Satnav Goes over the Cliff ...in a little English Village called Crackpot

Sponge Bob

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/north_yorkshire/4879026.stm

Drivers following satellite navigation systems through a village called Crackpot have been directed along a track at the edge of a 100ft cliff. A spokesman for Trafficmaster which makes the Smartnav system, said it had removed the Crackpot route from its mapping database after tests on Wednesday morning.

Gandhi

Well, in all fairness, if you are heading to a town called Crackpot, what do you expect? If you ask to go to "Lunatic" or "Nutjob" where would it take you?

I had a Garmin GPS way back in the early days, and it was complete crap for maps in Ireland. If I was on any of the Peninsulas in West Cork, it would tell me I was a good 10 miles out into the Atlantic Ocean.

Alun

As it happens I know this area quite well (Yorkshire Dales). It's a limestone area and, as such, there are lots of caves, or potholes, hence there being quite a few placenames with 'pot' in their names.

How this ever got into the satnav maps I don't know. I've checked my copy of TomTom, which uses TeleAtlas maps and the whole road is absent, on Mapopolis, which uses Navteq maps it's there. It's stupid really, because any halfwit looking at the map can see that the road peters out to a track half way up.

Here's the map if anyone's interested, with the 'road' in question highlighted. The road from the right that starts further up the valley is the 'right' one to take, although even that road is 'interesting', even by Irish standards

mike65

Its sounds like the inbred locals tried to hack the system so the cars would fall to thier doom and be recycled while the drivers are killed and turned into "Crackpot Roast" (its a local speciality in all the food guides!).

Mike.

Bluetonic

mike65 wrote:

Its sounds like the inbred locals tried to hack the system so the cars would fall to thier doom and be recycled while the drivers are killed and turned into "Crackpot Roast" (its a local speciality in all the food guides!).

Mike.

'The Hill Have Eyes' anyone?

While at the gas station, the Carters take the attendant's advice to take a "short cut" through a back road that would take them to the hills. What the family does not know is that they are being set up for a brutal and bloody surprise. While driving along the dirt path, their tires are blown out with spikes laid out by the mutated family, leaving them stranded miles from civilization and in an area with no cell phone reception.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hills_Have_Eyes_(2006_film)

mike65

I was thinking of Motel Hell meets The Cars That Ate Paris

Mike.