Happy Nice Mall

The road once carried stagecoaches during the Gold Rush and ran through what is now a national forest and an area of ​​the Sierra Nevada known for snowmobiling.

During the winter, the rugged walkway known as Quincy-La Porte Road or County Road 511 in Plumas County, California, closed.

But Wendy Becktold, a Bay Area editor who went to visit a sick relative in Reno, Nev. on Monday, said she was unaware of it as she drove her rented Toyota Corolla down a rural road. record-breaking blizzard.

Google Maps had guided him this way as two major highways near Lake Tahoe were closed, he told in an interview Wednesday, voicing concerns from other drivers and public safety officials about the potential dangers of relying too much on GPS apps.

They said Google-owned Google Maps and Waze, along with other mapping programs, would not always take into account seasonal road closures or dangerous terrain, and instead emphasized temporary road closures.

“There were a lot of cars behind us,” said Mrs. Becktold. “Obviously, Google Maps was guiding everyone the same.”

Becktold, 50, a senior story editor for Sierra, a magazine published by the Sierra Club, said she and her cousin saw a tree limb on a power line and had unwittingly passed many cabins. They had stopped to put chains on their tires. Becktold, who lives in Berkeley, California, later said a worker wearing a safety vest waved at them.

“‘Everybody keeps showing me their phones,’ she said,” Ms Becktold said. “It was like he was crazy.”

A Google Maps spokesperson said Wednesday that the tech company is taking steps to provide accurate route information to drivers.

“In light of the unpredictable conditions resulting from the current snowstorm, our team is working as soon as possible to update routes in the Lake Tahoe area using information from local authorities.” Spokesperson Madison Gouveia said. “We are currently displaying a winter storm warning to alert drivers in the area and encourage everyone to be vigilant and careful.”

Google Maps did not answer questions about what safety measures it has used for drivers, including warnings about winter road closures or unpaved roads. SFGate.com previously reported white-knuckle deviations.

The county sheriff’s office is located in Nev. In Washoe County, a family of five from Southern California were stranded for two hours Monday night when their rental pickup truck got stuck in snow on a two-lane dirt road.

The family had sought an alternative way to visit relatives for the holidays in Truckee, California, during the storm that blocked an 81-mile stretch of Interstate 80 and contributed to the Sierra’s snowiest December on record.

More than 17 feet of snow fell throughout the month on Thursday, according to the Central Sierra Snow Lab of the University of California at Berkeley. The storm also blocked Highway 50 about 50 miles in the Sacramento Valley and Lake Tahoe Basin before that, and I-80 reopened.

In Facebook post On Tuesday, the Washoe County Sheriff’s Office said the family ignored the lighted warning signs telling drivers not to use the Dog Valley-Henness Pass Roads.

“However, the family’s GPS won the battle over which technology to listen for,” the sheriff’s office said in a Facebook post Tuesday, adding that the family had been rescued.

It is not clear which GPS application the family uses.

In general notice Last week, the Washoe County Sheriff’s Office said drivers often stray from the same path when using GPS. According to the sheriff, emergency responders were called in for 11 rescue operations from November 2020 to last February.

Raquel Borrayo, spokesperson for Caltrans, the California state transportation department, said in an email Wednesday that the agency is trying to reinforce that over-reliance on GPS apps can be risky.

“When people try to use map apps like Waze or Google Maps to avoid highway closures, they can sometimes get into very dangerous and dangerous situations with headland/grit roads, heavy snow and zero cell phone service,” said Ms. Borrayo. . “We always tell people to stay on highways and find alternative routes that way instead of using rural roads. We also advise people to stay in place and wait until the interstate or highway closure is lifted.”

During this week’s storm, several people posted screenshots of Google Maps and Waze directions on Twitter, sending users to the Henness Pass Road. Sierra County Historical Society It is described as a secluded and winding mountain road that rises to an elevation of 6,920 feet. The trail, which is the primary immigration trail from Virginia City, Nev., has “departed from many maps,” according to a statement on the historic association’s website.

Named after the snow-condemned pioneer family, some of whom resorted to cannibalism in the 1840s, Donner Pass is about 40 miles off the winding road.

A Waze spokesperson said in an email on Thursday that the company is committed to helping drivers navigate efficiently and safely.

“In light of this week’s blizzard and changing weather conditions, Waze Community Map Editors “Continue to keep our maps updated with the latest real-time routing information,” said spokesperson Caroline Bourdeau. “We encourage drivers to be careful and be careful on the road”

Waze has a filter that allows drivers to avoid unpaved roads.

Crystal A. Kolden, a geographer and disaster scientist who teaches at the University of California at Merced, said she couldn’t believe it when she saw Google Maps suggest Henness Pass and other rural routes to drivers looking for alternatives to the I-80.

“They can barely be driven in the summer,” Professor Kolden said on Wednesday. “How trustworthy these companies are is an ethical responsibility?”

Professor Kolden, 44, who was at his home near Sonora, California, in the foothills of the Sierra during the storm, criticized Google maps on Twitter. Some commentators mocked the post, saying that drivers should take responsibility for monitoring conditions and that a Prius driver looks like a millennial.

Speaking of the deadly flooding in September, he said in an interview, “blaming defenseless people for taking the wrong path is the same as blaming some vulnerable defenseless people who recently drowned in basement apartments in New York City.”

On Wednesday, Google Maps showed red dots with dashes along the path Ms. Becktold took on Monday’s detour. Road closure warnings weren’t there two days ago, he said.

“We weren’t just having fun looking for a day in the snow,” said Ms. Becktold.

Ms. Becktold said she had no choice but to return to Berkeley when she was 150 miles away from the 200-mile journey. Her cousin, who was trying to reach her sick brother in Reno, said she eventually applied to fly from San Francisco to Reno via Los Angeles.

“In this day and age, it seems a little ridiculous that there is no clearer information online that these roads are closed,” he said.