Here’s one consequence of putting your trust in technology, this time from India:
Three men have died in a road accident after their car’s sat-nav sent them careening off the 30ft-high edge of an unfinished bridge.
Their bodies, trapped inside the mangled car, weren’t discovered until 9:30am the next day, local media reported.
Investigators found that the trio had been following an out-of-date map on Google Maps at speed.
The mapping service allegedly told them to travel down the bridge, which had no signs indicating it was out of use after it suffered a collapse in 2022 following heavy flooding.
Oops.
One would think that there should have been warning signposts about the bridge being down, but then again, this is Third World India. Let’s review:
- Trust technology: not always wise.
- Trust government: also not always wise.
A life (-or-death) lesson, there.
It’s India.
Based on my experience from my visit there, In order to put up the sign that says the bridge is out there are lots of forms that needs to be filled out – In triplicate – using carbon paper – typed on a manual typewriter – by a clerk who types with one finger at a speed measured in words per hour. the request then goes to a ministry in Deli by post where it is sorted and prioritized and added to next year’s budget. The sign will be ready for installation when the cost of that is budgeted . — 2 or three years from now
At least now they have streamlined the process and the request doesn’t have to go to London first.
Here’s the main reason I don’t want a self driving vehicle. You speak out against the commies. The gestapo programs your vehicle. One day the news says Mr Dissidents vehicle unexpectedly sped up ahead of the turn and then the vehicle took a right turn instead of a left turn. Authorities have recovered the computer and are scanning for errors or to see what may have gone wrong.
Second reason is, human eyes can see the road ahead for what it is in the moment. Not preloaded artificial intelligence.
I want to drive a machine not a computer down the road.
Fuck this shit.
I just finished a Tesla trial use of full self driving and can say definitely that self driving is not all it’s cracked up to be.
During the 30 day trial I concluded that self driving works pretty good on limited access highways but even then you’ve got to be on your toes, as it nearly drove me into the side of another vehicle in a shallow-angle merging situation. One area where it completely falls apart is turning onto a moderately busy road from a side road where there’s no controlled intersection. It was 0 for 3 in that scenario; either it gave up and told me to take control or I pulled the plug myself because it seemed like I would likely die if I left it to it’s own devices. Furthermore, it is unable to see far enough ahead and doesn’t have the memory to know that the exit you need to take is or regularly backs up and you need to be in the right hand lane a mile or two ahead of time in order to safely exit. It will wait until the lane is already full before attempting to merge which is really a white-knuckle experience. And don’t get me started on what is going to happen when there’s snow covered roads: Lane? What lane?
It’s not just India. I’ve seen a couple of cases in the US of GPS systems sending drivers to their deaths over flood damaged bridges.
And it’s not necessarily GPS Tech itself. Back in the 90s my now ex mother-in-law lived on the edge of a canyon in San Diego, with a major road running down a long hill right to the edge of the Canyon next to her house. There was supposed to be a bridge over the canyon, and all the paper city maps showed the bridge, but it was never built! So every few months, usually late at night, some drunk would come screaming down the hill, and either crash straight into the concrete barriers at the end of the road, swerve left and plunge into the canyon, or swerve right and crash into the wall she’d erected after multiple people crashed into her house.
This went on for fucking years, with at least one death that I can recall, and despite being reported many times the map companies never updated their maps while she lived there.
I saw one of these a few years back in Oregon or Northern California.
Dude and the fambly were coming home, and google showed a shortcut pass through the mountains. Problem was, the road was closed because they didn’t think it worth the money to plow snow 24×7 through the pass. Long story short, he dead. They got stuck in the snow, the husband went out for help and promptly froze to death. I think the wife and kid lived.
My first thought was can their families sue Google? I’ve never seen Google Maps directions with any warning that their directions might be wrong or out of date…
Then I read the article and came across this line, once in the story, once on a photo caption: “The men drove off a bridge connecting Faridpur and Dataganj over the Ramganga River.” Wrong! The bridge DID NOT connect the two towns. That was the problem. Do editors exist anymore?