Re: OT

On 20 Aug 2026 21:18:19 GMT, Robert Riches wrote:

> As somebody mentioned earlier, there have been tragic consequences of
> bad GPS and similar data.  Several years ago, a family got stuck in snow
> on a recommended road.  I think they were going between Grants Pass and
> Gold Beach.  The dad tried to find help, but his body was found not very
> far from the vehicle.

I've been over that route in the summer and was quite happy to get to Gold 
Beach. I did stop to hike up Mount Bolivar.

https://journeywithstevenmichael.blogspot.com/2008/12/mount-bolivar.html

It's deceptive in that the road is paved and well maintained along the 
Rogue River. Then you get to the launch point for the rafters. The road 
crosses the river and is gravel with unmarked junctions, swinging well 
away from the river until you get near Gold Beach. Given that it was 
winter, turning around at the raft launch area would have been a good 
idea. 


> When mapquest.com was relatively new (maybe 2005-2010), when asked for a
> route to an address in the south-western portions of Dayton, Oregon, USA
> from somewhere north and east of Dayton, the route would include a step
> of making a left-hand turn from Hwy 18 onto SE Fletcher Rd aka 8th St. 
> The problem is that crossing is an overpass with no way for a vehicle to
> get between the two roads at that location.  I filed a few bug reports. 
> It took a year or two but they eventually fixed it.

Different formats are used for vector data. Navteq used the Z axis so if a 
segment broke on an overpass it could have the same to/from X and Y 
coordinates as the street below but a different Z. Some of our clients 
sourced their data from Navteq but our code didn't handle the Z axis. I 
wrote a utility that would search for non-zero Z values and offset the 
coordinates by a few feet so they wouldn't appear to intersect with the 
street below. 

A lot of geodata needs a little groom and clean so it will route cleanly.