In recent years, a county in central Utah has been dealing with a problem where drivers end up stuck on top of a mountain, and Google Maps is responsible for this issue. Google has fixed the issue after facing pressure due to the worst incident so far.
Sheriff Tyson Huntington of Emery County stated that they receive calls for assistance several times a month, typically after midnight, from a remote road on East Mountain. When drivers enter “Utah” as their destination on Google Maps, they are being directed to this location.
A semi-truck got stuck on East Mountain in Emery County because it followed directions from Google Maps to “Utah.” This image is provided by the Emery County Sheriff’s Department.
“We’ve had a problem with people traveling to Utah and searching for just ‘Utah’ on Google…” “and it takes them to a remote area of our county,” Huntington said.
The Emery County Sheriff’s Office shared details about nine incidents that occurred in the past two years. In these cases, travelers found themselves stranded on East Mountain because their navigation system had directed them up the mountain road. They were either lost, stuck, or ran out of gas.
The people traveling in the suitcases were usually families and tourists from other states who didn’t know the area well. He said that they would enter “Utah” and then follow the directions towards East Mountain. Eventually, they would need to call for emergency assistance.
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Search and rescue teams were able to help everyone and their cars get off the mountain in every situation. Officials say that Friday’s incident was the worst one so far.
A large truck with 18 wheels was carrying a 53-foot refrigerated trailer filled with Red Bull. The truck was instructed by a navigation system to drive up East Mountain, but unfortunately, it got stuck in the mud and was left hanging on a steep hill. The driver was saved and the semi-truck was recovered the next day.
The sheriff’s office has reached out to Google about the problem around 40 times in the past few years. They have also put up signs on the road to warn drivers not to continue if they were using Google Maps to get to “Utah” or if they were not prepared for the difficult terrain.
“We had to take those actions to try to reduce the problems, but we didn’t have any success with Google until today,” Huntington said on Monday.
The sheriff’s office information technology department contacted Google again after a semi-truck almost fell down a hill last weekend, hoping for a response.
A spokesperson from Google stated that the problem was resolved by Monday.
“We update the map using various sources, such as contributions from the community, information from local authorities, Street View, and satellite imagery.” A company spokesperson said in a statement that we have made changes to this route on our map, and these changes will be visible in the next few days.
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