Driver Blames GPS For Driving On Railroad Tracks, Getting Hit By Train
Date : 01 04 2008 Category : Business
Techdirt
What is it about turning on a GPS system that makes people lose just about any bit of common sense they may have had? Last year, we wrote about a woman who blamed her GPS device for getting her into a train accident. You see, the GPS device told her to go straight, even though there was a gate blocking the train tracks. Now we've got a similar case. As pointed out by the folks over at the Tech Liberation Front, a California man who was in New York for work, and driving a rental car, apparently turned onto the railroad tracks for the MetroNorth line because his GPS told him to turn. To his credit, the guy eventually realized that maybe the tracks weren't where he was supposed to turn, but he was unable to get his rental Ford Focus to reverse back down the tracks. At that point he "abandoned" the car, leaving it for the next train to hit. At least the MetroNorth spokesperson seems to have a sense of humor about the whole thing. When talking about how the guy tried to warn the oncoming train, he deadpanned: "He tried to stop the train by waving his arms, which apparently was not totally effective in slowing the train." Not totally effective indeed. When noting that the driver worked in the computer field, the spokesman also noted: "One computer brain listening to another." Time to reprogram some of the logic, however.
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