Here’s one of those small signs indicating our robot overlords seem to be trying kill us all off.
If you are using a GPS app to drive from Red Bank’s West Side to a spot south towards Little Silver/Shrewsbury, nearly every app from Google Maps to Waze will direct you to make a left from Leighton Avenue onto Newman Springs Road.
Um, no thanks.
While a calculating robot might think this is the quickest route, any human being who has driven Red Bank roads for any length of time know that a left-hand turn onto Route 520 at that spot ranges from ill-advised to downright harrowing.
That left turn requires, first, an often long wait for any safe break in traffic. Even a break that seems sufficient is likely to prove sketchy due to the speeds drivers often travel there.
(This reporter sat through a municipal court hearing last year for a young driver clocked by Red Bank police doing 85 mph on that stretch, which still makes us shiver. )
We humans of Red Bank know the smart move is to take left onto a side street like Drs. James Parker Blvd, or West Westside, then make the right onto Shrewsbury Avenue to proceed south towards our destination – still alive.
Perhaps the day will come when robots drive our cars and the self-driving vehicles will be programmed so they don’t go over the speed limit and obey all traffic laws. Maybe then we will be able to take a left turn onto Newman Springs.
Until then, these dumb robots have no idea how dumb human drivers can be.
Best to make the smart move and not listen to them.
Are there any other “thanks but no thanks” GPS routes you ignore the robots about while driving around here? We’d love to hear them.
