Ask HN: Why is there no 'road closed' option?

1 points by fbi-director 5 years ago | 3 comments

Hi, long time reader lurker etc

I've often wondered about this and can't figure it out. Why don't Google Maps and the likes have a way to say: that road is closed! Often it'll keep sending you back to the same road no matter how far away you drive (even in the opposite direction) , because it's much closer than any other way.

But I want to tell it that the bridge is jammed and driving 25 minutes off my path, is better than waiting 2 hours for the bridge to work again. In this example I know that there's another bridge about 7 miles away "in the wrong direction". But I need to cross and this current bridge is not an option.

Why don't they have a button to click, "this road is closed"

PaulHoule 5 years ago |

Some satnavs will let you pull on the route to change it.

We have a running gag about the bad roads in Upstate NY; frequently you see a road on a map that looks passable, but if you try it you may find four-foot potholes. The old USGS maps are often wrong and may not have been corrected if tree cover is sufficient you can't see the road from the sky.

My late-model Garmin is conservative about what roads it takes, avoiding many good roads, but last week I saw some lady get stuck in an unplowed road in the state forest that her GPS sent her down despite a sign that says the road is unmaintained from Dec 1 to Apr 1.

haspoken 5 years ago |

Perhaps because they don't trust people, and not without cause.

https://www.wired.com/story/99-phones-fake-google-maps-traff...

compsciphd 5 years ago | |

the author isn't asking for google to reflect this inforomation to others, its saying for my navigation, blacklist this road for now.