[OSM-talk] Another argument for Open Street Data ?

[D Tucny]

On 12/11/2007, Patrick Weber <p.weber at ucl.ac.uk> wrote:
>
> Maybe with OSM data this would have been fixed long ago? I wonder how it
> takes for changes in TeleAtlas/Navteq Data to travel down to the end user
> ?
>
> Village crashes blamed on sat nav
> * Villagers in Carmarthenshire say they fear restoration work is being
> damaged by drivers using satellite navigation. *
> "There has been a tremendous increase in traffic and there's no reason
> for it to come over the Black Mountain unless they have been directed
> that way," he said.
>
> "I think the thing is to stop them coming over the mountain by telling
> them not to use the route from a sat-nav point of view."


What I noticed in that story, different to other 'satnav ruined my life'
type stories, is that there is no claim that anyone is doing anything
wrong... No mention of signs being ignored because the satnav told them
to... no mention of people doing overtly stupid things (well, except for
hitting buildings trying to get big trucks through gaps that are too
small)... So, through deduction, it would seem that there is a valid,
shorter route through these villages, it may not be suitable for
wide/long/heavy vehicles, but, it's not been signposted as such and the
councils responsible for such signage are blaming satnav for people choosing
a shorter route that they haven't bothered to sign as being unsuitable...
You can't blame the lorry drivers for getting stuck if there was no signage
to tell them they'd be unable to pass, you can't blame the satnav for not
pointing out problems that the councils haven't pointed out themselves, so
the blame again solely lands on the councils... Of course, if there really
is sufficient signage that's being ignored, then it's entirely driver
stupidity, again, and I apologise to the councils...

This isn't going to be something we can really easily fix either, OK, we
could record the road widths everywhere that way software using OSM data
could do some clever stuff to work out if the user's vehicle can fit through
if they input the width, height, length and turning capabilities of their
vehicle... But... that would be a hell of a lot of effort when any limits
should be signposted, we can (reasonable) easily add those to the data and
any software using the data can pass this info on to the users by whatever
means it offers, such as the requesting the user to input their vehicle
dimensions if they choose the 'By lorry' routing option...

So, in short, I'd hope victims of issues such as this, rather than blaming
the satnav as a device that can't answer its case, instead point the finger
at the real cause of such problems, be it incorrect/missing signage or
driver stupidity... Maybe then, the real problems can be solved or at least
improvements made and all navigation aids can be updated to reflect these
changes...

d
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