A two-car crash on Monday in front of our Main Street office sent a mother and an infant to the hospital. From the look of the damage, it appeared to be a routine accident, but, presumably because the airbags deployed in the mother and young baby’s vehicle after the abrupt stop, it was prudent to have the child examined by physicians. We will know more when a police report on the incident is finalized for next week, but this was far from an isolated fender-bender; the spot is the site of frequent — we have seen two in one day — smash-ups. It is also a lesson not to blindly follow digital maps.
As South Fork traffic swells in summer, Google Maps and iPhone navigation apps seek alternatives. Increasingly, we have seen traffic tie-ups in new and confusing places, the result of the apps having routed drivers this way and that to shave seconds off a route.
Monday’s accident likely was an example of digital misdirection. Driving from Main Beach to the East Hampton Library, for instance, Google Maps tells drivers to follow James Lane (instead of Main Street) north, then take a nonexistent left onto Pondview Lane — Pondview Lane begins on the east side at the confluence of James Lane and Main Street. Google’s left in reality is a U-turn across three lanes of traffic, if we count a turning lane, and it instructs drivers to cut directly into their blind spot, to the left and slightly behind, out of view. In sum, Google and others such as Apple Maps tell drivers to take a sharp turn onto a road that does not exist — and into the path of other vehicles. Amid all the confusion of many drivers unfamiliar with our roads or simply inexperienced, the accidents will continue.
Motorists are ultimately responsible for their own actions. That does not excuse the purveyors of digital maps from sharing some of the blame. Public officials should be alert to the potential for digital misdirection and press the apps’ makers and, in the case of Main Street in East Hampton, the State of New York, to make roadway changes clear enough for even our unthinking Google Maps to understand.