Technology @lemmy.zip 🃏Joker @sh.itjust.works 1d ago

Three Men Die When Google Maps Tells Them to Drive Off Unfinished Bridge

futurism.com Three Men Die When Google Maps Tells Them to Drive Off Unfinished Bridge

Three men in India died after Google Maps reportedly told them to drive their taxi off an incomplete bridge spanning the Ramganga River.

"The maps shouldn’t have shown that the bridge was complete."

51 comments

TBH people who do this deserve whatever consequences that get. Not the passengers necessarily, but the drivers absolutely do.
"Three men die in bizarre money-laundering incident."

Judging by the pictures, that bridge was never going to connect to anything.
- The article tells you it's a repair of a wash out. So it absolutely does have a connection.
I fail to see how that's Google Maps' fault. This is the city's fault for not blocking the bridge. Would people have complained if a paper map didn't update all the collapsed bridges daily?
- It's from India, here either news reporters take bribe to not write it was authorities fault or can't think straight and rational.
- I'd probably also somewhat blame the person that drove off the bridge that clearly goes nowhere.
  
  Looks like it might have been dark and foggy. The government failed to block the extremely dangerous situation— a standard practice when a bridge is put in other places.
  
  Seems like blame can be applied at least three ways at once.
A more accurate title is "Three men die when road crews fail to barricade a broken bridge".
what if it was a paper map? would the mapping company be liable?

put the blame where it belongs; on the construction company who failed to block an unnavigable, dangerous piece of road.
- Yeah I mean it would have been good if google maps could have prevented this but like the same thing could have happened to someone without a map
  
  Yeah, I mean, someone has to provide the information. If one day, there’s a full bridge, and the next day it’s deconstructed for repairs, Google can’t magically know; some information needs to be pushed out to be parsed and updated. It wouldn’t surprise me if this was simply done by construction co. without proper filing etc. very few nations have the extreme regulations that U.S. has - it's one of America’s redeeming qualities. Of course, that may not always be the case. But yknow.
- I used to travel by paper map for like all of the 90s and 00s. I can reliably say, it was never the map's fault.
- A paper map doesn't route by itself, differently from map apps such as Google Maps, HERE Maps and OpenStreetMaps.
  
  It's completely irrelevant. It's not magic.
  
  Blindly following directions without awareness of the situation around you is always your fault. A failure to block the road is the fault of whoever's responsible for the road, but never the map.
I had to check. I'm pretty sure it's this bridge in OpenStreetMap https://www.openstreetmap.org/#map=15/28.02674/79.48926 And there it is also not closed off for routing
Given that there is death involved, this is "sensitive"... So I will not post a gif of Michael and Dwight driving into the river because the GPS told them to.
- I will not chuckle at the thought of this hypothetical meme
- Truly the show's biggest jumping of the shark.
As soon as the bridge was deemed unsafe, it should have had barricades erected.

Situational awareness supersedes maps, digital or not.

Every GPS device, paper map and App out there would have had even chances to miss this.

Driving in India is insane, even if the infrastructure wasn't as bad as it is... and to be clear, it's awful.
- Situational awareness is key, but if all other indicators suggested everything was fine and you were driving up a bridge at night, there's not much warning before the road is suddenly not there thanks to the curvature of the road. I've seen plenty of short clips of cars dropping into missing road segments due to whatever reasons, and it's just not something you look for normally while driving nor is it that easy to see from a distance vs. an obstacle on the road. It's possible they tried to stop and just couldn't in time. The vehicle would be farther away if they had just flown off and not right below the base.
What excuse do they have for ignoring traffic signs and literally every other indication that the road is closed?

A GPS doesn’t absolve you from personal responsibility. Use your eyes.
- They were driving in the night. Visibility was poor. The road wasn't closed off. Just to name a few.
  
  You're probably imagining reflective signs, barricades, lights, led warning signs, etc. I know i would expect all of those.
  
  But this is India. And we're talking about a company that didn't even block the road. There is a very good chance there were no indications visible in the night.
Do they not put barricades in the road when it's closed in India?
- Infrastructure and Driving in India come with substantial risks to life.
- Nope. Public safety just isn't a thing in India. At least it wasn't twenty years ago when I went there. People die, everyone goes about their day, and nothing changes.
...and that's why you don't use car navigation in airplane mode.
- If it's not in airplane mode, how do you expect the car to fly over the gap in the bridge?
  
  Have you not seen Speed? You drive faster.
google maps once tried to send me through a military base. Like, yes this would technically be faster if it wasn't for the armed guards.

apple maps hasn't tried to kill me ... yet
- This is an old story, hopefully they've done something about it
  
  "Australian police call the application "potentially life threatening" after travelers are left stranded in scorching-hot temperatures"
  
  https://theweek.com/articles/469634/4-nightmarescenarios-involving-apple-maps
- There were almost monthly stories about Apple Maps leading to death and near-death experiences when they came out, not sure about now. Hopefully they got better.
  
  I use it. It’s definitely gotten better. The traffic and business data isn’t as good as Google’s, but otherwise they’re pretty comparable these days.
  
  Want the original icon for the app a route leading off the middle of a bridge?
- I've been sent the wrong way up one way streets (big flaw to not have the fucking direction of traffic marked so that's also on the city design) and my wife was sent through a quarry once
  
  Fucking weird part is that the quarry route is a legit road that connects to a shopping center on the other side, so I guess that one is fine?
  
  That's stone cold.
Had a lady in my store yesterday insisting that we had an item because google said so
- Those people are fun the first and second time. After that you start getting a certain attitude towards them.
  
  After working retail for more than a decade... Those people deserve it. The type of person to argue with an employee about whether they carry something or not solely because Google said so, are the quintessential Karen. They deserve every bit of unhelpfulness right back at them for the misery they sow everywhere they go.
- Man, I went to like 3 different Targets to find an item because the company that made the item said those Targets carried it. None of them did.
  
  Of course, nothing is better than a store saying they carry an item when they in fact do not. That happens pretty frequently when I'm looking for something specific. Not out of stock mind you, but they will never have stock.
"THE MACHINE KNOWS!"
Sure glad they circled it, I didn’t know which end was unfinished.
- lol but I am pretty sure what’s circled is the downed vehicle.
  
  Bridges and cars are easy to confuse. Hence the red circle
Take control of your mapping and learn to use your brain

#openstreetmap
Darwin would like to have a word with the driver

51 comments