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Use GPS Sense when Traveling Throughout Maine

March 24, 2010 - NORWAY -- A new Cadillac Escalade, $65,000. A trip to the scenic mountains of Maine, $1000. A global positioning system (GPS), $180. Common sense to ignore your GPS when it tells you to take a right on to a snowmobile trail, priceless.

When did technology begin to replace common sense? The more we rely on those convenient hand-held devices, the less common sense we have.

Each year, thousands of people travel from the cities to enjoy the wilderness of Maine. Not wanting to get lost during their trip, they activate their GPS units to guide them to their destination.

Maine Game Wardens and police officers advise people to remember to turn off their dirt road application when they travel to rural areas of the state.

“If you don't disable this function, you'll be taking roads that will not get you to where you want to be.” The result being the situation that two men from “away” found themselves in this past winter while traveling to world-renowned, Sunday River Ski Resort.

The GPS unit guided them successfully up Rt. 26 through Oxford and into Norway. For some reason it instructed them to travel past Norway Lake and to take a left soon there after.

The left, a dirt road. The men, not questioning the unit, continued on the dirt road and eventually the GPS instructed them to turn right. The right, a pile of snow, a trail leading out on the opposite side with a sign that read, “Snowmobile traffic only. NO ATV's.”

Now granted, the dirt road should have been their first clue that they were not being led in the correct direction. The second clue should have been the snowbank, but the story doesn't end there. They ignored the snowbank and the sign and proceeded to drive the $65,000 SUV down the snowmobile trail.

It's a wonder why people from “away” get a bad rep from natives. Often times, it's the lack of common sense on their part that ends up costing tax payers money and time in rescuing them.

These men continued on the trail for another hundred yards before they thought something wasn't right and decided to turn around. Yes, turn around an 18-foot SUV on a trail where a six-foot snowmobile often struggles to do so.

Police and warden services were summoned to rescue the men from their ordeal.

This type of thing happens several times a year and many of the stories have less funny and often scary endings.

Take for instance, a driver in California, when instructed to turn left onto train tracks. In his decision to ignore the device, he proceeded to get on the tracks, got stuck and narrowly escaped injury when the train hit his car.

Let others be the example in this case and the next time the electronic computer device gives a direction that doesn't make sense, ignore it.

by Cherri Crockett, March 24, 2010, Rumford Falls Times

Lakes: Pennesseewassee Lake
Regions: Sebago


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