GPS Failure leads to death

The GPS worked fine…it’s not the arrow , it’s the Indian

Did that mistake only once. I only went about 200 feet and backed out to the paved road. If you are not prepared to travel on dirt roads make sure your settings are set to not use unpaved roads. I am sad that this family had this happen over a simple error in the settings.

I’m sympathetic to the wife, but find it interesting that the nephew states “Ronnie blamed himself for getting them into the situation, but I do not think that there was any blame for him to shoulder,” Peters wrote.” Yet the GPS was not set properly and then when they attempted to use the trailered Kia, they made a wrong turn. I would think they took the GPS with them on the journey with the Kia.

I recall when I got my first GPS, a TomTom One, I used it for several weeks to go to work. Sometimes I purposely deviated off the route, just to be familiar with its capabilities.

I didn't see anywhere in the article where it said the GPS was portable. So let's not assume they had it in the Kia.

The MISTAKE here is taking the RV on roads where it did not belong AND continuing to do so until stuck. After all, an RV is NOT an off-the-road vehicle.

But of course, the GPS, and it's settings, will end up getting the blame.

They is no mention that GPS “failed.”. There were no reported GPS outages or anomalies. GPS provides a position and time signal, it does not replace decision making.

It is important to be aware of surroundings and what you are doing, regardless of what the magenta line says on a navigation device.

What has been stated, from media, at best sometimes not the best source is “The pair were reportedly on an RV trip from Oregon to Arizona, but , lost GPS service, and their text messages pleading for help did not go through.. The source is https://sfist.com/2022/04/07/harrowing-search-for-missing-co.... Many media sources in discussing the tragedy use the wording GPS “service”. Is that a dedicated GPS device or a cell phone out of range from a tower?

Whoa... That changes things. My interpretation was they were using some offline gps with highway mode disabled (shortest route?) which guided them onto some dirt road or such up a mountain. If they were using a cell phone then that explains a lot.

There is GPS service in the middle of nowhere. I know... I've been in the middle of nowhere . What there is not is cellular service, so depending how much map data their gps device downloaded when it did have service would explain why they became lost.

They're driving an RV, who uses a cell phone for routing in a RV?!@# They need a proper GPS device (garmin or otherwise).

Back when I had the nuvi 750 (2008, 2009?). I had one instance where the thing locked up on me. Wasted an hr on the side of the road trying to revive it. Eventually it did come back and I finished the trip successfully. Upon return home I ordered another gps. From then on, always took both on long trips. These days I still have multiple gps's but only use one. The phone has offline maps (HERE app) installed should they ever be needed.

I always have multiple navigation devices with me when traveling. I do have a back up GPS (older model NUVI) with separate charging cable. My wife has her cell phone running Google map as a hot standby which gives a second opinion as needed when we hesitate.

I had a similar thing happen to me recently, I downloaded a trial of Navionics (an offline marine navigation program with charts). The trial said it would last 2 weeks, and I made sure I had all the charts downloaded before I left.

The first day, in a small boat in 30kts of wind, heading into a rocky and island/reef dotted area, I got a pop up "trial expired" and left me with a cartoon of a map left.

I had a paper map backup, and this didn't cause me any great issues, however it was very unexpected and disconcerting.

Of course as soon as I next got wifi, my trial magically "unexpired" and my maps came back. Troubleshooting with Garmin after the fact, all they came up with was that the initial download might have been corrupted somehow.

Such a sad story. GPS should have a designation for RV's and trucks so that they are not routed to inappropriate roads for such vehicles.

Now we just hit the road and count on technology keeping us from doing something too ridiculous. Sadly, things don't always work out that way.

Darwin strikes again...

Part of using technology is the need to have some basic understanding (at least at the the fundamental level) how it works. Knowing the ramifications of loss of cellular connectivity.

Many people don't realize that while cell phone service is generally solid in urban areas and along interstates, get off the beaten track, especially west of the Mississippi, and you can drive for hours, even days, without a good cell phone signal. I've done it. Cell phone signals may reach 90%?? of US residents, but nowhere near 90% of US geography. Many big national parks and similar destinations have very limited to no cell phone service especially away from the visitor center. So people really shouldn't just count on a cell phone to get them where they're going.

it isn't clear to me that blaming the victim is correct. if you believe in the easter bunny and corporate america and look at a cell phone coverage map (w/o blowing it up) it sure looks like coverage is near complete for the us.

i've heard search and rescue folks here make fun of lowlanders who try to climb a 14000 foot peak with flip-flops. i've heard programmers poke fun of other programmers who didn't understand serialization. all of us had to learn what we know and we're not all exposed to the same things.