the person who’s actually driven there? You’re taking known wrong directions over directions you know will work. Why do that? I don’t understand people who want to find the fastest route to places they’ve never been before. You want the least complicated route. You want the one you know will work. Save getting places fast for after you know where they are. ---
**Author:** ![drewtwo99](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/d07c76/32.png) [@drewtwo99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/drewtwo99)\ **Post date:** [December 9, 2012, 8:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-gps-will-not-get-you-to-my-house/643404/32 "2012-12-09T08:32:06Z")
The other day my phone GPS was trying to get me stuck in an infinite loop of making u-turns under the free way, back and forth, again and again, to get to my destination. It was quite hilarious. I just roundly ignored it of course, and got to where I needed to go without any problems because I used my BRAIN and only used the GPS as a mere “suggestion” if you will. If someone tells me, “GPS will screw you up if you try to use it to get to my place,” I VERY carefully listen to them and write down directions and follow them. Who are these idiots that rely entirely on GPS, even over the word of someone who has said that they are useless for finding their address? I’d say it’s wrong about 10% of the time when I use it. They are far, far from flawless. ---
**Author:** ![Lord\_Feldon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lord_feldon/32/341_2.png) [@Lord\_Feldon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lord_Feldon)\ **Post date:** [December 9, 2012, 8:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-gps-will-not-get-you-to-my-house/643404/33 "2012-12-09T08:59:25Z")
Maps are wrong sometimes, but sometimes so are peoples’ directions that they insist are absolutely correct and the best route. I wouldn’t rely entirely on _either_. If they said that a particular road just didn’t exist (as the OP did), I’d take that into account and avoid that road, although that still wouldn’t make the map “useless.” ---
**Author:** ![orderfire](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/orderfire/32/10908_2.png) [@orderfire](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/orderfire)\ **Post date:** [December 9, 2012, 2:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-gps-will-not-get-you-to-my-house/643404/34 "2012-12-09T14:05:09Z")
**Frosty Camel** , I feel your pain. Had the same problem for the first four years in my house, due to the fact that the previous owner had apparently numbered her house on a whim and managed to register it with the town, which conveniently has a few streets/lanes/trails that have the same name as another across town. So…no GPS or Internet directions would ever get you to my house, but to Same-Name Lane across town. Couldn’t order a pizza, and yes, went through all the same aggravating bullshit with furniture deliveries, Fed Ex, repairmen etc ignoring my very clear and specific directions, even after I explained that two of their obstacles would be a railroad overpass with 12’ clearance and a single lane bridge with a weight limit. LOVED getting those calls from confused drivers. Why didn’t you listen to me, moron??? After much investigation with the Assessor and Zoning depts at the town hall, it was revealed that Same-Name Lane across town that all GPS directions would take you to is numbered with double digits, while my Same-Name Trail is numbered with triple digits. My house was #31. Solution: add a digit to my address, register it with the town. I also had to change my address with everything, including my mortgage lender (and change the way the property is listed with them, which also took several tries). Took about a year but I can finally order and receive a goddamn pizza now. Good luck. Most of the 20-somethings in my family are refuse to try to read a map or follow spoken directions, they don’t know which way is N/E/W/S, and they rely 100% on their stupid GPS. Very disheartening. ---
**Author:** ![enipla](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/54ee81/32.png) [@enipla](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/enipla)\ **Post date:** [December 9, 2012, 2:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-gps-will-not-get-you-to-my-house/643404/35 "2012-12-09T14:42:27Z")
Mapquest won’t either. Can I please email you a map? Had 15 tons of gravel delivered last summer. I had sent the guy a map. The map was in his truck. Did he look at it? Um no. Ended up wandering around in a town 15 miles away from me in a fully loaded tandem dump truck. ---
**Author:** ![enipla](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/54ee81/32.png) [@enipla](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/enipla)\ **Post date:** [December 9, 2012, 2:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-gps-will-not-get-you-to-my-house/643404/36 "2012-12-09T14:52:25Z")
> [@Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](#): > > You should give out your location in MGRS/USNG references. > > In Japan, addresses are typically given with a Mapcode reference number that you punch into the car navigation system and gets you to within 10 m of your destination. Which is great, because the actual address designation system in Japan was designed by a cryptographer on a weekend bender. > > Stranger I’ve heard the Japan has a very strange addressing system. I work for County gov and our department assigns addresses. It can be difficult at times. Years ago, the County made the mistake of allowing a developer to assign their own addresses. It’s totaly FUBAR. ---
**Author:** ![Frosty\_Camel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/c67d28/32.png) [@Frosty\_Camel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frosty_Camel)\ **Post date:** [December 9, 2012, 3:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-gps-will-not-get-you-to-my-house/643404/37 "2012-12-09T15:14:23Z")
> [@Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](#): > > Put up a sign on the dirt road, giving correct directions. That’s a good idea! I have some spare time today, I just might do that! It will not only help me out, but anyone in my subdivision as well. Thanks! ---
**Author:** ![Frosty\_Camel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/c67d28/32.png) [@Frosty\_Camel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frosty_Camel)\ **Post date:** [December 9, 2012, 3:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-gps-will-not-get-you-to-my-house/643404/38 "2012-12-09T15:17:24Z")
> [@Capt\_Kirk](#): > > :: hijack :: > > Hey **Frosty** how are you? How is the boat? > > It has been a while. > > **Capt** > > :: end hijack :: The boat is AWESOME! Although with great sadness I have already put it away for the winter. Thanks for asking. ---
**Author:** ![Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/13edae/32.png) [@Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stranger_On_A_Train)\ **Post date:** [December 9, 2012, 3:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-gps-will-not-get-you-to-my-house/643404/39 "2012-12-09T15:28:25Z")
> [@enipla](#): > > I’ve heard the Japan has a very strange addressing system. [This site](http://www.tofugu.com/2010/01/06/how-the-japanese-address-system-works/) explans how addresses work in Japan. It is quite systematic until you get down to the _nana-ban_ (city block) level, and then you need a map to figure out the block numbers, because they are often out of sequence. (It is suggested that the block numbers usually start at the center of the village or city and increment in an outward spiral, but my experience in Naha-shi differed considerably.) House numbers appear to be assigned by random lottery, as they are rarely in any kind of rational sequence. However, I have to admit that highway and road signage is typically excellent (and in both Japanese and English) and you can usually find the post office with little difficulty as it is usually on a main thoroughfare and always well-marked. And, at least in Okinawa, people were overwhelmingly generous with their willingness to not only cope with my rudimentary Japanese in giving directions but often jump in the car and show me how to get to my destination. Still, the GPS with Mapcode and phone number entry was a great help in navigating around Okinawa-honto and Ishigaki-jima, especially since both Google and OpenStreet maps were notoriously unreliable. Stranger ---
**Author:** ![aruvqan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aruvqan/32/2891_2.png) [@aruvqan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aruvqan)\ **Post date:** [December 9, 2012, 4:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-gps-will-not-get-you-to-my-house/643404/40 "2012-12-09T16:57:20Z")
> [@orderfire](#): > > Most of the 20-somethings in my family are refuse to try to read a map or follow spoken directions, they don’t know which way is N/E/W/S, and they rely 100% on their stupid GPS. Very disheartening. That is why I don’t bother with cardinal directions, but to get to my farm it would be something like [not actual directions] Exit 84 and turn left at the end of the exit. Proceed through the intersection with the blinking red light. Proceed 3 miles and turn left on Baggins End Road. Proceed through the first stopsign, turn left at Underhill Road. Proceed to the next stop sign and turn right onto Balrog Street. Go 5 miles, and you will see a driveway with a large silver momvan, and there will be a flaming tiki torch in the yard. [we frequently will put up one or more tiki torches in the yard to mark the house. Not many random farms light the end of the driveway with a flaming torch.] When we lived elsewhere, we would add landmarks as needed, like a llama farm, a very large barn with distinctive silos and the like. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-gps-will-not-get-you-to-my-house/643404.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-gps-will-not-get-you-to-my-house/643404.md?page=3)