From this link posted in another comment it says "The two travelers - not dressed for extreme cold - evidently took a wrong turn and their car got damaged". So it does not seem to be because google suggested the incorrect route.
Edit: It was pointed out in the comments below that Google maps does go on the correct route now. It is the same general road, but there was a section called the "Old Summer Road" that had fallen in to disrepair but was shorter.
2000 km of ice covered road in one of the most remote places on Earth. People freeze to death on well traveled highways, never mind Kolyma; a place legendary for its lethality. I suppose it's fine that Google is making refinements to obscure routes, but understanding the fate of these people is better informed by Darwin's insights than anything happening at Google.
Not necessarily. Google Maps takes algorithmic approach to identify roads and routes, but as shown by this account and numerous others in the comments, sometimes that algorithmic approach fails and needs to be corrected by human intervention. If it’s known that some roads are dangerous and if it’s not difficult for Google to obtain this information, then there is a responsibility to intervene.
Oh, curious. I guess the data used by openrouteservice.org might be a bit stale. There was an edit three weeks back: https://www.openstreetmap.org/changeset/95556786 "the section is practically impassable, this is no longer a road"
That graph just says they didn't bother cutting through the hills make a nice easy grade. The resolution isn't fine enough to tell you whether it's a potholed mud pit or graded gravel.
First rule of traveling there is never travel on one car/bus. There are so many stories about that, including a dozens of people frozen when a bus broke in the middle of nowhere
huh, seems like there are numerous towns visible on the satellite/aerial imagery on the "old summer road". Are those towns cut off in the winter (by land)? Do they have an ice road? Seems unusual that travel is easier in the summer. In northern Canada summer travel is often not possible by land due to extensive mud and bogs. In the winter you can travel across the frozen tundra much more easily (although you need to be prepared if you car breaks down).
It looks like their car (Toyota Chaser) was not fit for the purpose. I mean, looking at the car's wikipedia page I can see a city sedan that is definitely not adequate for off-road driving conditions at minus 40-50 degrees Celsius.
Judging by a couple of photos I could find on Google Maps it looks like in the summer the road is barely accessible using vehicles like the famous UAZ-452, I'm talking about this photo [2] showing a UAZ-452 crossing a river. In the winter I saw that these two people did it with a heavily equipped Toyota off-roader [3].
WOW! I would not have expected that be the car used on the "Highway of Bones" with insane levels of cold! I hope they were running it with chains at a minimum.
If you dress right, have a good thermal sleeping bag, have calories in your system, you can do pretty well. A fair number of sleeping bags have survival temps as low as negative -40. I've done OK once or twice at surprising levels of cold (sleeping in the back of car / SUV on a ski trip other winter trek is not end of world, even without cars heater).
Not totally clear still why this is a story about google.
In the winter the road is packed ice and easy from the vehicle traffic and the rivers can be driven over rather than forded.
In summer there are sections of mud pit, swamps, river crossings because the road is unmaintained. Anything with at least three wheels and a heated cab is fine in winter.
If the vehicle was actually unsuitible they would have gotten stuck within walking distance of town instead of putting a branch through the radiator trying to make an N-point turn in the bush after going the wrong way (probably down some little side fork).
Well, types who buy cars like these[1] are usually not the type who cares. Those are mostly known as cheap cars for kids to put on 1 megawatt turbos, and giant spoilers on.
They're actually more connected in the winter for exactly the reason you stated. Locals do use the road though. These guys wouldn't have gotten as far as they did if the road wasn't in fairly regular use. This is a forested part of Russia and nature reclaims things faster than that.
https://siberiantimes.com/other/others/news/tragedy-in-yakut...
Edit: It was pointed out in the comments below that Google maps does go on the correct route now. It is the same general road, but there was a section called the "Old Summer Road" that had fallen in to disrepair but was shorter.
Here is a link that illustrates the difference: https://cdn.newsapi.com.au/image/v1/481952e93a2fed32c94a09bd...
Google maps now follows the red dotted line in the image if you enter the route.