s0ssos

At a larger intersection, which pretty much everybody who lives not in the countryside experiences, google maps will say "turn in 100 feet". But you have to turn now, because you cannot turn as you are going through the intersection. You have to get in the left-turn lane.

Why doesn't google realize that impreciseness is precisely what it needs? Just because it can measure your location to the foot doesn't mean it shouldn't have some margin of error in its app.

Loren Pechtel

Seconded. My Garmin GPS is much better behaved about this than Google. Google is easier to use but decidedly inferior.

Ditto

I never had problems with google maps on my android phones, though I noticed this issue with Ms. Ditto's iphone.
Nonetheless it gives you advance warning (I think at 600m and then 200m), so that's when you need to move to the correct lane...

CPRich

The warnings (in 1/2 mile turn left, in 500 feet turn left, in 200 feet turn left) have always been enough for me to realize I need to note the left turn lane upcoming, and move over to it. When there are successive turns, I always get "turn right, then prepare to turn left" to avoid the problem.

I see the opposite problem on one of my regular drives. There are to ramps that turn to the right, about 300 feet apart. I get the "turn right onto..." about 15 feet before the first one. If I didn't know where I was going, I'd certainly take the first ramp an be headed in the wrong direction.

deniah

sometimes you need to take responsibility for navigation, too

s0ssos

You mean look up the route in advance?
I thought that was the point of google maps. So you do not need to

bitterproffit

I couldn't get in a car without knowing the route ahead of time.

Its an aid, not a replacement for common sense.

ajGoes

You're blaming the software for a weakness in your phone's GPS. Google Maps gives timely turn instructions on my latest phone, but it had trouble on the previous one which had some serious performance issues.

Badenoch

Anyone who has used Google Maps, GPS, etc. on routes they are familiar with will quickly realize they are all imperfect systems and should not be relied upon completely. Read a map in advance and use your common sense.

Garmin works best in my experience because it gives you plenty of notice and tells you which lane to be in. Nevertheless it's not perfect and sometimes recommends less efficient routes. Memorably it instructed me in Clearwater, FL, to make a left turn into oncoming traffic on a one-way road and in central Ontario suggested a road that if taken would have stranded me on a beach on Georgian Bay.

s0ssos

No. It is not a weakness in the phone's GPS. It is actually a problem that the GPS is too accurate and google thinks it can rely on it.
There are always margins of error. Like google maps will get confused if you are driving alongside a road, about 10 feet off, when such a road doesn't exist. Well, it may be something called construction.

The issue is google maps thinks you are supposed to turn in the middle of the road. When in fact you turn before you actually reach the intersection.

Google maps is also horrible at telling you what lane to be in. If there are 2 left turn lanes, it'll say both are fine. But then you have to make an immediate right after. So it should have told you the right lane. I guess it doesn't understand the concept of traffic or other cars on the road, so you cannot do everything "right away".

Dodge DeBoulet

I'm not sure this is still an issue. I've been using Google Maps quite a bit recently and it's been explicit as to which lane I should be in as preparation for a subsequent turn, and is also now including local "landmarks" in its voice prompts. When I was in Jupiter FL two weeks ago it told me to "turn right after the Starbucks," which I found somewhat surprising.

ajGoes

Suppose you're an engineer designing mapping software. You get information about the accuracy of the devices your software is going to run on. You find quite a wide variance in the numbers; most devices are nearly always accurate to within twenty meters, but some devices' accuracy is sometimes no better than a thousand meters. (This latter case describes a condition my previous phone sometimes suffered.)

You want to provide timely turn-by-turn directions. What level of accuracy should you design for?

LordHamster

I generally use Waze and have not noticed this issue. Honestly I've not noticed it in Google Maps either as I always keep an eye on the map out of the corner of my eye.

ords

Just thinking out loud...

I wonder how many on here still know how to read paper maps? Better yet, how about testing yourself one day to see if you can drive from point A to point A without relying on GPS or Phones.

20 years ago we could do it...

winglesss