Tag: driving

Google maps bias

Gmaps Eco route

I really like Google maps and used it since 2005. I means whats not to like from offline support to step by step directions.

However… driving directions which most people use a lot has bias.

I drive around on a maxi-scooter (600cc Silverwing) with a headset in my helmet. I can not see my phone while driving around and rely on google maps to tell me where to go (only if I don’t know where I am going).

There are some annoyances which I have mentioned elsewhere, but yesterday while trying to drive to a friends house via the Pennines it became super clear some of the bias of google maps. Bias towards car drivers who care about fuel and not the wellbeing of the driver.

  • Google maps really needs the option to drive via A roads and B roads (only if essential). The fastest route always takes you technically faster route, down country lanes. The route gmaps took me on yesterday, was full of country lanes and one of them was water logged. Fine for a SUV or big car but not for a 2 wheel scooter.
  • The above might seem quite scooter focused but as my partner pointed out on a journey to Bournemouth this year. She would rather had taken a A road most of the way instead of the headache of navigating country roads for over an hour. I had hoped eco drive would solve this but nope.
  • Another one from my partner but makes sense for motorbikes too. When Gmaps finds a quicker route, there should be an option to set the default to the original route unless you press the screen. Its really frustrating to have it change the route without being able to see what’s changed.
  • Likewise this is useful for car drivers who don’t want to press the screen in the middle of driving.
  • The stops option is useful for the route but when you reach the stop, it doesn’t continue on to the next stop automatically unless you press the screen. This means you can plot the perfect route but then need to press the screen each time. This should be a preference option again.
  • I once drove down to Bristol and Gmaps just stopped talking to me. Usually if this happens, it means keep going. However when it goes quiet due to a bug/error theres no way to know, especially on a motorway. Maybe a small beep every set minutes would be most useful.
  • It would be great if Gmaps on mobile used some of the contextual data. For example Gmaps could understand if I’m on a motorbike oppose to a car. The time of day to pick routes with street lights. Weather conditions could be useful to avoid flood risk roads. Of course these can adjusted in the preferences, otherwise they could be annoying for some drivers.

I’m sure there are many more but this are ones which come to mind since yesterday. Its clear google maps isn’t ideal for non screen viewing.

Ride down to Bristol via Snowdonia

At end of my journey

In a previous post I talked about driving to Bristol via Snowdonia. Well I’m happy to say I made it! Yeh me! 400+ miles completed.

I know most of you are saying, so what? But I have never driven so far on my Silverwing scooter before. I use to drive between London and Bristol on the A4 when I moved to London and it use to be a very long trip (4hours). Main reason it took so long is because I was on a 125cc scooter and it was going flat out most of the journey. I couldn’t use the motorway with my L plates and 125cc bike. Such a journey I would need to nap for a hour or so straight away afterwards!

I recorded the journey using my tracks as usual but unfortunately turned it off when stopping at Aberystwyth. I also forgot to turn it on a couple times, hence some small gaps in the journey.

Here is my ride from Manchester to Liverpool to Llandidno to Llarwst to Blaenau Ffestiniog to Barmouth to Dolgellau to Machynlleth to Aberystwyth. Blaenau was impressive, I wished my camera still had enough battery because you swing around a mountain down a beautiful valley into this clearing. The clearing is a mine site with a village in the middle. Barmouth was a mistake because when looking at google maps, I thought the line across the river was a public bridge but it was actually a train bridge. I actually thought I missed it but ended up going back on myself towards Dolgellau. I did stop at Llandidno and try and go around the Great Orme (the wrong way it seems). I also tried to pay at the mersey tunnel but realised it was free for bikes.

Then I stayed at the Queensbridge hotel on the seafront where I got told I was being moving to the Four Seasons in town. Didn’t really matter because it was pretty much the same.

After a sleep and breakfast I headed out again. From Aberystwyth to Rhayader to Talgarth to Abergavenny to Newport to Bristol. The travel across the 2nd seven bridge cross was free, and I somewhat forgot this. Also got stuck in a bit of traffic around Newport and Bullth Wells due to the Royal Wales festival.

The camera clamp actually held all the way through the journey, I was very impressive and thought it was bound to fall off somepoint.

I think I might have connected the two parts together using Google Maps Engine. I tried to do it with a non-native XML editor but KML is a odd format which I don’t really get the schema.

So having that ride under my belt and the weather looking to hold while I drive back. I may avoid Birmingham and the Motorway to drive up through Wales again.

Who knows… Maybe I’ll drive down again and Ireland is calling me too. I always knew the Honda Silverwing was a touring scooter being the little sibling of the Honda Goldwing.

Geek and Geekhag podcast number ten – America

Here's a rough podcast me and Sarah did while driving to Minneapolis on the highway. I've cleaned it up as much as I can using Audacity but theres little we can do about the car noise and the laptop internal microphone. For now, its best not to link directly to the mpeg3 file because I will move it to archive.org when I get back online.

The subject for the podcast is that old chestnut, America or the states. We talk about oil prices, cars and the people. Enjoy…

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