They are supposed to keep drivers out of trouble - but satellite navigation systems have been directing scores of cars and vans up a narrow, twisting cart track with an unprotected 100ft drop on one side.
Sat nav systems identify the track as a short cut between Swaledale and Wensleydale, in the Yorkshire Dales.
Despite a no through road sign and a five-bar gate, many drivers have continued along the rocky track, which leads to the tiny village of Crackpot.
It starts as a paved road, but quickly becomes a stone and gravel track barely passable in a four-wheel drive vehicle. Some have got stuck on narrow bends and had to be towed out by local farmers using tractors.
There has been a marked increase in the number of cars using the track in the last few months, farmer Steven Porter told the Telegraph. "They must have all got sat navs for Christmas," he said.
"They get so far up and then there's a bad S-bend and they try to come back down. Some of them end up on three wheels because there's no barrier, just some big stones.
"A minibus got stuck two or three weeks ago after the satellite navigation had told them to go up there. Another fellow in a car got stuck a few days ago."
Mr Porter is concerned for the safety of drivers, and says it is "only a matter of time" before someone "goes over the edge of that drop".
Harold Brown, chairman of the local Grinton parish council, said: "This modern technology is not all it's cracked up to be."
A spokesman for North Yorkshire county council said the authority would review signage at the beginning of the track.
Around 10% of drivers now use sat nav devices, according to the AA. A spokesman for Trafficmaster, which manufactures one sat nav system, said: "We try to make sure our system doesn't send people down smaller routes."
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