Breitbart
Tech giant Google faces a lawsuit from the family of Philip Paxson who claim that the company’s flawed Google Maps directions led to the North Carolina man’s tragic death when he drove off a collapsed bridge.
ABC News reports that Philip Paxson, a medical device salesman and a father of two, died on September 30, 2022, after his vehicle plunged into Snow Creek in Hickory, North Carolina. The incident occurred as Paxson was driving home from his daughter’s ninth birthday party, relying on Google Maps for directions through an unfamiliar neighborhood. The app allegedly directed him to cross a bridge that had collapsed nine years prior and had since remained unrepaired. More
Cars also have Windshields, Lights, & Brakes…
Plus Road Signs & NOT SO COMMON sense.
Well, he told his wife that “we’ll cross that bridge when I get there.” I recall a family of four a few years back who followed the wrong GPS shortcut heading from Oregon to San Francisco. Father left the wife and 2 kids in the car while he trekked through snow to get help – on a logging road middle of no where. Wife and kids survived on snacks and water, they found dad naked in the snow. They were Asian.
I don’t do GPS. If I don’t know how to get there, I don’t need to go.
@ Goldenfoxx I remember that story. The road he took was closd due to the weather. Not a good move. The wife was breast feeding the youngest and that’s what they survived on. The wife was white and husband Asian. Apparently he started hallucinating out in the cold and wasn’t that far from the car. If i remember she managed to start a fire that was seen and reported. Tragic story.
One of my employees was using GPS in a very rural area. It directed her onto a narrow road that went to a small airport. She ended up on the runway.
@Anonymous–
Did you read the article? Specifically mentioning road signs? “The North Carolina State Patrol reported that there were no barriers or warning signs along the washed-out roadway…” in an “unfamiliar neighborhood” for the driver. He knew nothing about the collapsed bridge.
The bridge collapsed NINE YEARS AGO, and nothing had been done about it, NOT EVEN any road signs. Google had not updated its information about this dangerous situation, IN NINE YEARS.
Your sarcasm is unwarranted.
Road Closed signs. Never used.
A GPS once told me the best way to get to a hospital in Knoxville was to drive thru a church parking lot overlooking an interstate and jump over all 6 lanes that were 40 feet below me without using a bridge to get to the other side.
I didn’t do it because I’m not stupid.
…every state says you are responsible for operating your own vehicle.
Google wasn’t driving.
Sorry.
The Asian couple in Oregon were the Kim family on Bear Camp Road between Merlin/Galice and Agness Oregon. I’ve driven this road in summer, a scenic route but only slightly improved above a logging road. Forest officials now erect a barrier to prevent access in winter.
In the West this is known as “Death by GPS”; not sure if Carolina has a similar term for it.
Amen SNS
I don’t recall ever having any sympathy for the morons I’ve read about slavishly following GPS routes to their deaths. Until this story. Yeah, the guy at the wheel is ultimately responsible, but when I consider he was on an unfamiliar road, at night, and seeing no signs and no barricades, suddenly driving over a bridge that wasn’t there and hadn’t been for nine years, and that had been reported to the mapmeisters at Google multiple times (at least one of them documented), then I do conclude that there’s blame to share here.
Paxson, V, to drive off a broken bridge or cliff on the advise of AI or other ghosts in the machine.
It was a single Lane little road bridge he didn’t really drive off it like Thelma and Louise. His jeep went off the end and flipped over and he drowned in the water.
wednesday’s,
Sorry but:
Do you smell meat before you cook it?
Do you stick a toe in before you swim?
Do you look in the back seat before entering your car?
Do you slow down in a school zone/Rain/Snow etc?
Do you have to take a basic eye test at the DMV?
Do you stare at the GPS or pop yer head up once every 5 miles?
Do You use mirrors if the Backup camera took a shit?
Don’t trust electronics alone, verify & trust that funny feeling when your ass tightens up just a little bit.
Cheers.
Frankly, the municipality could have sold off a few surplus COOF masks & put up signs, a few Heavy Cones & BILLED the land owner for the Cost as well as repeated fines.
I often see “turn L/R” at placed where there is no road.
When I first moved to Texas and was staying at my son’s house, my GPS wanted me get there via a dead-end street.
“Mrs. Davis”
I’m old school and still use physical printed paper road maps. I’m afraid that GPS would send me on the mother of all wild goose chases. My dad at his Shell gas station used to give away free road maps to his customers. Relying exclusively on GPS is as dumb as when the Navy forgot/neglected to teach dead reckoning and astral navigation to navigators on board ships using the stars and figuring out that if the GPS goes down that they were literally dead in the water. So, it’s taught once again as a backup just in case all else fails. I really don’t trust any electronic device if I can help it, mankind got along fine without their assistance for millenia.
He should have used WAZE.
Wazer’s would have flagged it.
Wait, what? Google owns WAZE?
Signs. Signs. Everywhere are signs.
Oh wait just a cotton pickin’ minute.
Look. Google maps are useful but no substitute for eyeballs and awareness in unfamiliar territory.
I typically look at the “overview” map the navigator creates before I set out on a journey. That way I get familiar with the trip route before I start.
Once, when I was travelling North on I95 south of Wilmington, DE the highway was suddenly blocked by an accident. My route was automatically adjusted and the directions took me down some really narrow, seldom used roads around Wilmington airport and then through some seedy sections of Wilmington, zig-zaging through some alleys. Eventually, it dropped me back off on I95 just North of the accident. I should have stopped when the navigator changed the routes and reviewed the overall route before proceeding.
Google maps are for lazy idiots. Actually, anything by Google is for idiots. It’d be like putting Daleks in charge of the human race. EXTERMINATE!
Never fails, Google always directs me through the projects.
Speaking of people who pay more attention to their devices than the reality of life. I wonder if the rising number of pedestrian deaths are of people walking nose down rather than paying attention to the reality swirling around them? Seems like the gov always scolds drivers rather than pedestrians.
Just asking.
@Kcir–
Anonymous’ main error was not reading the article before casting sarcastic blame.
Queue up Hank Thompson
https://youtu.be/h1Uf4kc2aTk?si=WbrVBApob20OExUr
Headed down life’s crooked road, lots of things I never knowed
And because of me not knowing, now I pine
Trouble’s got in the trail, spent the next five years in jail
Should have read that detour sign
Back when people used real paper maps did this kind of thing happen very often? We always get maps of the area when traveling to a new place, never rely on google.
Exactly right, Kcir. The locals sat around for nine years, knowing they had a problem. It should have been obvious after a year that nobody was going to fix the bridge, and after a few months more that nobody was going to properly close the road. If I lived around there, I couldn’t just sit there and complain. I would have to do something cheap, quick and clandestine to block the way. Probably involving a chainsaw and some reflective paint. There’s always a way, if you’re willing to man up and take the risk.
“The lawsuit also names several private property management companies, alleging that they are responsible for the bridge and the adjoining land.”
Good. Those people probably had lawyers who argued eloquently about how it was not their responsibility. Ditto for the local government. Google will probably settle out of court, or get the suit dismissed, but those other guys are in deep shit.
And it would not surprise me in the least if the bridge situation still hasn’t changed and still won’t be changed a year from now. Whatever happened to Biden’s Big Infrastructure Bill? That all get diverted to Ukraine?
JDHasty, thanks for the Hank Thompson song. I never heard that one before but it’s a good one. Another good country and western song by Hank Snow but not quite the same is about adultery and the detours it takes you down is, 90 miles an hr. down a dead-end street. Love the old honky tonk music which I got from my dad who loved old country music.
Thank goodness for Google maps. I used to hate it when I drove to the edge of the map and fell off the planet.
I remember this from 1993 when a young family survived, only because they were too stupid to die!
https://www.kcra.com/article/archives-remembering-stolpas-tale-snowy-survival/30536555
Up here in North Maine, the snowmobile trails often use roads that are closed in the winter.
We had one particular trail/road that GPS sent people on as a shortcut from one major road to another. We had numerous vehicles, including a three-axle delivery truck that tried to use the groomed trail instead of turning around at the dead-end road sign.
I used the Rand McNally Road Atlas for years, still have a copy in the car. Stopped at gas stations for local maps.
@ geoff the aardvark SUNDAY, 24 SEPTEMBER 2023, 20:44 AT 8:44 PM
Patty Page covered Detour. Mom used to let me choose what records to load in the record changer before going to bed. Patty Page was in the rotation.
My first thought was why didn’t they use concrete bollards but then he would have just slammed into those.
If it’s raining so hard you can’t see in front of your headlights pull over whether you using Google or not.
I’m willing to bet that the legal representatives that Goggle can afford have enough fine print in the terms of service to cover their asses for every mishap.
Bottom line, never trust a robot.
Technology is great until, usually without warning, it isn’t.
They are suing the wrong people. Sue the town or whoever responsibility to put up warning signs and maybe a concrete barrier. If it was dark he probably didn’t see the bridge was out. Have a little empathy.
Google maps is just a guidance, it is not infallible. Can they update every off-beat road? Be careful, check your routes, this is the state county cities responsible to mark this hazard, they failed, they are at fault here.