PeteS said:
Hilarious (although not for the patient).
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/london/6200054.stm
Cheers
PeteS
This can happen to even those who know better.
About three years ago I read a story in a surveying (land) magazine
about the data used in underlying GIS systems. In this case the
accounting standards for town assessments of their infrastructure (used
as a basis for towns/counties in issuing bonds) had changed so the
fiscal dept of the California town sent out an accountant with a
consumer grade GPS (avg. accuracy about 70 meters or so) to count all
the fire hydrants (amongst other things) in the town. For why the data
was collected (as an inventory with general location as an identifier)
this is a fine solution. However . . . .
When the data was collected and put into the GIS system it was imported
to 2 decimal points (implying centimeter accuracy). The fire department
saw the data in the GIS and recalculated all the fire routes based on
the new information.
Needless to say this caused some serious delays in the arrival of
equipment to some fires and very high property damages occured (It was
just fortunate that no one was killed).
The view of the articles author was that if the GIS had been under
control of a licensed surveyor this wouldn't have happened but because
the GIS was run by the IT department the data wasn't properly vetted
and the town was negligent. It would be interesting to see the result
of the ensuing lawsuits that were filed by the insurance company but I
do know that a bill in the New York legislature to limit control of GIS
systems to surveyors failed.
Anyway the moral of the story is "keep thinking" and "verify the data".
Kevin
