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Court rejects 'GPS made me do it' argument


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In what may be the first case of its kind, Robert Jones was found guilty this week of what they call in the U.K. "driving without due care and attention" for daftly following the orders of the soothing voice of his GPS when the more urgent voice attached to his brain cells might have suggested he, um, think.

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For his part, Jones offered the court a stirringly self-aware defense: "I might have been an idiot for taking the wrong road or carrying on, but I have not driven without due care or attention."

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Read the rest in this CNet article.

Edited by lee_rimar
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Sat nav has become the bane of some villages in the South Hams, Devon, UK. There is only one major road through the area suitable for heavy goods vehicles and that road is often congested or blocked through RTCs or road works. So when drivers hit the "divert" button, sat nav sends them down roads that are inappropriate for the size of vehicle. Those trucks then end up blocking the only road through a village as either opposing traffic or the truck is obliged to reverse long distances (sometimes back to the main road). In one case a few years ago, one HGV grounded out and got hung up on a hump-back bridge. The only road to the village from that direction was closed for about a week until they could free the offending truck.

 

Perhaps they should prosecute more motorists for blindly following their sat navs when common sense says they should think twice!

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Sat nav has become the bane of some villages in the South Hams, Devon, UK. There is only one major road through the area suitable for heavy goods vehicles and that road is often congested or blocked through RTCs or road works. So when drivers hit the "divert" button, sat nav sends them down roads that are inappropriate for the size of vehicle. Those trucks then end up blocking the only road through a village as either opposing traffic or the truck is obliged to reverse long distances (sometimes back to the main road). In one case a few years ago, one HGV grounded out and got hung up on a hump-back bridge. The only road to the village from that direction was closed for about a week until they could free the offending truck.

 

Perhaps they should prosecute more motorists for blindly following their sat navs when common sense says they should think twice!

 

The same thing would happen if people re-routed using road atlases. Don't let the press hype about sat navs fool you.

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Sat nav has become the bane of some villages in the South Hams, Devon, UK. There is only one major road through the area suitable for heavy goods vehicles and that road is often congested or blocked through RTCs or road works. So when drivers hit the "divert" button, sat nav sends them down roads that are inappropriate for the size of vehicle. Those trucks then end up blocking the only road through a village as either opposing traffic or the truck is obliged to reverse long distances (sometimes back to the main road). In one case a few years ago, one HGV grounded out and got hung up on a hump-back bridge. The only road to the village from that direction was closed for about a week until they could free the offending truck.

 

Perhaps they should prosecute more motorists for blindly following their sat navs when common sense says they should think twice!

 

The same thing would happen if people re-routed using road atlases. Don't let the press hype about sat navs fool you.

Road atlases usually indicate the size of the road. Whether a person actually pays attention to it or not is another matter. But the information is right there and you can't avoid it, because there's no other way to get information from an atlas than with your eyes.

 

With GPS devices, people tend to hit the "divert" button and don't study the new route - they just turn when the device says to turn.

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The same thing would happen if people re-routed using road atlases. Don't let the press hype about sat navs fool you.

In UK, roads are classified as A, B, or "unclassified". A & B roads are normally fine for HGVs. However, you need to exercise caution if you're going to take a truck down an unclassified road since such roads could well become unsuitable. Thankfully, most such roads have width limits, height limits, or warn of other issues (such as hump-back bridges). Some have signs that categorically state "unsuitable for large vehicles". Despite these warnings, people still blindly follow their sat navs and get stuck. To my mind, that is driving without due care and attention and deserves prosecution.

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