Truck drivers looking to avoid a recent toll raise on a West Virginia interstate are leaning on their GPS for guidance, but the new GPS-guided route has residents and local police concerned.
“The trucks cannot be on there,” said Lt. Jason McDaniel of the newly popular route through a Beckley, West Virginia neighborhood along Pinewood and Holliday Drive.
“I know I answer a lot of phone calls from residents that live up there complaining about not only the traffic, the speeding. The trucks are dangerous. They can’t travel that road. They don’t fit,” he continued, adding that “the [general] car traffic alone, it wasn’t designed for that much traffic. Now, with the tolls being raised on the interstate, the tractor-trailers have started going through there.”
According to ABC 4 News, there are signs posted prohibiting semi trucks on the neighborhood roads, but drivers have been opting to follow the guidance of their GPS anyway in order to avoid the rising highway tolls.
“Everyone I’ve pulled over has told me the same thing: ‘I’m just following my GPS,” said McDaniel.
Officials say that the main GPS culprits are Google Maps, Apple Maps, and Waze, so they plan to get in contact with the companies to arrange a route change.
“I’m going to be in the process of trying to get in contact with them to see if we can take this route off their maps,” said Beckley Councilman-at-Large Cody Reedy.