On the 15th birthday of Google Maps, let’s review 15 weird cases that happened to this service

It’s undeniable that Google Maps has made our travel easier, although there are still some issues to resolve. To celebrate Google Maps’s 15th birthday, let’s take a look at 15 weird things that happened on the planet’s most popular map service.

1. A “virtual” traffic jam man on Google Maps with 99 phones

Google Maps features an updated traffic situation, which helps drivers be more active during the journey. However, according to artist Simon Weckert in Berlin (Germany), the system that Google Maps uses to collect traffic information is very vulnerable. In a street art performance in early 2020, Weckert dragged a red cart filled with smartphones across the roads to create a “virtual” traffic jam when Google Maps guessed 99 The phone is equivalent to 99 people moving on the same road!

2. The Los Angeles Police Department warns that navigation applications are sending people into burnt areas

Even if no artist is a prank, Google’s traffic updates can make people nervous. During a California fire in December 2017, police warned drivers not to follow when navigation apps suggested empty routes. Why are these routes empty? Because it’s burning around!

3. A man missing 22 years ago was discovered by the image of his car in the middle of a lake on Google Maps

One of the most unexpected results for Google for satellite imaging the world is when it helps find a few answers around a disappearance that happened decades ago. Specifically, a Florida man named William Moldt suddenly disappeared in 1997, but it took 22 years for his body to be found in August 2019. It may take much longer, if not for a few free people to search for satellite images of Google Maps and then notice a car sinking in a lake. It turned out to be Moldt’s car, and the remains of this ill-fated man were still inside the vehicle.

4. Google Maps reveals Disney is trying to hide a Millenium Falcon spacecraft with cargo containers

Not every satellite image on Google Maps is as horrific as the incident above. As the new Star Wars trilogy was being developed in 2017, fans zooming into Longcross Studios in the UK were extremely excited to discover the famous Millenium Falcon spacecraft in this series. Although Disney tried to keep it away from the “owl eyes” by using the surrounding cargo containers, the Mouse House still couldn’t escape Google’s “label spirit”.

5. Google Maps bug drives tourists instead of going to Australia’s Blue Mountains National Park to get lost in a dead-end suburb

Most of the time, Google Maps is quite useful, but sometimes you will get in trouble because the place you need is mislabeled on this service. Until 2017, many tourists who wanted to visit Australia’s Blue Mountains National Park were led to a dead-end suburban road half a hour’s drive away. The problem was so serious that people here had to put up a plaque with the content, ” This is not BLUE MOUNTAINS (Google Maps is wrong)”.

6. Google Maps labels a guy’s house a pizza parlor, and everyone wants to come by to eat it

Another misbranding affair in Australia, corrected in 2017, when a guy’s house accidentally became a favorite destination for strangers with a hungry stomach. After Google Earth mistook his Darwin home for a pizza parlor, Michael McElwee began visiting strangers or asking about when his shop would open, or sometimes they would come to …applying for a job.

7. A demolition team razed the wrong house, blaming Google Maps

Going the wrong way is annoying, but this next incident could be considered the worst consequence of Google Maps mislabeling. In March 2016, a demolition company sent people to flatten a house, only to discover that the house to be demolished was located a block away! When questioned by the landlord, the company shared a screenshot of Google Maps showing that the house has been demolished with the address of the house that should have been demolished.

Beautiful house before being mistaken

8. See the swastika on Google Maps? Nothing to panic at all!

In 2018, many people were startled to see that Google Maps labeled many hotels with swastika symbols. It turns out, it is not the clockwise swastika, which is a symbol of Fascism in the West, but the counter-clockwise swastika, used by Buddhism in the East. And ironically, this symbol has been mistakenly assigned to hotels instead of temples.

9. Trump Tower in New York was renamed to “Dump Tower” on Google Maps

The incident took place in November 2016, and its author is none other than a Google employee!

10. Google must apologize for the racist keyword resulting in … the White House

In 2015, Google Maps users found that if they typed “nigger house” or “nigger king” (king of all) into the search bar, their results would be … White House, now the office of the first black President of the United States at that time – Barack Obama. Until now it is unclear where the cause of this incident comes from.

11. Google Maps shuffles Martin Luther King day to day

Martin Luther King Jr Day 2017 was a real disaster for Google Maps. Most businesses / stores on Google Maps are marked as celebrating federal holidays to help customers know opening hours. However, stores in Alabama, Arkansas, and Mississippi (three states in the South of the US) were marked as celebrating the birthday of Robert E. Lee – a Union faction in the Civil War. South – North America.

12. New York City recommends that Google Maps limit directing users to make a left turn

In July 2015, New York City made an unusual offer to Google: reducing the number of left turn directions in the Google Maps navigation system. It is known that a quarter of the accidents between cars and pedestrians occur when the driver is turning left. And this has led officials in New York to decide that it is best not to turn left!

13. A Google Maps driver is arrested and accused of being a government agent

In 2013, Thai villagers in Phrae province seized Google Street View driver Deeprom Phongphon on suspicion he was a government agent disguised. Local people at this time are strongly opposed to a hydroelectric dam project, and fears Phongphon came here to survey the area. Luckily for him, he had not been “beaten” yet, and the locals eventually apologized to him, even though they had previously forced Phongphon to swear in front of the Buddha image that he was not a government-appointed person.

14. Google Maps helps a 5,000-mile walk across Asia

When US Marine Sergeant Winston Fiore decided to use Google Maps as a guide on his Asia tour, the service was only 6 years old. Now, having witnessed so many mistakes that Google Maps has made, everyone believes that depending on it is a stupid mistake, but Fiore proves the opposite. He spent more than a year walking through many countries for charitable purposes, ending in November 2012 with the amount of more than $ 65,000 raised for the International Children’s Surgery Fund.

15. The deceitful youth makes Google and Apple Maps name the road after them

If nobody wants to name you something, do it yourself. In 2013, Beijing artist Ge Yulu attached a street name tag to his name on an unnamed road to carry out his art project. This nameplate has been around for 4 years, and the new road name has no reason to be included in official documents, finally appearing on Google Maps to this day.

Ge Yulu street name tags were created by Ge in 2013

Reference: Mashable