Motorist has faith in GPS, drives into sandpile

Sure, we're well aware that focusing too intently on that mesmerizing GPS screen can be dangerous, and we've heard a few reports of the Darwin effect doing its best to weed out the unfit-to-drive, but most recently, an 80-year old gentleman apparently thought his nav-equipped Mercedes was of the yet-to-be-released autopilot variety when he failed to take matters into his own hands. The elderly German motorist set out sans a clue of what route(s) he'd be taking to reach his destination, but obviously felt that his trusty navigation unit knew far more about the highways and byways than he did. After blatantly ignoring a prominent "closed for construction" sign, he threw common sense to the wind and put that 4MATIC system to good use by wheeling over "a number of warnings and barricades" in search of his next landmark. A police spokeperson said frankly: "His trip finally ended when he wound up crashing into a pile of sand." The most alarming tidbit may not be the overt reliance on technology or the slightly antiquated maps he was utilizing, but that even his wife found no reason to object to cruising head-on into a sandpile. Two heads are apparently not always better than one.

[Via Fark]

[Garrett @ Jun 11th 2008 1:32PM]

Make old people take a driving test every year over 65

[Joe Smith @ Oct 10th 2006 7:20PM]

damn, no lawsuit?

[yosh @ Oct 10th 2006 7:31PM]

Sometimes I wonder why you focus so much on writing a humourous segment when you lose out on readability. Unfortunately, this whole article was neither amusing nor clear. I'll have to read the link in order to comprehend what this story is about.

[MarkZ @ Oct 10th 2006 7:48PM]

It was both readable and humourous.

[Rikko @ Oct 10th 2006 7:51PM]

It was concise and clever.. What did you want? A Flash animation and voiceovers?

[rockintom99 @ Oct 10th 2006 7:37PM]

If he had died, I am sure a Darwin award would be in order. At least, one would hope.

[me @ Oct 10th 2006 7:58PM]

This could, of course, only be possible with Germans.

[Sturmgeist @ Oct 10th 2006 10:49PM]

Was it a German who put on the cruise control on an RV and then went in the back of the RV thinking that it was gonna steer itself? Was it a German who put the pet in the microwave to have it dry? I know, those are just urban myths but I wonder why they always involve Americans, not Germans.

And no, he is not gonna sue, we Germans don't sue everyone's ass cause we were too stupid to use common sense.

[Cameron @ Jan 4th 2008 7:44PM]

Germany or Florida?

[Tack Furlo @ Oct 10th 2006 8:06PM]

I love technology. I even make my living with it. However, at some point, somebody should be able to deduce (on their own) that all technology has limits, and one of those limits is the ability to think. People can make desicions (like, say, steering?) that no technology in existance can make for them. Perhaps he could've driven an acura vehicle and it would've applied the breaks for him?

Also, note to engadget: I'm running the windows vista CTP (the free customer one, not the fancy technet one) RC1 and you guys should know of a bug. I'm using the RSS widget for the vista sidebar and it works great, except that on some of your posts with wrapped pictures (like this one) the text ispartially hidden behind the picture. It'll wrap the text at like 1 word, but the image shows up after just 2 characters (email me if you want a screenshot). I'm sure this is just a rendering issue with IE7 but I love engadget and it would be really cool if you guys could fix this on your end since I have no clue how to rewrite a compiled windows sidebar widget.

[villainy @ Oct 10th 2006 8:35PM]

I love technology. I even make my living with it. However at some point I had to decide that I could not listen to one more customer or read one more comment along the lines of, "I know that you did not write this piece of beta software and have absolutely nothing to do with it whatsoever but I want you to fix it". Holy crap, please take valid complaints about a piece of software to the people who actually wrote the freaking software. I can only hope that the Weblogs folk feel the same way.
As for 80 year old couples driving themselves over barricades and warning signs into piles of sand. I am of the belief that having your ability to drive safely tested only once in a lifetime can only lead to people completely forgetting how to drive safely, especially by age 80!

[White_Pheonix @ Oct 11th 2006 9:54PM]

My first rule of life; never rely on digital technology when analog technology tells you something else.
The second rule, of course, is: atomic clocks, despite being digital, are more accurate then analog clocks.

But, anyways, why would someone pay more attention to a GPS device then to the road signs? One would think that whoever put the signs there had a reason.

[Brian @ Oct 10th 2006 10:14PM]

this is like the guy that drove into a city river a while back, (the bridge was not marked on the GPS)

[Dp462090 @ Oct 10th 2006 11:36PM]

This really has nothing to do with nationality...

[Deluxe @ Oct 11th 2006 12:00AM]

LOL! Germans ;).

[dibbkd @ Oct 13th 2006 12:01AM]

Come on now, it was an old man who was trusting in new technology to guide him. Maybe the dealer who sold him the car with it oversold the value of the GPS. Who knows.

I'd think it was funny if it was a young kid, but someone my dad's age, they really don't "get" stuff the way we do.

I've seen phantom roads on my old Garmin GPS, and although I didn't drive through a corn field to find them, it did cross my mind that maybe I was missing something just around the corner.

[tiuk @ Oct 11th 2006 1:11AM]

"The most alarming tidbit may not be the overt reliance on technology or the slightly antiquated maps he was utilizing, but that even his wife found no reason to object to cruising head-on into a sandpile."

No big surprise, she's probably ancient too.

[Mark Kane @ Oct 11th 2006 3:03AM]

A person who exceeds the average life expectancy should be required to take a basic cognition exam before being given keys to drive.

I know I'm not the only one who thinks this.

Actually, I want this same principle to be applied to people being given shopping carts at WalMart. If you can't pass a basic human intelligence test, you don't get a cart. I'm sick of elderly obese people running their frickin' carts into me and everything around them. *end of tirade*

[apoc @ Oct 11th 2006 11:23AM]

"AN 80-year-old German motorist"

I'm sure the age had nothing to do with it...

I've heard better, a 76 year old french guy who drove on the wrong(as in 180 degree wrong direction) lane because the GPS told him to, cool eh?

Plus, it is becoming common cases of old people doing the same as that 76 year old french, without the use of GPS, the police has to close the road and intercept the guy lol, this if he doesn't crash on to anyone before they do.

[MPG @ Oct 11th 2006 7:40AM]

"This could, of course, only be possible with Germans."

In Germany, this thing only happened once, unlike the many many stories of Americans who thought that their cruise control was an autopilot, like the truck driver who set his truck on cruise control and then went back into his truck's cabin to sleep.

[Jim @ Nov 2nd 2007 5:22PM]

I am constantly amazed at how people will quote "facts" that are mere urban legends. Give the cruise control myth a rest. Regardless of what country, religion, race, or gender offends you most.

http://www.snopes.com/autos/techno/cruise.asp

[Othermusketeer @ May 28th 2008 10:26PM]

I don't know about cruise control stories, but my uncle was a truck (18-wheeler) driver. He and all his trucker friends would always go into the back cabin while the truck was cruising along at highway speeds. They'd prepare food, look for something in the bags, watch TV... Some of his friends would even take naps if they were on a very straight stretch of road.

Needless to say, my uncle lost some friends to crashes over the years. Thankfully, after his "bazillionth" DUI, my uncle lost his commercial license quite a few years ago.

While my maternal grandmother moved to Florida in the 70s, they (including my uncle) are from Pennsylvania... So its not Florida-stupidity; its just stupidity.