Why does this happen so often on the left coast?

There are a lot of people who will blindly follow the GPS regardless of where it may say go. Elderly I can somewhat understand as they did not grow up in the techy environment. Others?????
I had an older Garmin that did very good job of providing directions. However, once it tried to take me the back way into Great Sand Dunes NP. That is a 4 wheel only off road route over a mountain pass. Good thing I had been there on previous occasions and knew advance that was not the way to go. But makes me wonder if anyone was lead off on that route by the same misdirections.