We are creating people who can NOT REASON!!! - Machine Underground -Tractor & Commercial Equipment Discussion Forum

**PaulChristenson** · 08-06-2008, 05:15 PM

GPS Device Leads Travelers to Cliff's Edge

By AP

CANNONVILLE, Utah (AP) - A GPS device led a convoy of tourists astray, finally stranding them on the edge of a sheer cliff.

With little food or water, the group of 10 children and 16 adults from California had to spend a night in their cars deep inside the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument.

They used a global positioning device to plot out a backcountry route Saturday from Bryce Canyon National Park to the Grand Canyon.

But the device couldn't tell how rough the roads were. One vehicle got stuck in soft sand, two others ran low on fuel. And the device offered suggestions that led them onto the wrong dirt roads, which ended at a series of cliffs.

The group was so lost it couldn't figure out how to backtrack and started to panic. Kids were crying, and one infant was sick with fever, according to a member of the party.

"It was a nightmare - the vacation from hell," Daniel Cohen, back home safely in Los Angeles, told The Associated Press on Tuesday. "That's a story I will tell my kids. For now, I don't want anybody to know about it."

From Grosvenor Arch, where the travelers stopped, they should have taken the better-traveled Cottonwood Canyon Road. Instead, they took Four Mile Bench Road, which takes a meandering southeasterly path. Chief Deputy Tracy Glover said the convoy took one wrong turn after another onto a succession of lesser dirt paths that are barely passable in the best of weather. They finally ended so some 25 miles from Grosvenor Arch near Tibbet Canyon.

"They just kept driving and driving and driving," Glover told the AP.(When in trouble...ATTACK, ATTACK, ATTACK...

)

Cohen said the group had no idea it was setting off in the wrong direction.

"A friend with navigation device said we should go that way, and we all went that went," he said. "I had no clue where we were, I can tell you that. But the next day when we saw the airplane, we were jumping."

Glover said a GPS device is no substitute for good judgment or detailed topographical maps.

"People can start down a nice, graded dirt road and it can soon turn into boulders and deep washes, but they continue driving instead of turning around. I don't understand it," Glover told The Salt Lake Tribune. "The shortest way is not always the quickest way."

It took a lot of back-and-forth cell phone calls, but sheriff's deputies were able to find the group Sunday and lead them back out to Cannonville.

It wasn't the first time Staircase visitors have wandered into near oblivion. Dozens have been stranded since the monument was created in 1996, often with the false encouragement of a GPS device, said Bureau of Land Management spokesman Larry Crutchfield.

With a little more practice, these people could be Darwin Award Finalists...

vansimplement · 08-06-2008, 07:09 PM

They also don't warn folks that a particular road gets flooded after heavy rains. I saw pictures of some town in Britain with such a road - a major road was under construction and GPS suggested an alternate route that included crossing that flooded intersection. Motorist after motorist kept on going, despite the water ahead, figuring that GPS said it was safe. Splash! Stuck! A nearby resident then made a mint pulling out the cars with his tractor

**gunmaker** · 08-06-2008, 08:43 PM

Well Paul, it's as we said; Common Sense has passed away!

**Ducati996** · 08-06-2008, 10:40 PM

Thats why birth control is so important - stupid people breed with other stupid people, creating more stupid people perpetuating the cycle!

Mickey · 08-06-2008, 11:02 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by gunmaker

Well Paul, it's as we said; Common Sense has passed away!

Just what I was thinking.

A GPS can be a wonderful thing but one must not accept the directions from a GPS with 100% confidense in it's ability.

I once got into one of these situations, before the days of GPS. Was visiting a ghost town in Montana and noticed a sign pointing to the hwy I was wanting to get on to. 15 mi taking this road and closer to 50 mi going back the way we came. Things looked OK so away we went. A couple mi down the road and I do mean down as we were up in the mts, and we found ourselves on a one lane cow path with grass knee high in the middle. Tall cliffs on the up hill side and a BIG drop off on the other. OH, did I mention, we were in our motorhome. Few miles down the road and we came upon a mini truck heading up the mt side. Almost wasn't able to pass one another. The truck was moving on the up hill side a tilted a fair amount and we almost had tires on the drop-off. Many places 10 mph was too fast. And to make things even more exciting, the brakes failed. Not sure why and fortunately we were a couple hundred yards from being at the bottom of the Mt. When we finally got to the highway there was a sign warning people how bad the road was ahead and advised not to take this road to the top. Where was that sign at the top???

The last time we were out in the MH and had the GPS, I decided to follow the GPS suggested route. Bad decision both coming and going and went different way both times.

Today's GPS's are wonderful devices but you can't throw common sense out the window and follow the route blindly if the journey is not totally new to you. WHen in doubt, stay to the well traveled roads.

jbrumberg · 08-07-2008, 06:58 AM

I am just waiting for the day when those plastic cellphone ear "thingies" that people wear start to tell their wearers what to do and they do it

. Some of those peole look like borgs

. Jay

GreenWannabe · 08-07-2008, 10:25 AM

And my family and friends wonder why I don't even want a GPS! I started being the family map reader before the age of 9. I can only remember once since that I even got turned around, the first time I went for a walk in the woods in Yosemite when I was 9. Now my sister could get turned around in three blocks from Penney's to Sears in downtown Pasadena back in the day! I spent a year flying out to LA to work every week in '04-'05, and was designated driver for my co-workers since I still knew the territory like the back of my hand.