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May 8, 2016
Death by GPS
Most death-by-GPS incidents do not involve actual deaths—or even serious injuries.They are accidents or accidental journeys brought about by an uncritical acceptance of turn-by-turn commands: the Japanese tourists in Australia who drove their car into the ocean while attempting to reach North Stradbroke Island from the mainland; the man who drove his BMW down a narrow path in a village in Yorkshire, England, and nearly over a cliff; the woman in Bellevue, Washington, who drove her car into a lake that their GPS said was a road; the Swedish couple who asked GPS to guide them to the Mediterranean island of Capri, but instead arrived at the Italian industrial town of Carpi; the elderly woman in Belgium who tried to use GPS to guide her to her home, 90 miles away, but instead drove hundreds of miles to Zagreb, only realizing her mistake when she noticed the street signs were in Croatian. | Ars Technica
Posted by gerardvanderleun at May 8, 2016 10:03 AM. This is an entry on the sideblog of American Digest: Check it out.
Your Say
Some people should not be let out alone. At home, can they find the bathroom from the kitchen and would they know the difference.
Posted by: Vermont Woodchuck ![[TypeKey Profile Page]](http://americandigest.org/sidelines/nav-commenters.gif)
at May 8, 2016 11:37 AM
Don't believe your own lying assed eyes.
Posted by: ghostsniper at May 8, 2016 2:20 PM
It seems that these people have more cognitive problems than GPS.
Unless they were all just drunk.
Posted by: Mikey at May 8, 2016 6:52 PM
“Most people, in fact, will not take the trouble in finding out the truth, but are much more inclined to accept the first story they hear.”
― Thucydides, History of the Peloponnesian War
Posted by: Evelyn at May 9, 2016 8:50 AM
I work in a small town in Pennsylvania, population about 4,000, decaying business district. It's in a river valley, so many of the streets go up the hill. One afternoon a few years back, I encountered an eighteen-wheeler stuck trying to turn from one of the streets going up the hill onto a narrow street in a residential section: nothing but homes in either direction on that street. The turn was so short and narrow, the truck had actually sheered off a telephone pole trying to make it. For the life of me, at the time, I couldn't understand why anybody would think to take an 18-wheeler that way, let alone actually try it. Much later, I realized what must have happened: a driver unfamiliar with the area was just following his GPS instructions.
Posted by: Lane Core Jr. at May 10, 2016 7:33 PM