A very sad image indeed... From The Oatmeal

[jamesqf]

Originally Posted by Old Tele man

...but, like Dirty Harry asked: "...you gotta ask..." how many Chinese transistors and IC chips are UP there in those GPS satellites?!?!

But it's never (AFAIK, anyway) the actual GPS system that has caused the problem in any of the drive-off-cliff-cause-GPS-said-so scenarios. That is, the GPS would have been reporting a perfectly accurate latitude/longitude/elevation position. The problem is that the mapping data does not correspond to what's on the ground.

I see this with lot with the dirt roads out in the hills around here. There are roads that aren't on the maps, there are roads shown on the maps that don't exist, or aren't quite where the map says they should be.

[Arragonis]

BBC NEWS | UK | England | Bradford | Man follows sat nav to cliff edge

[euromodder]

Originally Posted by jamesqf

The problem is that the mapping data does not correspond to what's on the ground.

I see this with lot with the dirt roads out in the hills around here. There are roads that aren't on the maps, there are roads shown on the maps that don't exist, or aren't quite where the map says they should be.

Saw that a few times in the more deserted areas of CA

Dumont Dunes Road, a gravel road just off CA127 is there all right, but the H pattern of roads isn't.
Yet they were on our GPS, and are on Google maps as well
Death Valley Junction, CA, United States - Google Maps

[jamesqf]

Another interesting thing is to look at the new series USGS online topo maps, which download as PDFs with a layer that's an satellite image of the terrain (with enough resolution to often make out individual trees). Lots of dirt roads around here show up on the photo, but aren't on the map, or have changed alignment so they don't go quite where the map says they do.