It's got nothing to do with new maps. Try directions from Poole to Studland, which is a peninsula about 7 miles away. Google maps tells you to hop onto the Poole-St Malo ferry and, this is the interesting bit, jump off the ferry as it passes Studland. Either that or it wants you to drive along the middle of the harbour. (see popup window of the route).

"Turn left and head toward Poole-St. Malo 496 ft

Continue on Poole-St. Malo 3.4 mi

Turn right and head toward Ferry Road"

Perhaps the road is a dual carriageway and the navigation software is a route(as in driving) navigation system?

Obviously the real test would be whether the writer was dumb enough to follow the suggested route.

Google maps, multimap etc etc have never been very good for doing journeys on foot; they make you go around roundabouts to cross the road, and transverse one way systems in city centre. The best I've found is transportdirect.info which is a uk site for public transport and naturally on occasion includes directions for walking between different bus stops and trains.

I guess its only in Oz that you would actually look on Google Maps for directions to a building one up from you!

I have completly forgotten which directions sit it was, but when I asked for walking directions from Newport-On-Tay to Dundee instead of a freezing, windy 2 mile walk across the Tay Road Bridge it directed the poor walker via Perth. This is a 75km distance, and by my reckoning if you really wanted to avoid walking the bridge paying a local with a boat to ferry you would be a lot more convenient and probably cheaper too.

The worst one is MS Autoroute which instead of telling you to take the nth exit from a roundabout goes into excruciating detail involving left and right turns. You could end up disappearing up your own exhaust pipe.

... that's why I'm very dissapointed you didn't go for what I thought would have been the overly obvious "Why did the chicken go 10.4km? To get to the other side!"

Hi,

I just wanted to give you some further details on the google maps error. The glitch only affects 201 Sussex Street, Sydney. That is, if you are looking to get to number 203 (next door), the directions given are correct.

The glitch is caused by the street mapping incorrectly identifying the entrance to the building at 201 Sussex St as being on the freeway that runs behind Sussex street. The only way to get onto that freeway, is to cross the Harbour Bridge from the North Shore.

Cheers

Rob Hayden, Sydney, AU

I just got back from Madrid. I asked Google Maps to give me directions to Via de Los Poblados from my hotel near Calle Arturo Soria

It gave me a 16km route to the south of the city. Very detailed. Very impressive. But I thought this a bit strange... my hotel was supposed to be close to Via de Los Poblados

Turns out there are TWO Via de Los Poblados in Madrid ...

Google Maps is usually pretty good at handling roundabouts and one way systems. Using details for two businesses that are almost next door to each other in Stevenage, it should tell you just to drive up Cavendish Road for 500 yards:

"SG1 2EH to SG1 2EQ"

Instead it takes you to a point halfway between two junctions of the A1M. Now I know the traffic is slow at that point, but it's not THAT slow!