Sat Nav fail plus Stupid Human: Taxi driver rescued after driving into canal when his sat nav told him ‘turn left’
Taxi is hauled out of the Bridgewater canal Picture: Reach via Yahoo News
Why do people do it? What possesses otherwise sane people to put such blid faith in technology that they will put their lives at risk rather than disobey the computer? What makes anybody believe machines are imbued with god-like infallibility?
Police reported a Taxi driver had a “lucky escape” after obeying a Sat Nav direction led him to drive into a canal in Eccles, Greater Manchester.
An “embarrassed” motorist made a left turn off Bridgewater Way and drove straight into Bridgewater Cannal in on Sunday evening, officers said. Manchester Police Traffic division posted a picture online of the vehicle lying in the water following the incident. Anyone familiar with that road will know even a stranger to the area could not be unaware that a waterway runs parallel to the carriageway.
A spokesman for the force said: “This taxi was rescued by RPU west A-relief in Eccles after the driver followed his sat nav straight into the Bridgewater Canal.
Replying to the post, one person wrote: “I hope they were reported to the council as well as having to re-sit a driving test. That’s just shocking.”
Another added: “Should have his taxi license and car license revoked, could have been a different outcome.”
As I know the road and the area I’m aware that anybody who placed the evidence of their own eyes above that of a machine could not possibly have done this. Therefore the real question, given the number of similar incidents from all around the world we have reported in the past, is what has technology done to our brains when so many people will put blind faith in technology and ignore their own observations and common sense.
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