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Transportation Idle

Waze Mistakenly Directed Hundreds of Drivers to a Remote Wildlife Preserve (q13fox.com) 80

Posted by EditorDavid from the wrong-Waze dept.
"No, the luxurious Borgata Hotel, Casino and Spa isn't located in a central New Jersey wildlife preserve," reports a local news team in New York. But an ad for the casino in Waze was apparently tagged with the wrong geographical coordinates, CNN reports, and.... The Jackson township Police Department's public information officer Lt. Christopher Parise said the police department found out about the error when one his officers was out assisting a stranded car. The driver told the officer they were headed for the Borgata but wound up at the 12,000 acre wildlife area through unpaved roads after using Waze for directions...

"My department towed 10 cars in 5 days that were stuck," Parise said. "A Waze response to the error report stated 249 others reported the same location error in the past couple days, so hundreds have been misled back there."
Police complained of a "tremendous increase" in disabled motor vehicles -- one driver found themselves at least 10 minutes away from any paved roads. Long-time Slashdot reader Newer Guy tipped us off to the story, though Waze told CNN that after being made aware of it, they'd fixed the issue "within hours".

But the casino is still urging future visitors "to check the route before they begin driving" to make sure they're actually being routed to Atlantic City. And the folks in Jackson Township (population 54,856) had a real good laugh, posting over 100 comments on the police department's Facebook page.
  • "You can take the people out of the city but you can't take the city out of the people..."
  • "who the hell is going on unpaved roads thinking it'll lead them to a casino?"
  • "You would think when they go down a dirt road common sense would kick in..."
  • "This must be a short cut to Atlantic City, just keep going. Ha ha ha..."
  • "This is why you need to learn how to read a map!"
  • "I keep picturing in my head these people driving into the woods thinking its Atlantic City..."
  • "We could just put a couple of slot machines and poker tables out there.... "
  • "I knew people were stupid but this is ridiculous."
  • "Don't blame the app, Blame the morons driving."
  • "How stupid do you have to be to not realize that you are nowhere near the ocean??!!"
  • "So natural selection is going high tech?"
  • "I was wondering how this lovely couple ended up way back by the lake when I was hunting there last week. They flagged me down and pleaded with me to show them the way out.

    "They must've thought they were in the middle of Deliverance."

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Waze Mistakenly Directed Hundreds of Drivers to a Remote Wildlife Preserve More

Waze Mistakenly Directed Hundreds of Drivers to a Remote Wildlife Preserve

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  • Holy shit (Score:2, Flamebait)

    by DogDude ( 805747 )
    I'm perpetually amazed at how stupid people can be. Just when I think there's a bottom, I'm always surprised that there's a NEW low.

    Considering these people were obviously not looking out of their windshield or paying attention to where they were, why do they still have drivers' licenses? Oh that's right. In the US anybody with a pulse can get behind the wheel of a multi-ton chunk of metal that can go 100 mph. Freedom.

    • Re:Holy shit (Score:5, Funny)

      by drinkypoo ( 153816 ) <drink@hyperlogos.org> on Sunday January 26, 2020 @03:38PM (#59658160) Homepage Journal

      We already knew they were stupid, they were headed for a casino.

    • And had it been me I would have thought I discovered hidden treasure. Accidentally find a small zoo/habitat off the beaten path? Yea twist my arm. Not a fan of the overly commercialized attractions. Id go a casino town to see shows like cirque or my childhood fave Penn and Teller. Slots are something i would do in a complete lack of other activities.

    • Yeah, me too. But they don't comprehend how lucky they are.

      It says, "one driver found themselves at least 10 minutes away from any paved roads." I dare them to be this stupid in Oregon. They'll end up hours from paved roads when they run out of gas, the forest roads can be a maze without a map, there are no signs, and in the winter you might wait weeks for another car to come through. No cell service, unless you climb to the very top of a ridge, but those are covered in snow.

      • It's New Jersey though. The forest roads are still a maze (I got lost there once myself, before GPS), there are no signs, but there's no way you'll end up hours from any paved roads. Worst that happens is you end up in the military area and the Air Force drops a bomb on you. Hmm, I guess that's pretty bad.

        • It seems like a maze to people from Megalopolis, but no part of that forest is more than a mile from either a paved road or houses.

          I even double-checked that on a "satellite" view map.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

      I just can't imagine getting to an unpaved road and thinking "yeah, this must be the place, I mean it's a casino so they are probably strapped for cash and couldn't afford the tarmac."

    • How about some of those truck (lorry) drivers in UK? (mostly E European I believe, but still) Blindly following their GPS through this little town that had streets too narrow for the truck to make it through? Stupidity is common throughout the world.

  • Morons (Score:5, Interesting)

    by quonset ( 4839537 ) on Sunday January 26, 2020 @02:39PM (#59658022)

    but wound up at the 12,000 acre wildlife area through unpaved roads after using Waze for directions...

    Yes, to get to the Borgota casino in Atlantic City one has to drive across unpaved roads in a nature preserve.

    I would ask how people can be so stupid to blindly follow directions without a single modicum of thought, but then I look around at people whose attention is riveted only to their 3 inch screen and the reason becomes clear.

    • The same mindless fucks that use Facebook and perceived popularity to cast a vote. People complain about Russian meddling in the election but we really should be complaining about the dumb motherfuckers that are stupid enough to fall for that shit in the first place. Stop making your electorate fucking stupid and easily manipulatable. Learn some fucking critical thinking.

      The gene pool needs a little chlorine donâ(TM)t you think?

      • "People complain about Russian meddling in the election but we really should be complaining about the dumb motherfuckers that are stupid enough to fall for that shit in the first place."

        I don't know about you, but I can complain about both.

        • Re: (Score:1)

          by Anonymous Coward

          "People complain about Russian meddling in the election but we really should be complaining about the dumb motherfuckers that are stupid enough to fall for that shit in the first place."

          I don't know about you, but I can complain about both.

          ... so can I, and I can do it without bringing sexual intercourse, incest and fecal matter into the discussion.

      • But having a stupid electorate is what kept us in business so far. Just imagine what would be going on in this country if people would be informed enough to figure out what's going on in this country!

        • The last time the NFL and MLB simultaneously went on strike for an extended period of time, we ended up examining our elected officials to the extent that we had an impeachment trial and a turnover of some long time incumbents.

          Just think what we could accomplish if we had engineers making decisions instead of law firm flunkies. Mathematicians instead of social media stars. Some 30yrs after deficit spending was center stage, we still spend more than we earn.

    • I've been to the Borgata.

      - It's in a swamp
      - It's in New Jersey
      - Horrible food
      - Nothing walkable because it's on the outskirts
      - It's in New Jersey
      - Everything is in a ring around the casino area, which is all open, and rife with smokers. Effectively the entire venue is smoking.

      So yeah the nature preserve would be a dramatically more pleasant destination and Waze did them a favor.
       

  • I wonder why Waze is so separate still? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by SuperKendall ( 25149 ) on Sunday January 26, 2020 @02:58PM (#59658046)

    One thing that has always come across as rather strange to me, is how separated Waze seems to be still from Google Maps.

    In this case, I think it was only Waze that had this routing issue - not even Google Maps...

    Although I've not checked recently it always seemed like Waze info on traffic issues was way more use to date than Google Maps (which is why I generally leave Waze open when driving).

    It's been quite a long time since Google bought Waze, I wonder why Waze is seemingly using their own routing engine instead of Google Maps standard.

    I learned a while ago, not to really much on Waze directions so I always look them over if I even use Waze for navigation (often I use something else but leave Waze in the foreground just for information).

    Maybe someday the systems will merge to some extent...

    • Like Chatroulette (Score:4, Funny)

      by goombah99 ( 560566 ) on Sunday January 26, 2020 @03:08PM (#59658060)

      They should make an app called destination roulette.

      • They should make an app called destination roulette.

        It's called The Rhythm Method [rationalwiki.org] -- aka: "Vatican Roulette"

        Each round is a chance at a different path through life and save or spend a LOT of time and money over that life ...

        • The Rhythm method works perfectly, if you grasp how it works.
          Albeit some people don't ... or don't take really care.

          Why people who are against it don't grasp it is beyond me.

          Woman has menses: can't get pregnant. It is as simple as that. Getting pregnant while having menses is a 1 in 10,000,000 case ... bad luck, can happen with every true preservation.

          • What part of "perfect" do you not understand? I think it's the part where Greta Thunberg collides with science.

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by Holi ( 250190 )
            I did not know 75% was considered a perfect score.

            You sound like someone who has read about sex in a book, but has no practical experience.

            • Perhaps you should simply read how the Rhythm method works and what the "science behind it" is.
              It is actually quite simple: no egg and no ready uterus -> nothing to inseminate or nothing to grow the egg ... wow, that was simple again.

      • Using Waze already feels like playing roulete. I set a destination while in my driveway. It decides my current location is one of the side roads behind my house, so right off the bat it's a 50:50 chance that the direction I go when I leave my driveway will be correct. Then, while getting out of my driveway, it will reroute, then probably reroute again once I commit to a direction on the road. It also tries to direct me to a precise location in a parking lot, instead of the business itself. I've parked at my

        • Are you using an iPhone, by chance? I've found that Google Maps does that stuff a lot when I use it on my iPhone X, but on 3 previous Android devices it never did (OG Moto Droid, Galaxy S3, Nexus 6P). It's happened enough that I try to stay two or three turns ahead just in case it decides that I'm on the freeway instead of the frontage road and starts to reroute me to the next exit, or something similar. Happened three times yesterday alone; luckily, I was moderately familiar with the area and knew pretty m
    • I have never used waze, but it seems the draw to is that it will route through less traveled but faster routes. There have been plenty of articles on here about people getting routed to the middle of nowhere and getting stranded, or locals complaining it is routing too much traffic through slow speed neighborhoods that usually see only around 10 cars per day.

      Google is actually smart in this regard, polluting their normal maps with bad routes would be more trouble than it is worth.

      • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

        by demonlapin ( 527802 )
        Eh, Google will do that too. Google also doesn't mind routing you through some very sketchy neighborhoods if it thinks it might be faster. If I'm driving my old beater car, I might do that, but in a nice newer one? No thanks. Last thing I need is to get jacked by the locals or stopped by the cops who assume (usually correctly, to be fair) that the white dude driving through the hood in a Mercedes is trying to score drugs, hookers, or both, while I tear up my car on terrible roads.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

      They seem to be keeping Waze separate from other Google services for some reason, my guess would be to use it as an R&D platform. It gets a lot of features that will never make it in to Google Maps.

      • to me it is an obvious play to buy the competition but we don't care about it just don't want to have to compete. Only reason not to kill Waze is to make the market seem bigger to new players. if Google owns 9 out of 9 mapping/navigation solutions new players have to compete in a crowded market (even if it is just one player)

      • my guess would be to use it as an R&D platform. It gets a lot of features that will never make it in to Google Maps.

        What features are those? To me it seems like Waze has not changed much in a while, I was more thinking they didn't want to put much effort into further Google integration and kind of leave it be...

        I guess there is some ride share stuff, but for everything I use Waze for when driving, I've not really seen any change for some time now.

    • Re:I wonder why Waze is so separate still? (Score:5, Informative)

      by DaTrueDave ( 992134 ) * on Sunday January 26, 2020 @05:24PM (#59658400)

      In this case, I think it was only Waze that had this routing issue...

      It wasn't a problem with Waze. It was a problem with the coordinates entered into the ad that Borgata paid for. If you use Waze, you've undoubtedly seen the ads for places with a button that says "drive there now." These people all chose that and Waze routed them correctly to the coordinates that were in the ad.

      Human error (especially when combined with morons that have zero common sense) will always prevail.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by dfm3 ( 830843 )

      One thing that has always come across as rather strange to me, is how separated Waze seems to be still from Google Maps.

      That's intentional. Waze is primarily a commuter app, meant primarily for finding detours around traffic on your daily route, and actually discourages people from using the app while walking or on a bicycle. That's why their recent focus has been on features such as carpooling, HOV/HOT lane support, and parking lots. Google Maps, on the other hand, is much stronger for uses such as trip planning, mass transit, and business reviews.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Hall ( 962 )

      I tried Waze for directions a few times and too many times, it routed me in ways that didn't seem right at the time. Later, I'd plug the same route into Google and it would go a different way but a more sensible way.

      I do use Waze if I'm traveling somewhere but I know how to get there. I just use it for traffic, hazards, police, etc.

  • No Common Sense (Score:3)

    by rufey ( 683902 ) on Sunday January 26, 2020 @03:02PM (#59658048)

    It amazes me to this day that there are drivers who still lack common sense. A few examples:

    James Kim [wikipedia.org]. This one didn't involve a GPS. The route chosen was selected by consulting a paper map apparently.

    How rescuers found Karen Klein, the woman who trekked 26 miles in the snow through the Grand Canyon [latimes.com]. They did know the north rim of the Grand Canyon is closed in the winter, right? The main access road was closed for the season, so they decided to try a different route over forest service roads.

    Man, son walk 20 miles for help [stgeorgeutah.com]. This one happened within the past couple of weeks. Like the one above, this family apparently was also trying to get to the Grand Canyon.

    • >> No Common Sense

      Not all the time. Years ago I was testing my Camero on all the mountain passes I could find in Colorado using maps. On one showing an interstate the actual road deteriorated to a barely paved "surface" with dips so big and broad I had to down shift from second gear!

      I thought this just cannot be correct and considered turning around when a driver in a pick up truck told me I should continue because the interstate route was indeed there up ahead. He was correct, but I still had a sl

      • I call BS on this one.
        The only Interstate that climbs through the mountains in Colorado is I-70. The Eisenhower Tunnel cuts off the old Loveland Pass road which just might have been the route you were on. I have driven I-70 across the state from Nebraska to Utah it is a major transit route across Colorado to Los Angeles.

        • Loveland Pass is paved all the way from east to west, and was so when I drove over it. The mid or late 1970s, if memory serves. I-25 goes over some big elevation gains just north of Raton, NM. There's the remains of some small town and church to the west, near the rail line on the Colorado side. Probably an unpaved road there but have only looked from the highway and don't know if it goes through. google maps. Might be an official part of The Rocky Mtns.

  • "My department towed 10 cars in 5 days that were stuck," Parise said. "A Waze response to the error report stated 249 others reported the same location error in the past couple days, so hundreds have been misled back there."

    How many hundreds of reports does it take then to fix something?

    • It must be fun to be routed to a place where you get stranded and there is a chance you also don't have cell service to call for help or report the error :D

    • The advertiser, not Waze, determines the location (Score:5, Informative)

      by dfm3 ( 830843 ) on Sunday January 26, 2020 @04:36PM (#59658296) Journal
      The Waze map is crowdsourced by local volunteers. I'm actually a "rank 5" (out of 6 possible levels) editor, which means I can edit nearly everything on the map except for a few very important features... the road segments that make up the Lincoln Tunnel, for example... or any ads.

      Anyone can buy an ad in Waze (Even you, for just a couple dollars a day [waze.com]) and here's what happens: after you sign up and input the details about just how big of a campaign you want to run, you can import a list of GPS coordinates or choose the location(s) where you want your ad pin displayed. If you get the location wrong, anyone who tries to navigate to your venue will be routed to the wrong spot. Advertisers get it wrong all the time, but usually the error is not this pronounced.

      The problem is, as an advertiser who has paid money to Waze to get your ads in the app, obviously you don't want just any community member to mess with the ads that you paid for. So, any requests to fix a bad ad have to be forwarded to Waze staff. The process can take a few hours or more, especially if it's a weekend; otherwise, if we (editors) modify the stop point of a place the changes go live within minutes.

      The "Waze response to the error report" mentioned in the article was likely a volunteer editor, as we're the ones who can see the update requests on the map and fix the issue, while also having the ability to communicate back to the submitter. I haven't looked at the location in question, but a typical response would usually be "I fixed the issue" or "this was a bad ad pin and I've forwarded the request on to staff for them to correct." I suspect the editor also happened to mention in their response that others have reported the issue, hence the source of the 249 number.

  • All the people failing at that legally can vote.
    E.g. about climate change topics ... or healthcare ...

  • Waze did nothing wrong.. The casino's ad gave the wrong geographic coordinates for its tag. The headline of the first link even says so: "Casino Ad Erroneously Sends Waze Users to NJ Nature Park".

    • How many stupid choices are combined here?

      First they click an ad for their destination, instead of visiting their website. Then they click a directions link in the ad, instead of entering their destination into their routing app. Then they make a turn onto an unpaved road when they're actually trying to visit an Atlantic City casino. They're trying to visit a casino. Then they get "stuck," they see the dirt road getting worse, they see the mud and potholes, and they just drive right into one.

      Fuck an A, I kn

      • There’s a bit of survivorship bias in here. We don’t hear about any of the people who made good decisions or stopped making bad ones somewhere along the way and got out.

        You can probably take anyone who’s in a bad situation and trace back through a series of poor choices. Only they aren’t relevant to the readership of this site.

        • Right, a thousand more people were dumb enough to end up on the dirt road, but at least turned around when they saw the mud with deep tire tracks in it.

  • Wow (Score:4, Insightful)

    by 93 Escort Wagon ( 326346 ) on Sunday January 26, 2020 @03:26PM (#59658118)

    I’m actually amazed that so many people apparently click on the advertisements in Waze.

    But I’m going to cut the drivers a little slack. They probably thought Waze had found some super-secret route to the casino which was going to save them a great deal of time. And if any of them were coming from another state, even if they did a quick overview of the route it might not have been obvious that the end point was wrong. Or perhaps, when they hit the dirt roads, they thought “maybe this is a new casino on a reservation and the infrastructure isn’t in place yet”.

    Admittedly the concept of throwing large sums of money away for “entertainment” baffles me, but I think in the end Waze may have done these wayward drivers a favor.

    • I just feel sorry for the people who were intentionally visiting the preserve being invaded by a bunch of idiots asking where the casino is.

    • Iâ(TM)m actually amazed that so many people apparently click on the advertisements in Waze.

      It's the paradox of the modern age - "nobody" is influenced by ads - let alone clicking on them - yet ads fund the operation all the biggest tech companies and has minted thousands of millionaires, and even some billionaires.

      I have constructed a mathematical model proving that 95% of the Internet is composed of "dark ads" that we can't see or click on, but which nevertheless generate ad revenue at astronomica

      • I'd be very interested to see this model, or the data. Do you have a link with any more information somewhere ?
  • What morons! Ha ha ha. I can feel better about myself because those people are soooo dumb. Not like me, I'm smart. No love for them because I hate myself.

    • It's OK baby, don't feel sad, your bad choices that cause you suffering aren't your fault, you're right, you didn't have any choice but to suffer. Just accept it, and do everything the same next time. All you have to do is love yourself, and then it is OK if you treat yourself poorly. You didn't have a choice, because you don't make choices.

  • Something like 8 years ago, I was driving on the gorgeous island of Madeira (part of Portugal, largely off the cost of Morroco) with my significant other. At some point, the GPS (a TomTom IIRC) tells us to get off the main road that circles the island and points us towards a small street with a couple of houses. We're getting close to our destination, a small town on the north west corner of the island, but we're still a couple of kms out. My SO and I decide that we're in no particular hurry and while we bo

  • Obviously Wazes was hacked by Yogi The Bear (Score:2, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward

    I just hope they all brought their picnic baskets. ;~)

  • It started to place my car completely out of the place it is driving. Google Maps does not do that.

    It could be that GPS location has always been shitty, but it was compensated by the presence of the route, so the location was presumed to be on the route.

    • "It started to place my car completely out of the place it is driving. Google Maps does not do that."

      It happens to me in maps all the time, usually but not always when I have no Cellular connection.

  • My son will enter a destination when we drive to a known location. The suggested route could go miles on a path that would go through known traffic jams or high crime areas. As we neared the destination the info would be updated. Can you still purchase maps or a Thomas Brothers ?

  • I actually used Waze. In New Jersey no less. Started down almost by Cape May and up to Point Pleasant. Nothing like going up the Parkway and having the steaming pile of shitware start to give directions like "turn right now and then left on" whatever streets it imagined between the trees there in Burlington & Ocean counties. Not an exit, not a paved road, not a service road, dirt road or even trail, just mixed oaks & pines. It got uninstalled that morning and even after Google bought it, I won't go

  • I'm just shocked that there's that much undeveloped land in NJ, considering how small the state is. Looking at a map though, it's amazing how much undeveloped areas (and forested areas) there are there.

  • ... in mysterious ways.

  • I live in that area, and quite a few times assorted navigation tools have routed me down those sandy sinkhole prone "roads". I wonder why they are even in the GPS system in the first place. Why are they even on the source maps when they are just not drive-able by ordinary street cars? I imagine there is some sort of local source data which still shows those as roads, and likely the local use them in their nice off road vehicles. Anyway, yeah, the first time I took one look at it and pulled over to look at t
  • They might have thought it was a shortcut. I frequently had a need to drive to Salt Lake. The route Google Maps gives me has a section of unpaved road. It turns out that little section of unpaved road knocks about 70 miles from the trip.

    The first time I took it I was a little concerned. It was after dark, snowing, and I was driving on white. Then I saw the sign, "end paved road." However, I was in my jeep and my thought was, "what the hell. . .?" along with, "this might be fun."

    Just because it isn't pav
  • Will Waze be paying for towing these people out and compensation for lost time and suffering? They need to be responsible for their screw up.

  • Waze is a mixed blessing as it can help you navigate around traffic jams and reach your destination faster than you have any right to expect, but it also has resulted in vast amounts of traffic through neighborhoods and intersections with smaller streets and traffic controls that weren't designed to handle the number of cars suddenly being routed through them.

    I have long been suspicious of Waze's algorithms. For instance, when routing around a traffic jam, does it choose different routes for different users

  • Let me show you my chainsaw collection...
  • I doubt that there's any chance for luck in any of aforementioned casinos. Alll of them look knida weird to me. Before putting your money on the line, please read articles and guides on gambling in general and different casinos in specifics. The first one which comes to mind is this one syndicate casino can it be trusted [gamblingchief.com]

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