Increased traffic on country road.

[N80]

My cabin is on a small country road. It is about 5 miles from an interstate. The road is about 6 miles long and connects two state highways. However, there is another state highway that parallels our road and is a shorter route to both of those state highways. Our road is also in horrible condition. It is narrow, tons of pot holes and bumps. Shoulders are crumbling and when the county, in its infinite wisdom, painted lines on the road it was so narrow that in many places the white lines on the edges of the road were painted in the grass. There are only 4 homes on the whole six miles before it comes to a small town (7 homes and a church).

The road is marked as "No Through Trucks" because of its condition and the fact that it is not the fastest way to get anywhere.

Since this road is only useful to the people who live on it and to the people in the little town, traffic is usually non existent and you usually know the people you do see driving by.

Lately traffic has increased dramatically. We walked about a mile this (Sunday) morning before 8 a.m. and were passed by 8 cars; most of them out of state. A few weeks ago, early in the morning, a pickup saw us walking and stopped and said his GPS had sent him this way to get to a town almost an hour away and he didn't feel like he was going the right way. He wasn't. There are almost no circumstances in which our road should have even been an option. Not even a wreck on the interstate or on the parellel highway or both should have generated this route. We have watched people stop and do a 16 point turn and go back the other direction.

So our assumption is that GPS systems are sending people down our road. Not only do we not like the traffic but there is no benefit to anyone to be sent down this road.

Anyone have this happen before? If so, is there a remedy?

 

[bcp]

"Shortest route" instead of "fastest route" is the problem.


Bruce

 

[seville009]

"Shortest route" instead of "fastest route" is the problem.


Bruce

I do on call courier driving - choosing “shortest route” has taken me through some pretty bad back roads. I don’t use that option in the winter.

 

[ericm979]

I have seen people put up signs saying stuff like "This is not a through road. Your GPS is lying."

If you can find out what web site/app is generating the bad route, you may be able to get them to remove it. I have heard of people doing this but sometimes it takes knowing someone at the company.

 

[seville009]

My cabin is on a small country road. It is about 5 miles from an interstate. The road is about 6 miles long and connects two state highways. However, there is another state highway that parallels our road and is a shorter route to both of those state highways. Our road is also in horrible condition. It is narrow, tons of pot holes and bumps. Shoulders are crumbling and when the county, in its infinite wisdom, painted lines on the road it was so narrow that in many places the white lines on the edges of the road were painted in the grass. There are only 4 homes on the whole six miles before it comes to a small town (7 homes and a church).

The road is marked as "No Through Trucks" because of its condition and the fact that it is not the fastest way to get anywhere.

Since this road is only useful to the people who live on it and to the people in the little town, traffic is usually non existent and you usually know the people you do see driving by.

Lately traffic has increased dramatically. We walked about a mile this (Sunday) morning before 8 a.m. and were passed by 8 cars; most of them out of state. A few weeks ago, early in the morning, a pickup saw us walking and stopped and said his GPS had sent him this way to get to a town almost an hour away and he didn't feel like he was going the right way. He wasn't. There are almost no circumstances in which our road should have even been an option. Not even a wreck on the interstate or on the parellel highway or both should have generated this route. We have watched people stop and do a 16 point turn and go back the other direction.

So our assumption is that GPS systems are sending people down our road. Not only do we not like the traffic but there is no benefit to anyone to be sent down this road.

Anyone have this happen before? If so, is there a remedy?

Put a sign at the road entrance saying something like “GPS Wrong - Go Back”

 

[N80]

"Shortest route" instead of "fastest route" is the problem.


Bruce

It might be a tiny bit shorter but not enough to matter. I suppose that even if it is a few yards shorter some Google AI shows it that way.

It is just strange that it happened all of a sudden so it almost has to be Google or Apple.

 

[N80]

We have thought about putting up a sign like you guys mentioned.

We also considered putting on straw hats and carrying banjos on our morning walks.

 

[dodge man]

It’s weird you bring this up because it’s happened here also. Depending on the gps app, it sends you down our road or another nearby back road. Ours is a similar road that you describe except it’s not striped. I talked to someone else to see if the increase in traffic was my imagination m he said it’s real.

It is a shorter and faster route, it’s a public road, I get it. For cars and smaller trucks they get by. It’s the semi’s that are a problem. They have gotten stuck on one corner where the radius is to small. The roads are also to narrow for them.

I talked to our township road superintendent and the county engineer. I wanted a couple of ”no through truck” signs put up on the main highway. It’s not going to happen.

 

[Jstpssng]

It's a public road, so there really isn't a lot that you can do about it. I'm in a somewhat similar situation, albeit more rural. I'm one of 3 year round homes on a 1 1/2 mile long gravel road which makes a triangle hypotenuse, with state highways on the other 2 sides. Winter maintenance is to my driveway, although I never asked the town to plow my road.
I don't see a lot of traffic but when I do they often are doing 45-50 mph. I'm up and down the road constantly on my tractor with my dog following, it's easy to become complacent.

A few years ago on the day before Thanksgiving I was surprised to see a propane delivery truck headed up through as I was turning into my driveway. I got out and flagged it down... there was a woman driving and she kept the engine running while she rolled her window down but at least she stopped. I told her that the hill ahead was icy and she needed to turn around and take the long way. Luckily she listened, the last thing I needed was to see her land upside down in the beaver pond at the bottom of the hill... an experience I almost had myself one one icy night.

 

[Ken45101]

It’s weird you bring this up because it’s happened here also. Depending on the gps app, it sends you down our road or another nearby back road. Ours is a similar road that you describe except it’s not striped. I talked to someone else to see if the increase in traffic was my imagination m he said it’s real.

It is a shorter and faster route, it’s a public road, I get it. For cars and smaller trucks they get by. It’s the semi’s that are a problem. They have gotten stuck on one corner where the radius is to small. The roads are also to narrow for them.

I talked to our township road superintendent and the county engineer. I wanted a couple of ”no through truck” signs put up on the main highway. It’s not going to happen.

One of the local state routes was closed. A guy told me that despite "no trucks" signs, semi trucks were coming down his road and getting stuck on a sharp corner. He finally figured out the solution: "not passable for trucks" signs in SPANISH!. It seems that too many of the drivers could not read English!

 

[JimRB]

We have friends in Colorado with a few thousand acres. GPS sends people through their land on a long since abandoned wagon trail road. Wagons haven't been used in over a hundred years. They have signs suggesting private property, gps is wrong and such. Wagon trail is sort of there, cattle fences, horse fences, washes and all. Not really sure if people really get far following the gps or they guess it might be a private ranch.

 

[Will S]

Have several "official" looking signs that read:"Pot holes and broken pavement next 6 miles. Use preferred parallel route xxx"

or something along those lines. Attempting to discourage them almost any other way, probably will not work.

 

[MossRoad]

My bet is on the WAZE app.

Waze - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

If you ever speak to someone again on your road, ask them if they’d mind telling you what app sent them there.

 

[CalG]

I've got one of these nearby

With that, Our town has many miles of unused town right of ways. Some go though property owner's front door yard.

They make for great motorbike or e-bike rides! " This will only take a second, I won't linger" ;-)

 

[oosik]

For quite a while - a mapping company showed my driveway as a county road. BOY - was that ever a joy!!! Took three years - finally got it corrected.

Many use a "mapping app" to plan a trip. It can then be transferred to some form of GPS. Both the mapping app and the GPS have a feature that allows you to choose the type of route.

You can select - fastest, most scenic, shortest, past most historic attractions, etc, etc. Many do not know of this feature. My Garmin GX60S defaults to - fastest. The GPS feature on the Taco Wagon defaults to - shortest.

Look out - - here I come down your skinny country road!!!!

 

[seville009]

In my travels, i have passed by Amazon warehouses where they have a sign on the road saying something like “truckers ignore gps” and additional directional signs for them.

 

[Jchonline]

It might be a tiny bit shorter but not enough to matter. I suppose that even if it is a few yards shorter some Google AI shows it that way.

It is just strange that it happened all of a sudden so it almost has to be Google or Apple.

I bet if you go to the nearest large highway and google to that town, it will show the route through your road. That probably wasnt happening before...but some person in a google car has driven down your road and now its in their possible route database.

 

[jigs_n_fixtures]

The major gps providers, will let road owners annotate their roads with seasonal and emergency closures, not plowed in winter etc. At least they did 13-years ago, and most of the forest roads are still reflecting what we put in then. And I think the fire managers still have some way to let the mapping companies know about fire closures.

Your county roads department might be able to get it listed as light duty, no truck, or some other status which would keep mapping software from recommending it.

 

[ponytug]

A few years back a large RV got stuck on our local road because their (non-RV/non-truck) GPS routed them up our road. After helping them get towed out, I asked the county roads department to put up a warning notice for large vehicles/campers/rvs/trailers that it wasn't a recommended route.

Result: nice highly visible sign just before the last turn that commits a vehicle. But! It turns out that there are enough GPS centric / oblivious drivers to not pay attention to road signs. We still see tandem semi-wreckers head out every couple of months to haul some poor semi driver and their rig out of a hairpin that the have gotten themselves jammed into.

You can contact the various map sources (Google/Apple/Tomtom/Garmin, etc.) and let them know about the road issues, but it can take awhile. I have an issue with one map provider that insists that a local private driveway is a road; we are at three tries and 18 months and counting on getting that corrected.

All the best,

Peter

 

[Torvy]

It seems that part of the problem is the map programs do not have a setting for vehicle type...at least not one for trucks. That would be a good upgrade. Some roads recommended are not passable by trucks, even in the city.