Maps are notoriously incorrect, in certain areas. However, that's not the point in this case.

Let's be real here. Grandma and Grandpa had no business being in the middle of "Who-Flung-Dung" anyhow. They wanted the fastest route said the article. So they blindly followed what a device told them to do. I reckon they did take the "fastest", if fastest = least numbers of miles. But experience tells me that the fastest and the shortest are almost never the same road. Quite frankly, I would have looked at the unplowed road, said no thank you very much and found an alternate that was plowed.

I agree, they over-relied on the GPS. Maybe I am smarter, I learned a while back using Mapquest and the like that quite often the directions will have you going the wrong way on a one way road, or going to where the hotel was spozed to be, not to where it actually is.

So yeah, the hard copy map may be wrong, but at the very least you can see alternatives that the GPS usually can't/won't/isn't designed to give you.