Just how good, really, are all those gps navigation systems?
I got a chuckle out of a local news story last week about our city’s newly relocated airport. It has to do with the question posed in the title of this post: Just how good, really, are all those gps navigation systems and map aids many folks (not ME!) use when they’re driving or even hiking?
There have been news stories in recent years about genuine tragedies where families have found themselves stranded in isolated mountain and desert areas because they relied on their vehicle’s navigation system instead of their own good sense, and the system sent them down a closed or changed road — because the system’s maps had not been zealously updated.
But in the case of our local airport, the problem was more amusing than dangerous. We have a newly built terminal — hey, it’s a small city and one terminal is all it takes to do the job for us — which is located not so cleverly about a mile or two from the old terminal. Not only is there significant distance between the two, in their wisdom or financial “tightwad-ery” the city fathers/airport directors built the new terminal so that you can only access it from an entirely different set of streets. So there is no way to get from the old terminal directly to the new from within airport property.
Seems logical to me that such major changes would deserve a map update, wouldn’t it to you??
The new terminal opened last July. But if you use Google maps to find the Springfield Branson National Airport in Springfield, Missouri, you’ll see the OLD terminal, you’ll get directions to the OLD terminal — and undoubtedly many automotive navigation systems continue to use the same outdated information. Because the airport officials report a dozen or more people showing up at the now empty old terminal every day trying to catch their flights, only to mutter nasty things about the misdirection their navigation system gave them.
Here’s a thought. Why not check with local sources for something as significant as directions to catch your flight instead of relying on Google or some high-tech automotive navigation system?
Nah. That’s too old fashioned, I guess.