Google Maps tricks German travellers into believing all highways are closed across country: Here’s what happened next

Google Maps

Imagine getting ready for a holiday road trip, snacks packed, playlist ready, and Google Maps suddenly tells you… every highway in the country is closed. That’s exactly what happened to drivers across Germany this week  and yes, chaos followed.

The glitch hit during a busy travel period, and for a few hours, Google Maps showed that highways all over Germany  and even parts of Belgium and the Netherlands  were shut down, according to a report by Endgadget. The app was filled with red dots and warning signs, making it look like the roads were totally off-limits. Naturally, people panicked.

Drivers quickly started rerouting to smaller roads and side streets, thinking they were avoiding massive highway blockades. But those alternate routes weren’t meant to handle so much traffic and soon, they were completely jammed. Long delays, bumper-to-bumper traffic, and lots of confused drivers followed.

To make things even more frustrating, people who were using other apps like Apple Maps or Waze, or just listening to traffic updates on the radio, saw a completely different picture one that actually matched reality. The highways were mostly fine.

Meanwhile, police and traffic control centers got flooded with calls. People were asking if there had been a national shutdown or some kind of emergency. But no it was just a mistake on Google’s end.

Google later said the issue only lasted a few hours and by Thursday afternoon, Maps was back to normal, showing only real road closures. A company spokesperson explained that Google Maps pulls its traffic info from different sources, like public data, third-party providers, and user reports. They’re now reviewing what went wrong.

This isn’t the first time Google Maps has glitched. Back in March, some users found that their Timeline the feature that tracks where you’ve been had mysteriously disappeared. Some lost that data for good.

So, while tech makes life easier most days, this little hiccup shows how much we rely on it maybe a bit too much. For a few hours, German drivers learned the hard way what happens when your map goes rogue.