Couple stranded after GPS sends them into remote forest

[Spinner]

Just one more reason I feel more comfortable using a hard copy of a map than GPS.

I mentioned it to my brother the other day when we were in his car with all its bells, whistles and navigation systems, that someday, when the GPS network fails or is rendered inoperable for awhile, scores of people will have no idea how to get where they're going.

I was only half joking when I said that.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/sns-ap-us-stranded-motorists,0,2020472.story

Couple stranded in snow for 3 days after navigation system sends them down remote forest road

JEFF BARNARD
Associated Press Writer
3:05 p.m. CST, December 28, 2009

KLAMATH FALLS, Ore. (AP) — A Nevada couple letting their SUV's navigation system guide them through the high desert of Eastern Oregon got stuck in snow for three days when the GPS unit sent them down a remote forest road.

On Sunday, atmospheric conditions apparently changed enough for their GPS-enabled cell phone to get a weak signal and relay coordinates to a dispatcher, Klamath County Sheriff Tim Evinger said.

"GPS almost did 'em in and GPS saved 'em," Evinger said. "It will give you options to pick the shortest route. You certainly get the shortest route. But it may not be a safe route."

Evinger said a Lake County deputy found the couple in the Winema-Fremont National Forest outside the small town of Silver Lake on Sunday afternoon and pulled their four-wheel-drive Toyota Sequoia out of the snow with a winch.

John Rhodes, 65, and his wife, Starry Bush-Rhodes, 67, made it home safely to Reno, Nev., Evinger said.

The couple was well-equipped for winter travel, carrying food, water and warm clothes, the sheriff said.

"Their statement was, being prepared saved their life," he said.

The couple had been in Portland and followed their GPS as it directed them south on U.S. Highway 97 to Oregon Highway 31, which goes through Silver Lake and Lakeview before connecting with U.S. Highway 395 to Reno, Evinger said.

In the town of Silver Lake, the unit told them to turn right on Forest Service Road 28, and they followed that and some spur roads nearly 35 miles before getting stuck in about 1½ feet of snow near Thompson Reservoir, the sheriff said.

"For some reason they finally got a weak signal after 2½ days," Evinger said. "They called in. They alternated between two different cell phone numbers."

A GPS-enabled phone is able to send its coordinates to 911, and eventually one of the couple's phones sent its location to the dispatcher's console, the sheriff said.

[SOTB]

Sometimes when we are on a long drive, I have my daughter navigate using a road map for that area. We orient the map, find our current location, and then I have her follow us along the route and give me distances and directions to locations while we are driving.

I want to get us out walking and using a map, but for now, this at least gets her understanding that she doesn't need to be like "Mom" and just rely upon her iPhone GPS to get around....

[random]

I've met way too many people who moved to this area (greater DC) and after 3+ years still have no clue where anything is because they just mindlessly follow a GPS.

The first time I came across one it willfully and intentionally picked the long, twisting, uphill route instead of the straight road directly to our destination. The truck was out of gas which necessitated pushing, and I've been skeptical of them ever since.

[B 2/75]

In DC a GPS is GREAT when you first arrive, but you've got to wean yourself of it and use it for only those odd, hard to find / never heard of it locations... otherwise, as random said, you never learn the lay of the land.

[NWPTrainer]

Fuck GPS.

Real men just look at the position of the sun in the sky and use their innate sense of direction.

Okay, okay, some of us still use compasses though...and real maps.

[random]

Real men just look at the position of the sun in the sky and use their innate sense of direction.

After a 3 hour drive turned into a 6 hour drive and I literally came within a full-out sprint of missing a major tournament, I have rules against driving with real men. ;)

Proof that GPS's are out to get you.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/bradford/7962212.stm

[NWPTrainer]

After a 3 hour drive turned into a 6 hour drive and I literally came within a full-out sprint of missing a major tournament, I have rules against driving with real men. ;)



Pussy:biggrin:

[random]

Pussy:biggrin:

Heck yes. I've got a t-shirt and everything.

[0699]

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/sns-ap-us-stranded-motorists,0,2020472.story

I don't care what the GPS says, if you try to drive down a road with a foot and a half of snow without the proper training or equipment, you deserve what you get.

It's a tool like anything else; doesn't absolve you of personal responsibility.

[Typhoon]

It's a tool like anything else; doesn't absolve you of personal responsibility.

If I'm not mistaken, that, in so many words, is what the opening screen says on most automobile GPS units...

I love maps, and when I was a kid I used to sit and study them constantly to figure out where things were and how to get there. I still do that to this day...

[NWPTrainer]

I love maps, and when I was a kid I used to sit and study them constantly to figure out where things were and how to get there. I still do that to this day...

LMAO, I thought I was the only one who did that! Maps are fascination, I believe. Of course, my ex-wife thought I was fucking nuts to look at maps of places I went everyday....

[Spinner]

Poor sense of direction is fast becoming no sense of direction. We live in a society of people who only know how to go straight, turn left or turn right.

[0699]

I love maps, and when I was a kid I used to sit and study them constantly to figure out where things were and how to get there. I still do that to this day...

+2. :biggrin:

[The Fat Guy]

Sometimes when we are on a long drive, I have my daughter navigate using a road map for that area. We orient the map, find our current location, and then I have her follow us along the route and give me distances and directions to locations while we are driving.

I want to get us out walking and using a map, but for now, this at least gets her understanding that she doesn't need to be like "Mom" and just rely upon her iPhone GPS to get around....

SOTB,

Good call, my kid is pretty good with most things self dependent but just the other day I said something about looking "To the West". She said, "Well which way are you facing?" she thought West was always to the right. We need map and compass training. My wife is pretty good with a map, but being an ol Legion member, I dead reckon a lot towards landmarks and that makes her uneasy, but she is good with a map when on her own.

[The Fat Guy]

Poor sense of direction is fast becoming no sense of direction. We live in a society of people who only know how to go straight, turn left or turn right.

Hell,

10 years ago at JRTC if the Teams in the field missed a target we deployed a Russian GPS jammer with the insurgents and when we turned one on and told the TL's they had to navigate by hand they about shit.

They would walk mindlessly behind those boxes like a 16 year old following prom pussy.

[Richard]

Your Brain On GPS

http://nhpr.org/node/27828

I use both - but use the GPS after a good map recon to orient myself to where I'm going and generally how to get there - taught my 3 sons the same philosophy and they never go anywhere without a decent map.

Richard

[LongWire]

+2. :biggrin:

+3.....I usually plot my route in my GPS myself. I use the gps or my Iphone for helping locate points of interest, shopping/gas/coffee......like anything else, unless you have been there and know it's there, then its just a reference.

[nofear]

Have used an in-car GPS thingy once. Once was enough, for both the wife and I. I'm not sure which one of us wanted to throw the useless piece of shit out the window first.

[0699]

+3.....I usually plot my route in my GPS myself. I use the gps or my Iphone for helping locate points of interest, shopping/gas/coffee......like anything else, unless you have been there and know it's there, then its just a reference.

I almost always have my GPS turned on in the vehicle now days, but I rarely navigate with it. I just like looking at the moving map. :biggrin:

[Richman]

I'll use a GPS to find my place on a map instead of doing back azimuths for a resection. After that, it is all map and compass.

[Slim]

I had a GPS in a vehicle a while back. I liked it for city's I was unfamiliar with. I think I even used it to find obscure spots in Omaha, and I grew up here.

Any time I was in the sticks I would still have it on, but only to check it against a paper map. Rather than lead me down a barely existent road it was much more likely to show no road at all, and I would have to know where I was going in order to decide to take the single track path through the cow pasture or whatever the route went through.

Trust it in the mountains in winter? No effing way.

[Domino]

The GPS can't tell road conditions ahead anymore than it can predict whether it will snow this afternoon. Whether it is safe to follow a particular route is up to the operator.

From reading the stories, these folks were well prepared for winter travel and must have anticipated some tough conditions. The GPS wasn't involved in that one way or the other. It only told them there was a road that went from one place to another, and where they were on it. It was and remained up to them to exercise due caution for the conditions.

[LongWire]

I almost always have my GPS turned on in the vehicle now days, but I rarely navigate with it. I just like looking at the moving map. :biggrin:

Thats funny........I do the same. :biggrin:

[VMI_Marine]

I still do a map recon for most trips, even with the GPS. I use it mostly for the cues when your turn is coming up - beats the hell out of squinting to read a street sign two blocks away. I was playing around with programming customized routes into it, but wasn't thrilled with the results. Had a couple instances where the geocoord generated by Google Maps didn't match the location of the intersection in the GPS, so instead of telling me to turn right, it told me to turn left then make a U-turn. Handy tools, but never trust them 100%. Unless you're my wife. Then you have no choice. :biggrin: