Faith in GPS sends Mercedes downstream

So far, over-dependence on GPS devices has resulted in more inconvenience than actual danger, but things took a turn for the worse earlier this month when a U.K. woman sent her £96k Mercedes SL500 flying into a river, trusting the car's optimistic GPS guidance instead of the road signs warning of impending doom. Matters were made worse as the river was swollen from recent heavy rains, which caused the vehicle to be swept some 200 meters downstream before the woman was able to escape. While she emerged unscathed, the car unfortunately wasn't quite so lucky, remaining stuck in the river for a week after the incident and now believed to be a complete write-off.

[Via The Register]

[LividChihuahua @ Mar 27th 2007 2:33PM]

Your not intimidated my a women who is obviously smarter than you?

[hyperspaced @ Oct 5th 2009 7:58AM]

No way !!!

[idleprocess @ Mar 27th 2007 10:23AM]

I hope she hasn't had an opportunity to breed.

[Alex @ Mar 27th 2007 10:23AM]

How can someone so stupid own something so expensive?

This isn't a video game, it's not a magic fortune-telling machine. It's a computerized map. You wouldn't drive off a bridge with a normal map, this one's no better.

[stitifier @ Mar 27th 2007 10:25AM]

Holy crap, for some people there appears to be an inversely proportional relationship between the amount of money they have in their Swiss bank accounts and the number of brain cells they have in their head!

That, and any car that expensive with a satnav system that lousy surely deserves a hearty round of condemnation.

[simpdawg @ Mar 27th 2007 1:12PM]

I think the real victim here is the river. There it is, minding its own business, not trying to be a road or anything, and the GPS people went and told people to drive in it without even asking permission. Even the road nbearby stuck up for ol' man River with the warning signs, but those bastards living in the satellites ignored its riverness and thought it would be more useful as a road. We should be leading a lynchmob against those thoughtless midgets that live in the satellites. And won't somebody think of the Mercedes?!?!?1111

[Rihahn @ Mar 27th 2007 10:25AM]

Why? Why do all the stupid people have all the money?

Here's someone who probably needs a helmet to go outside, driving an $80,000 car. It's not fair I tell ya.

[sornypanafonic @ Mar 28th 2007 12:01PM]

well actually for her it was a lot more than $80,000. She paid as the article mentions, 96,000 pounds for it, which is roughly $170,000. Now why would anbody in their right mind pay that much for a SL500, well i dont know, but obviously she wasnt the sharpest tool in the shed.

[Leoedin @ Mar 27th 2007 11:30AM]

$80,000? more like $189,000

[Matt @ Jul 24th 2008 5:36PM]

80,000 Pounds = $160,000

[apeguero @ Mar 27th 2007 10:25AM]

People are so stupid!

[Kev50027 @ Mar 27th 2007 10:34AM]

Rich people aren't always stupid, I might add. Just the ones that don't pay attention to road signs.

[Oliver M @ Mar 27th 2007 10:41AM]

Probably the stupid wife of a clever rich man.

[Rich @ Mar 27th 2007 10:48AM]

If he *really* loved her, he'd have got her an SL55 AMG!

[colinpeddle @ Mar 27th 2007 10:45AM]

Sadly, this happens a lot with this point in the river. CBC radio in Canada had a local on one time last year saying that about 6 cars a year end up in that river. Usually, the river only reaches the side of the doors.

Good times I'm sure.

[Rich @ Mar 27th 2007 10:47AM]

My satnav (Audi -- but probably uses the same data as MB) goes haywire from time-to-time. Fortunately I'm not so stupid as to follow it. Its most recent crazy sugestion was to perform a U-turn on the A419 in Wiltshire. Trouble was, there was Armco down the central reservation. Oh, and I was touching 100mph at the time!

[kadajawi @ Mar 27th 2007 4:32PM]

Yeah, but he was smart enough not to. Wise man. (I would have given her a... A class or so though. Or a nice kitchen.)

[Pete @ Mar 27th 2007 10:54AM]

This is the best part, quoted from article: Miss Clark's boyfriend then took the woman, who gave her name only as Hayley, to a motorway service station where a chauffeur-driven Bentley collected her

[Rich @ Mar 27th 2007 12:01PM]

"hayley"?? Definetely a footballer's (that's soccer ;-)) wife...

[strider_mt2k @ Mar 27th 2007 10:54AM]

Think of it as evolution in action.

[aeo @ Mar 27th 2007 10:58AM]

Weren't there situations when cars were first fitted with cruise control where a few people thought that cruise control was an auto-pilot and stopped driving the car thinking it would automatically steer too? I want to say I remember a story where one person set the CC and then climbed into the back seat to take a nap.

[andy @ Mar 27th 2007 11:27AM]

It was to make a sandwich and it was a motorhome. Rambler was the manufacturer that was sued I believe. Yes, he sued the motorhome manufacturer.

[Landlocked @ Mar 27th 2007 11:09AM]

Calculator = decline of real math skills
GPS = decline of real driving skills

[Harry @ Mar 27th 2007 11:14AM]

Someone should explain to her that cars have windsheilds so that driver's can see the road. That way you don't have to stare at your GPS screen the whole time while you're driving.

Someone else can help her when she asks why the sky is blue.

[Jason @ Mar 27th 2007 11:18AM]

OOps ... major apologies to aeo who posted more or less the exact comment moments before (I should really learn to read other comments more thoroughly before posting).

[Sam @ Mar 27th 2007 11:18AM]

I think all the GPS "accident" stories are bull. She got drunk, ran off a road and needed an excuse.

[onitake @ Mar 27th 2007 11:54AM]

I bet she was writing SMS while driving.

And breeding is usually not a problem for beeyatchez with $$$... sadly :/

[Sergio @ Mar 27th 2007 11:38AM]

As always reality is much more amazing than fiction.

[sean @ Mar 27th 2007 2:56PM]

Except that never ever happened. Thanks for continuing to spread ignorance.
http://www.snopes.com/autos/techno/cruise.asp

[I LOVE THE CAPS LOCK KEY @ Mar 28th 2007 3:29AM]

The Price of the car is in UKP or United Kingdom Pounds. The current rate of the Brittish Pound is almost twice that of the Dollar. So one UKP is equil to about $1.90-2.00 USD or United States Dollar

http://www.xe.com/ucc/

[Tom @ Mar 27th 2007 11:45AM]

Her first mistake was driving in the kitchen.

[huygir @ Mar 27th 2007 12:58PM]

Dumb-ass.

[Cea @ Mar 27th 2007 12:10PM]

She must be blonde.

[Sam @ Mar 27th 2007 12:48PM]

Uh yeah, that car definatly does not cost $189,000.

[f00 @ Mar 27th 2007 1:32PM]

"Uh yeah, that car definatly does not cost $189,000."

In the Netherlands an SL500 = the equivalent of US $194,000. In the UK likely similar. You Americans practically get your cars for free compared to us Europeans - even when they're made over here.

Not to mention your gas prices. LOL

[ScottG @ Mar 27th 2007 2:48PM]

I guarantee that the dumb b*tch was busy talking on a cell phone at the time she drove into the river. But, look at the bright side: It's better for her to drive into a river than into another car..which she was bound to do. Women should not be allowed to have cell phones in cars.

[TxCub420 @ Mar 27th 2007 1:12PM]

"It's a write-off for them."
"How is it a write-off?"
"They just write it off."
"Write it off what?"
"Jerry, all these big companies, they write off everything."
"You don't even know what a write-off is."
"Do you?"
"No, I don't."
"But they do. And they're the ones writing it off."

[Michael Schmitt @ Mar 27th 2007 1:16PM]

Ummm... why is it that a lot of these stories are coming from Europe and not from the US?

We've got the same technology here...

[andy @ Mar 27th 2007 2:05PM]

Yes, but we would kill for your mass transit systems and cell coverage.

[Bazza @ Mar 27th 2007 1:30PM]

I guess eyes count for nothing in the 21st century. Its so sad what human race in rhe western world is turning into.
Its stems from the oversimplification of things, where in the old days people had to use their brains to work things out and got more proficient in their live cos of it...........nowadays, its all about "intuitive" this and that. It doesa it all for you so you dont have to think anymore. we creating a generation of dullards that cant use common sense and initiative to figure out things. It all has to be spoonfed to them. Itd called the ipod generation.

its all indirect, but its there and ther should eb a limit to how "intuitive" things are.

it all sound ludicrous i know, buit thats my observation and opinion.

[kadajawi @ Mar 27th 2007 6:30PM]

Hm, really? I found the system in Germany to be terrible. Always late (especially if it's really hot or cold). Any waaaay to expensive. And most trains come 1 or 2 times an hour, when it's late less than that. Singapore on the other hand... now that's a nice mass transit system.

[HarrytheHood @ Mar 27th 2007 4:42PM]

Amusingly the river into which she fell was called 'The Sense'.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/saturday/story/0,,2041775,00.html

[Falcom @ Mar 27th 2007 5:18PM]

Bazza, you are 100% correct. In 20-50 years people will be so retarded that they will forget how to eat and simply die off...hopefully.

[skonofvulcan @ Mar 27th 2007 8:54PM]

I find it hard to belive that this is real. It's just got to be one of those "uban legends" that people make up. Realy, I can't imagine any human being that stupid.

[E71 @ Mar 27th 2007 7:53PM]

Funny how it happens to the limeys more than anyone else.

[Edwzone @ Mar 28th 2007 3:51AM]

So don't trust GPS or don't trust women?

[Brett Biba @ Mar 29th 2007 10:35AM]

Reminds me of:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nfBjla6rgG4

[ottovds @ May 7th 2007 6:57PM]

hé hé, and it happens more.
last, a guy was stuck in the mud with his bmw sports car near my house. Actualy the street he had to go was only a hundred meter behind.

[R. C. @ May 14th 2007 8:18PM]

Thanks for taking some woman's stupidity and using it to make a massive, insulting generalization about an entire generation, one, it should be noted, that she does not belong to. The woman quite possibly could drive, she just assumed the GPS could drive better. I'm really quite sick of people blaming technology for the incompitance they see in people ("i-pod" generation only. Apparently, other people reliant on calculators to do math do not exist), while meny people can add, subtract, devide and multiply quite well without the aid of a peic of technology.