State gives driver the runaround in map quest

Triangle Troubleshooter marks the holiday travel season with this tale from a frustrated Raleigh resident, who said she ordered free state maps from the N.C. Department of Transportation and never received them.

A year ago, Paula Harless, 82, traveled to Norfolk, Va., with a couple of her lady friends. She'd been there before and had taken a shortcut. But she couldn't remember the shorter route. Her friends' commercial maps didn't show the right shortcut.

When Harless returned to Raleigh, she called the Virginia and North Carolina departments of transportation, requesting three maps that she intended to give to her friends as a "little Christmas joke gift."

She got the Virginia maps in three days. But six weeks passed and she had not received the North Carolina maps. She called and gave the DOT customer service agent her name and address again, then waited another month.

No maps.

"When I called them again, I was told that they have a service that takes care of their mail. So I again waited. ... Finally in April, I gave up and ... picked them up myself at their office downtown," she wrote to Troubleshooter.

While she was in the DOT office, she called the customer service line yet again to complain about their lack of service.

"When I spoke to them again, they didn't seem the least bit concerned," she said.

So Triangle Troubleshooter called DOT and asked Steve Abbott, a spokesman, about the maps program and whether he gets many complaints from people not getting their maps.

The customer service department, he said, takes down callers' information, then the same people put the maps in the mail. Mailing is not outsourced, he said.

The department has mailed at least 1 million maps this year. The DOT printed 1.7 million 2008 maps, and the department has 7,000 left, Abbott said.

Most of the orders come by phone, although maps can be ordered online at www.ncdot.org, he added.

As for complaints, Abbott said, the department does not get many. In fact, they don't even keep a record of complaints because there are so few, he said.

"It's really not an issue," he said.

He obviously hasn't talked to Harless.

Triangle Troubleshooter wishes you safe travels this holiday season.