British Columbia

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Hiker rescued off B.C. cliffside after taking non-existent Google Maps trail (www.nelsonstar.com)

submitted 2 years ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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[–] [email protected] -1 points 2 years ago (1 children)

If you ask me for directions to my house, and as part of the directions I give you, I tell you to drive your car down a staircase, and you do, you are entirely responsible for your automobile accident.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (1 children)

Uh, sure? Walking off trail in the woods isn’t as surrealistic as taking a car down a staircase so the analogy doesn’t seem useful to me. Even if the instructions of driving down some stairs were truthful it would still be blatantly illegal/unsafe.

A less silly example: it’s possible to sue the government if one gets into a crash due to bad signage. Even if the driver is the one who technically broke the law, the city may be liable for confusing signage that contributes to accidents.

[–] [email protected] -1 points 2 years ago (1 children)

I used the car down a staircase story because it happens all the time.

[I]t’s possible to sue the government if one gets into a crash due to bad signage.

That's because the government operates the roads.

If you ask me for directions to my house, and as part of the directions I give you, I tell you to walk down a path in the forest where no path actually exists, through pretty serious terrain, and you have no gear to speak of, and you go anyway, you are entirely responsible for having to be rescued and airlifted out by helicopter.

This guy, and anyone like him, is not obliged to follow a map application.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 years ago (1 children)

I used the car down a staircase story because it happens all the time.

Ah sorry, when you said "I tell you to drive your car down a staircase" I thought you meant you gave literal "take the stairs with your car" as instructions, instead of giving an abstract map/drawing that the person would follow. Then yeah, in this case the analogy makes more sense. My mistake.

I tell you to walk down a path in the forest where no path actually exists [...] you are entirely responsible for having to be rescued and airlifted out by helicopter

lol k

[–] [email protected] -1 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago)

No, that's exactly what I meant. You apparently didn't click the link.

https://www.kron4.com/news/driver-claims-she-was-following-her-gps-down-staircase-police-say/

That's a recent incident, there have been others. Other kinds of "people following their GPS" incidents are here:

https://theweek.com/articles/464674/8-drivers-who-blindly-followed-gps-into-disaster