If you are in sticks and bricks, check your house number on google/apple/garmin maps

[ajg617]

We've been dealing with inappropriate numbering on all three and only built and lived here for 22 years with the same house number. But as drivers are depending more and more on technology rather than eyes on mailboxes, we are running into more issues with incorrect deliveries. Worse, tonight there was a knock on the door and in comes the local fire department with an ambulance and auxiliary vehicle in the driveway. Wrong house number. When he gave me the number he was looking for, I told him you must be using an Iphone and the house you want is next door. Nobody uses mailbox numbers and eyes any longer - it's all tech reliant on data that has not been adequately verified. There is a fundamental problem if the data that Apple and Google and Garmin are importing is incorrect - and it isn't just an inconvenient delivery. Tonight someones life could have been at stake. Tomorrow I'm going to contact town and state and ask specifically where they get their E911 address and map data from.

 

[jkwilson]

If it’s like Indiana, the county provides a map with locations. Ours is wrong, and we change it, only for it to revert again in a couple of years. 6 consecutive Amazon packages were misdelivered but they won’t change it.

 

[traveldawg]

We've been dealing with inappropriate numbering on all three and only built and lived here for 22 years with the same house number. But as drivers are depending more and more on technology rather than eyes on mailboxes, we are running into more issues with incorrect deliveries. Worse, tonight there was a knock on the door and in comes the local fire department with an ambulance and auxiliary vehicle in the driveway. Wrong house number. When he gave me the number he was looking for, I told him you must be using an Iphone and the house you want is next door. Nobody uses mailbox numbers and eyes any longer - it's all tech reliant on data that has not been adequately verified. There is a fundamental problem if the data that Apple and Google and Garmin are importing is incorrect - and it isn't just an inconvenient delivery. Tonight someone's life could have been at stake. Tomorrow I'm going to contact town and state and ask specifically where they get their E911 address and map data from.

That's a pretty scary thought - that emergency services can't look at a house number that is actually physical.

In our neighborhood the FD has put the word out that house numbers should be either painted on the curbing (keeps their eyes on the road rather than roaming house-to-house) AND to light their house number at night. Although when they do come in at night they have these huge search lights on the curb side that lights up things like it is daylight; I suppose that is their way of finding house numbers.

 

[ajg617]

That's a pretty scary thought - that emergency services can't look at a house number that is actually physical.

In our neighborhood the FD has put the word out that house numbers should be either painted on the curbing (keeps their eyes on the road rather than roaming house-to-house) AND to light their house number at night. Although when they do come in at night they have these huge search lights on the curb side that lights up things like it is daylight; I suppose that is their way of finding house numbers.

That's the way it is where daughter lives in NC also - very strict about house numbers showing. Not many houses have numbers here - they are typically on mailbox posts since houses are set well back off the street. Since the CrowdStrike incident though, we have been getting deliveries/service requests (pizza, groceries, door dash, exterminator) for our neighbor to the tune of one or two a week which made me wonder if our E911 system suffered as it did go down state-wide as a direct result. I called the state and they said they do not use any of the commercial maps - they have their own which they generate and maintain - but routing emergency services is up to the individual towns.

So I called the town fire chief and they have their own mapping data and app that the first responders are supposed to use. He verified that our house number is correctly shown and suspects that the crew was using their own phones and apps instead of what they are supposed to use - town provided. So it looks like the process is different for each town???

Hope I didn't get anyone in trouble but it was a bit disconcerting since they followed their procedure of two loud knocks on the door, immediate entry yelling KNOCK KNOCK without waiting for an answer to find the person in distress all with DW sitting at the table eating dinner, me in my office, and dogs going crazy. Luckily it was daylight and not in the middle of the night and not something worse. We didn't know what was going on with an ambulance and fire truck in driveway once we looked outside. Chief says he has some remedial training to do.

 

[Capt Bob]

We have a brick enclosed mailbox (HOA required) with a brass number plate. This is supplemented with an illuminated house number on the front face of the house by the driveway. We still get the neighbor’s mail from time to time.

 

[Tony_in_AZ]

Some of this wrong address data seems to be entrenched in a system forever. ? You can not talk with the person at the other end of the phone to correct it.

We lived at the same house for 22 years. Back when we used a land line phone, phone company had my address listed as 157th Street. It was 157 "Way". More than once I stood in the middle of the street, on the cell phone to wave to the tech as he disagreed with me. Then suddenly he sees me wave at him as he turns on to the correct street. At the time the phone bill address was correct. The tech service guys received the wrong street on work order

Or : More than once Directv pulls up in front of my house. Then drives off, reporting that my phone number was wrong. Directv had a number that was deleted 15 yrs earlier. Then Directv calls my wife a liar (in so many words) as my wife tells them the number is OLD , Deleted 15 yrs ago. It happened several times till my angry wife suddenly cancelled the service one day as she tried to correct Directv again...

The County sent me a letter telling me to install proper numbers on my house. I talked to the inspector: I had numbers on the mailbox at the street. Lighted numbers under the mailbox for night time viewing. Numbers on the front of the house.

 

[kalle68]

We've been dealing with inappropriate numbering on all three and only built and lived here for 22 years with the same house number. But as drivers are depending more and more on technology rather than eyes on mailboxes, we are running into more issues with incorrect deliveries. Worse, tonight there was a knock on the door and in comes the local fire department with an ambulance and auxiliary vehicle in the driveway. Wrong house number. When he gave me the number he was looking for, I told him you must be using an Iphone and the house you want is next door. Nobody uses mailbox numbers and eyes any longer - it's all tech reliant on data that has not been adequately verified. There is a fundamental problem if the data that Apple and Google and Garmin are importing is incorrect - and it isn't just an inconvenient delivery. Tonight someones life could have been at stake. Tomorrow I'm going to contact town and state and ask specifically where they get their E911 address and map data from.

Whoa, that's crazy! I can imagine how scary it must've been to have the fire department and ambulance show up at your doorstep by mistake. You're right, it's not just about incorrect deliveries, it's a matter of life and death. I'm surprised that the tech giants like Apple, Google, and Garmin haven't gotten their act together to ensure accurate map data. It's ridiculous that they're relying on unverified data. Good for you for taking action and contacting the town and state to get to the bottom of this.

 

[SGT ROC]

I live between two roads - one was the original State Road route (and still is a state road). The other is the "new" circa late 1930', early 40's. There is about 100 yards between them where I live and my property borders both. I do have a driveway that I mainly just use for taking the RV out when we go camping (except when we go next week, we'll have to go around the house as the driveway washed out Friday where it meets the main road, they used most of my gravel and stone to make a dam to keep the water off the road till the reroute the creek. Don't know when they'll fix it). When looking up my address it's shown on google as the back driveway. My house faces the other road and is about 100 yards east of the driveway entrance. Having said all of that, we are such a rural small area I rarely get the wrong mail, and deliveries are never missed. My house number is on the post on the front of the house, and the mailbox.

PS I have lived here since 1981

 

[ajg617]

We aren't rural (maybe when we bought in 1991) but certainly not now. Real estate has been advertising this as an easy commute to Boston for decades (hint there is no easy commute to Boston). Yesterday, my neighbor texted me and asked if we had by any chance gotten a pizza delivery. Yep - on the front porch and smelled good too! Day before it was three large boxes from UPS that belonged across the street and put them right behind DW's car inside the garage out of the rain. She only noticed them in her backup camera when going to work. Good way to meet neighbors though!!!

 

[SGT ROC]

We aren't rural (maybe when we bought in 1991) but certainly not now. Real estate has been advertising this as an easy commute to Boston for decades (hint there is no easy commute to Boston). Yesterday, my neighbor texted me and asked if we had by any chance gotten a pizza delivery. Yep - on the front porch and smelled good too! Day before it was three large boxes from UPS that belonged across the street and put them right behind DW's car inside the garage out of the rain. She only noticed them in her backup camera when going to work. Good way to meet neighbors though!!!

I had a temp mail guy (young) put a package in the garage once. Only about 3" thick and long. I didn't see it when backing the wife's car out.... Luckily it didn't hurt anything. About a month later same guy, but I saw him going into the garage. I met him coming out and asked why he was in there. When he told me I asked who told him he could enter my garage - no answer. My next question was, what's wrong with putting them on the 28' long by 8' wide front porch that he walked by. No answer again. I told him from now on they go on the porch. No issues since. I also told the regular mail lady who said she would take care of it with him.

 

[ajg617]

I had a temp mail guy (young) put a package in the garage once. Only about 3" thick and long. I didn't see it when backing the wife's car out.... Luckily it didn't hurt anything. About a month later same guy, but I saw him going into the garage. I met him coming out and asked why he was in there. When he told me I asked who told him he could enter my garage - no answer. My next question was, what's wrong with putting them on the 28' long by 8' wide front porch that he walked by. No answer again. I told him from now on they go on the porch. No issues since. I also told the regular mail lady who said she would take care of it with him.

Yep, the post office staff put stuff in our garage on a regular basis if it won't fit in the mail box across from our driveway even when the main doors are closed (we have a side entrance inside a fenced in area which they use). But when we had a temp mail person, everyone's mail in our area was messed up. Huge numbers on the mail boxes which they apparently didn't look at, or the mail wasn't sorted properly. Complained to the post office when someone (guessing a neighbor - no note) left a Walmart bag filled with about a month of our personal mail hanging on our mailbox. After that, he/she had to leave a pink card in our box with the mail every delivery day with number of items. Guess that was too much for him also.

 

[RV2600RB]

Interesting. We’re out in the boonies and we’ve had the opposite happen. IPhones find us when Google and Garmin can’t.
Rich

 

[Roll With The Changes]

A year and a half ago, we called for police at our wintertime nest in FL. After 30 minutes, the 911 dispatcher called me back for directions. The Sheriff's Deputy had been driving back and forth on the wrong road. It took over 45 minutes to get them there. I have since resolved the problem with the dispatcher, but I hear everyone's pain with this problem.

Unfortunately, the problem is not with the data. The problem is that people don't think anymore. People's ability to read a map is almost completely gone now.

Maybe if our addresses looked something like 110110010111 and the roads looked like circuit board traces, nobody would have any more problems. Sad...

 

[toolman.dustin]

I live in a small rural association. Each lot is 5 acres. Almost weekly, one of the neighbors gets notified that a package was delivered, but to the wrong address. I spent some time looking into this and the problem is "the drivers don't look at the addresses any longer". They go by GPS. When the GPS says they have arrived the deliver to the closest house. Also, Fed-X and UPS use different map software. Neither of them use Google Maps.
The way the system works is: a satellite provides a longitude & latitude coordinate to the GPS device. The driver enters an address in his GPS device. The device sends the address to the Map supplier and there's a cross reference table where the address is crossed to a GPS long/lat coordinate. Then the supplier sends the image of a map to the driver.

The problem is, the cross reference table needs to be updated an both UPS and Fed-X. A few years ago drivers delivered by address. NOW the deliver by GPS coordinates.

Most importantly, neither company uses Google Maps.

Dustin

 

[tcfulmer]

We had a new subdivision get built a couple miles away. When that happened, google changed our address to be there. Had to send them screenshots from bing showing them the correct address before they would fix it.