(via
AllPoints Blog)
Reminiscent of this post describing Scottish officials warning ambulances not to trust satnavs, come this story from Australia. After several incidents were motorists were lead onto unsuitable roads in rural areas, The Age newspaper reports:
Police are now urging motorists to take maps instead of blindly following instructions from a GPS.
Combine this with just another statement at GISLounge ... and get lost:
Paper Maps Being Phased Out:
The San Francisco Chronicle reports (see "Auto club’s paper map unit nears end of road") on the phasing out of the
cartography division that serves the California State Automobile
Association.
By the end of the year, the twelve-person cartographic
unit will be disbanded with mapping services done only by AAA’s
national headquarters in Heathrow, Florida. The cause for the demise
is the widespread availability of online map directions and in-car
navigation units which cut demand for the paper maps by 13% in 2007.
The high degree of research needed to keep current with local changes
in roadways and street name changes leads some to question how well the
national office will be able to provide accurate local maps. “I
don’t know if (AAA has) the resources, now that this is suddenly dumped
in their laps,” said Curtis Carroll, sales and marketing director of
Benchmark Maps, also in Medford, Ore. Carroll further predicated highly detailed local papers maps will be a thing of the past: “Street maps with the level of detail as we know it on a paper sheet may not be with us in a decade,” Carroll said.
At United Maps, we wonder where the highly detailed local maps will come from ... oh yeah, we have a proposition ;-)
Have nice weekend, motorists!