In a recent court case in the UK a driver was found guilty of “driving without due care and attention” for daftly following the orders of the voice of his GPS! The driver alleged that his GPS suggested he drive down a narrow, unpaved, cliffside lane, a suggestion he followed without using some commons sense!
According to the Daily Mail, the driver kept on going until his car made the intimate acquaintance of a wire fence and became stuck at the edge of a drop of some 100 feet.
The prosecutor made a rather nice summary of these actions:
“The path was not designed for motor vehicles, yet Mr. Jones slavishly continued to follow the satnav system to the point where his eyes and his brain must have been telling him otherwise to such a degree he was not exercising proper control of the vehicle.”
The driver, in an attempt at defending himself said that he “was not driving without due care or attention.” The farmer on whose land the driver strayed however told the police that “he wouldn’t even take his horses down the path.”
Blindly following your GPS would not be a defense to the irresponsible driver. It is most important that a driver regard the GPS as an additional tool to enhance safety – and not as a replacement for common sense. The driver should know that roads and road conditions are constantly changing – and so to the threats to road safety!