One thing that I have noted is that people are literally slaves to their GPS navigation systems. So much so that they will do things that they will do things that are illegal or dangerous if the GPS tells them to. Or they make a mistake and hope that the GPS will bail them out of it. I’ve come across an example of the latter.
An woman in Ontario encountered fog while driving and she was relying on her GPS to keep her on course. Here’s what happened next according to Toronto Sun:
The 23-year-old woman from Kitchener, Ont., was following a route on her car’s GPS while driving in the dark on Thursday night in Tobermory, Ont., according to provincial police.
Const. Katrina Rubinstein-Gilbert said driving conditions were difficult as the woman approached a boat launch on Little Tub Harbour near midnight, with rain and fog making visibility difficult.
As a result, Rubinstein-Gilbert said the woman made a wrong turn with dramatic consequences.
“How the launch works, it’s not an airborne thing. It’s not ‘Dukes of Hazzard.’ It kind of goes off the road and the launch just drops all of a sudden,” she said. “So she would have been driving on the road, and then all of a sudden just dropped and hit water.”
Rubinstein-Gilbert said the car stayed afloat long enough for the woman to roll down the window, grab her purse and swim about 30 metres to shore. Once there, she walked to the nearest hotel and summoned police, she said.
The car, meanwhile, sank completely, prompting the Rescue Co-ordination Centre in Trenton, Ont., to issue a broadcast instructing boats not to approach that launch for fear of being damaged by the submerged vehicle.
So it seems to me that she missed her turn and perhaps she hoped that the GPS would put her back on course. I have to admit that I have done a version of this when I’ve missed a turn by continuing to drive and waiting for it to re-route me. But clearly that doesn’t always have the best results. Perhaps the better strategy is to pull over if you can do so safely or double back to the turn that was missed if it is safe to do so. Either way, I think this example illustrates that you need to exercise some caution and critical thinking when following the directions of the GPS system in your car.
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Woman Follows GPS Directions Straight Into A Lake
One thing that I have noted is that people are literally slaves to their GPS navigation systems. So much so that they will do things that they will do things that are illegal or dangerous if the GPS tells them to. Or they make a mistake and hope that the GPS will bail them out of it. I’ve come across an example of the latter.
An woman in Ontario encountered fog while driving and she was relying on her GPS to keep her on course. Here’s what happened next according to Toronto Sun:
The 23-year-old woman from Kitchener, Ont., was following a route on her car’s GPS while driving in the dark on Thursday night in Tobermory, Ont., according to provincial police.
Const. Katrina Rubinstein-Gilbert said driving conditions were difficult as the woman approached a boat launch on Little Tub Harbour near midnight, with rain and fog making visibility difficult.
As a result, Rubinstein-Gilbert said the woman made a wrong turn with dramatic consequences.
“How the launch works, it’s not an airborne thing. It’s not ‘Dukes of Hazzard.’ It kind of goes off the road and the launch just drops all of a sudden,” she said. “So she would have been driving on the road, and then all of a sudden just dropped and hit water.”
Rubinstein-Gilbert said the car stayed afloat long enough for the woman to roll down the window, grab her purse and swim about 30 metres to shore. Once there, she walked to the nearest hotel and summoned police, she said.
The car, meanwhile, sank completely, prompting the Rescue Co-ordination Centre in Trenton, Ont., to issue a broadcast instructing boats not to approach that launch for fear of being damaged by the submerged vehicle.
So it seems to me that she missed her turn and perhaps she hoped that the GPS would put her back on course. I have to admit that I have done a version of this when I’ve missed a turn by continuing to drive and waiting for it to re-route me. But clearly that doesn’t always have the best results. Perhaps the better strategy is to pull over if you can do so safely or double back to the turn that was missed if it is safe to do so. Either way, I think this example illustrates that you need to exercise some caution and critical thinking when following the directions of the GPS system in your car.
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This entry was posted on May 16, 2016 at 10:28 am and is filed under Commentary. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.