The folly of blindly accepting what the GPS says

[Pteropus]

This story reminds me of some of the talk of taking GPS instructions too literally in the dissussion thread on GPS use. The tourists in the story were lucky to get away with their mistake but this sort of thing could easily lead to a Darwin Award!

For example...

In the US, the National Parks/US Forest Service have a statistic and a description of visitor deaths called, "Death by GPS".
"Death by GPS" sounds more far interesting and modern, than death from failure to take a map and compass.

As far as I am aware, the 'Death by GPS' scenario involves people renting cars and straying into unfamiliar and hazardous terrain due to trusting the directions given by the GPS.

[photohiker]

I think that little expedition to Straddy has gone well beyond trust.

[South_Aussie_Hiker]

Yes, it's a very well known scenario in aviation.

Countless lives have been lost in aircraft accidents for this very reason.

The problem has slowly been reduced, somewhat through engineering and equipment improvements, but mainly with heavy procedural changes in the way GPS data is entered, used and cross checked.

American Airlines 965 crashed because the flight crew entered an incorrect GPS waypoint and blindly followed it.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_A ... Flight_965

Closer to home, a crash in 2005 in Queensland killed 15 passengers, when correct GPS waypoints were entered, but the crew lost awareness of which one they had passed last and descended prematurely into a hill range.
https://www.atsb.gov.au/publications/in ... 01977.aspx

It's not surprising to think it happens to bushwalkers too.

[Ent]

Hi

Me thinks that more than a few (me included) have not fully figured out their GPS so blame the device not the user. In Tassie you can have a 1:100,000 map in 94 but 1:25,000 in 66 so in tricky terrain this difference can make life interesting. Also maps have a small issue or two called contour lines and artistic track drawing. When looking at a plot of the Western Arthurs trip where we took a wrong turn it was interesting to compare maps with on ground situational awareness. It ended in a large drop yet my Garmin Base map shows that we were merely thirty metres away from the track had we kept going Um? the contour lines looked rather harmless on the screen but been there I can assure everyone that the drop was real! Also on maps tracks are shown with gentle sweeping curves when they can be zig zag and quite some distance from the idealised track plot. So good track finding and following skills still need to be honed.

But a GPS is not a villain some make it out to be, nor is PLBs and mobile phones, etc. In the hands of someone that understands them they make for lot safer and easier walking. Now where is that instruction manual again for mine. The one written in Ancient Geek then translated to Chinese and finally pigeon English

Cheers