Summary
- Google Maps’ erroneous road closures led to chaos, prompting unnecessary detours near major German cities.
- Drivers took false traffic reports as fact, leading to disrupted routes and traffic jams despite no actual closures.
- Google hasn’t offered a reason for the glitch, but recommends checking multiple sources when planning trips.
Imagine leaving the suburbs to visit a nearby major city, only for your traffic app to warn that nearly every major highway to your destination is closed. That’s the horror story thousands of German residents woke up to Thursday, as a mysterious Google Maps miscue marked dozens of major thoroughfares impassable when, in reality, no such closures existed.
And while phantom road closures could easily frustrate commuting workers, Germany’s four-day weekend in the observance of Ascension Day meant more drivers than usual were trekking to urban centers to enjoy the holiday. The as-yet-unexplained misinformation led to massive delays as Maps users flooded potential detour routes while, somewhat ironically, traffic on the supposedly closed highways flowed mostly without issue (Source: The Guardian).
When IRL traffic reports come in handy
Sometimes being proactive isn’t proactive enough
A nightmare traffic scenario. Google Maps screenshots courtesy of Bild, Berliner Morgenpost, and The Guardian.
German culture tends to take punctuality seriously, typically viewing lateness as impolite, unprofessional, and annoying. Presumably, thousands of Thursday morning drivers noticed Google Maps’ road closure claims and immediately did the right thing by informing anyone they’d planned to meet with of their apparently unavoidable tardiness. After all, in-the-moment screenshots show an absurd number of blockages on major highways.
The real chaos came when many users took the app’s claims at face value and immediately set a course to avoid the affected routes. That kind of planning is exactly why navigation apps provide traffic notifications. Plus, Google’s live data is normally reliable enough that many didn’t think to second-guess the global data-harvesting giant.
Those who did — and checked popular Google Maps alternatives like Waze or Apple Maps — discovered a starkly different traffic report. In a predictable twist of fate, the imaginary closures left the affected motorways with less holiday traffic than they otherwise might have seen. In the same vein, countless drivers got stuck in stop-and-start processions through side streets and on roundabout journeys to avoid problem spots.
As a Google spokesperson explained to the Berliner Morgenpost (translated from German), “The information in Google Maps comes from a variety of sources. Information such as locations, street names, boundaries, traffic data, and road networks comes from a combination of third-party providers, public sources, and user input. In general, these sources provide a strong foundation for comprehensive and up-to-date maps.” Google hasn’t pinpointed the exact reason for the expansive glitch — and we may never know for sure, despite some people’s eagerness to speculate wildly on the most dramatic causes possible.
The jury is out on why it happened
It could have been some sort of bug in Google’s or one of its providers’ software. Meanwhile, many social media users love to jump on any “state-sponsored terrorism did it” bandwagon they can find. Germany also, somewhat famously, holds privacy in such high regard that Google Maps’ Street View barely exists in the country. The odd nature of the mishap makes speculation extremely difficult.
The false closure fire was put out just a few hours after it started. But it’s not the first time something similar has happened in recent weeks. On May 2, the nearly 8km Rennsteig Tunnel similarly got hit with an errant closure report, which wasn’t fixed until the local neveropen department from Thuringia got involved on Twitter/X.
Next time you see an unusually alarming set of traffic disturbances on your favorite navigation app, consider checking traffic reports on the radio before committing to extensive detours. Especially if you live in Germany.
