funsec mailing list archives
Re: Online Directions May Have Misled Kim Family
From: "Fergie" <fergdawg () netzero net>
Date: Thu, 7 Dec 2006 06:09:04 GMT
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 Wow. - - ferg - -- "Jon O." <jono () networkcommand com> wrote: All: May have mislead -- I'm almost sure of it. I grew up "out in the woods" in Oregon and my Dad still works for the Forest Service out there. The Forest Service was providing some logistics support to the SAR teams. He spoke to the sheriff and suggested the police find out what type of GPS the car is equipped with, get the same model, and plot in the destination and drive the route. This comes from our experience in the woods of Maine and getting mis-routed by the in-car GPS (we almost ended up in the Atlantic, but we knew we were off route and knew how to get back). The Kim family ate at Denny's in Glendale, OR. Here's the map from there to where they were going: http://tinyurl.com/y55e5q Mapquest does something interesting, it routes you the same way as google: http://tinyurl.com/y4k6cd But it has a checkbox: Avoid Seasonally-Closed Roads That doesn't change the route at all ;(. This is probably because there are roads that have planned closure during the winter and ones that just become impassable during bad weather. The car and most of the family was found near where NF-23 turns south. As many of you probably figure if you've driven out any of these small, yet paved/unplowed mountain roads, taking NF (National Forest) 23 road out of Grants Pass when it might snow at night is a *very* bad idea. No NF road (or BLM or FS) is a good idea on a winter night when it might snow/freeze -- especially if you aren't from the area. Regardless, as the link above shows, Google doesn't know that. These roads could likely have slides, downed trees, etc. and are not maintained during the non-tourist season. I think the lesson to learn here is that these maps don't have weather or road conditions in mind. People need to overlay their own judgement. Maybe the warnings about this could be stronger on the mapping websites? Here's a picture of us driving over the same moutain range on the 26th -- the day the Kim family woke up on the mountain side snowed in. There was only about 4 inches of snow at this point, but note the chains on the tires, the down jacket/hat -- it was cold and slick out there. http://flickr.com/photos/netcmd/316215033/ On 06-Dec-2006, Fergie wrote:
This not a "fun" topic, and I really hope this story has a happy ending to it -- many of us here in the Bay Area have been following this story very closely. Having said that, this angle does raise an interesting point. Via MSNBC (AP). [snip] The snow-covered back-country road that trapped the Kim family of San Francisco was meant for tourists, but not at this time of year. Authorities say the cyber-savvy family may have plucked the route from Grants Pass to Gold Beach from an online mapping service, unaware of the elements. Despite its impassable snowdrifts and single-lane, Bear Camp Road is offered as the preferred route on some Web sites and on-board-directions software available on some new cars, most of which have no business in those mountains in the winter. [snip] More: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/16062935/ Contrast with this: http://techdirt.com/articles/20061204/170215.shtml - ferg -- "Fergie", a.k.a. Paul Ferguson Engineering Architecture for the Internet fergdawg(at)netzero.net ferg's tech blog: http://fergdawg.blogspot.com/
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