[talk-au] dirt roads

[Ian Sergeant]

On 21 October 2012 16:05,  <dbannon at internode.on.net> wrote:

> Ian, would it be fair to say that your model would require the presence of
> the 4x4_only tag on all unsealed roads to be useful ? Currently, the default
> is that no 4x4_only tag means no restriction. I suggest its a bit late to
> change that behavior, too many roads already in the database would need to
> be updated.

Not at all.  It is the correct default situation, of course, that a
4x4 is not required.  However a good survey of roads that are remote
should consider including additional detail on the road surface.

Absence of this tag on a road (especially when aerially mapped) is no
guarantee that a 4x4 is not required.  4x4_only=no is a useful
observation to annotate (amongst other useful tags and annotations).

I'd hate to think that accurate survey data that a 4x4 is not required
on a remote road is removed because someone thinks that is the
default, so the tag is useless.  Or worse still, does a selection for
all such tags in JOSM and deletes them all on the same basis.

Ian.