Using GPS to Find Crackpot

The following illustrates why GPS navigation systems are no substitute for common sense...

Drivers following satellite navigation systems through a village called Crackpot have been directed along a track at the edge of a 100ft cliff. Cars, minibuses and trucks have taken the steep, twisty road from Swaledale to Wensleydale in North Yorkshire, UK.

When vehicles become stuck, drivers are reversing perilously close to the cliff edge, say worried locals. Carol Porter, 39, who lives at Summer Lodge Farm, said: "We want this sorting out before something terrible happens." She said that she and her husband Steven, 41, who live next to the track, have been helping at least one driver a week. "When they get grounded on the small boulders, we're having to go up there in the tractor and pull them out," said Mrs Porter. "If we're outside, we try to stop them, but it's a public right of way so we can't put any signs up saying no entry." The
couple want to see the track removed from the route recommended by satellite navigation systems for traveling between Swaledale and Wensleydale.

A spokeswoman for Trafficmaster, which makes the Smartnav system, said it had removed any possibility of through-routes making use of Crackpot from its mapping database after tests on Wednesday morning.

via BBC