Roughly 80% of the US population uses GPS apps. Whatever we might use, Google Maps is at the top with over two-thirds of phone-users accessing it at any given time. Whether we’re lost or simply need a refresher on where to go and how to get there. Though, to be fair, we’ve come to rely on them a bit too much. And sometimes that can end in tragedy. Such as the death of a North Carolina woman’s husband in 2022. When he drove of a collapsed bridge that Google Maps had marked as a viable route.
Alicia Paxson has since filed a lawsuit against Google Maps for continuing to mark the route as accessible. Despite a number of other uses reporting the bridge as collapsed. Unfortunately, the privately-owned bridge itself has neither been barricaded or marked as unusable.
While driving home from their daughter’s 9th birthday party, Philip Paxson was in unfamiliar territory. Using Google Maps as his guide, he headed towards the collapsed Snow Creek Bridge in Hickory. Paxson drove off the bridge, and tragically drowned in the river below. It had been an ongoing complaint from local residents that the bridge was never repaired. There is reportedly no signage informing drivers that it cannot be crossed. Nor has the bridge been blocked off to avoid fatalities such as this one.
No Excuse For Negligence
You might huff and claim that Paxson should have paid more attention to his surroundings. Who hasn’t rolled their eyes at reading reports of people following their GPS directions into the ocean? But these reports leave people with a ruined car and lives intact. In this case, someone trusting a system to steer them right ended up killing them. But the fact of the matter is that a GPS led a man to his death. And deprived his wife and daughter of a husband and father.
Google Maps’ satellite imagery of the bridge in question is from October 2012, which provides further damning evidence that Google hadn’t update the path for eleven years. The Google Maps app more than likely used this outdated imagery for Paxson’s route.
Google’s real-time changes to routes to avoid traffic and roadblocks leaves them with little excuse as to their lack of update to the bridge’s status. Furthermore,it’s telling that Google failed to respond when asked by SFGate as to why the bridge continued to appear as a viable route. Despite a number of notices sent by users. And that it has taken the death of a person using their service to finally fix it this year. While Google offers its sincere condolences to the Paxson family, it carries a standard corporate hollowness. One that reads more like an “oopsie” than true regret.
