Ben Nevis – The Map Room https://www.maproomblog.com Blogging about maps since 2003 Fri, 16 Jul 2021 13:39:29 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://www.maproomblog.com/xq/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/cropped-logo-2017-04-32x32.jpg Ben Nevis – The Map Room https://www.maproomblog.com 32 32 116787204 Google Maps Called Out for Showing ‘Potentially Fatal’ Mountain Routes https://www.maproomblog.com/2021/07/google-maps-called-out-for-showing-potentially-fatal-mountain-routes/ Fri, 16 Jul 2021 13:39:29 +0000 https://www.maproomblog.com/?p=1791420 More]]> The Guardian: “Scottish mountaineering charities have criticised Google for suggesting routes up Ben Nevis and other mountains they say are ‘potentially fatal’ and direct people over a cliff.” Google Maps’s issue with Ben Nevis is that it routes to a parking lot nearest the summit, then more or less straight-lines it from there; as a dotted line it’s meant to indicate a route very imprecisely, but it also corresponds to a higher-difficulty ascent route that could land even experienced hikers in trouble. Not meant to be taken by people who don’t know what they’re doing—the people who might have no clue that it’s a bad idea to use Google Maps for mountain hiking, for example.

To be clear, I think this one’s on Google. A lot of people trust online maps implicitly because they have poor navigation skills and have a hard time overruling what the directions tell them: this is why people keep driving into rivers and onto tracks. It’s a design failure not to account for this in every circumstance.

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