Man Drives Car Into A River Because His GPS Said So

Once when my dad was on holiday in Germany his sat nav told him to drive into a river, but being a fairly sensible man he stayed on the road because cars don't work on water.

The same can't be said of this Hyundai driver in Anhui, eastern China. He was following his sat nav when it led him down a dirt track...and then the dirt track turned into a river and yet he still kept driving.

You would think at that point he would consider reversing but no, he had committed to this path and if the sat nav says so...

Credit: Shucheng County Police/Weibo

Isn't technology wonderful? I mean, I'm all for google maps, but I do like to back it up with eyesight and a dash of common sense. Didn't his eyes work? Couldn't he see he was driving into a river? As you can see, it's clearly a river.

It took police half a day to pull the car out with a truck and a bulldozer. He had driven so far into the water that he was almost at risk of going completely under.

It must have been embarrassing when he opened his car door, water flooded in and he had to wade through the river to get to land.

Credit: Shucheng County Police/Weibo

At what point did he think: "Hmmm I should probably swim to shore now, this is clearly not going to work"?

The police in China were understandably pretty perplexed. And Weibo (China's version of Facebook) users were laughing their heads off.

One user said: "Even if you blame Baidu Maps, you can't save the driver's IQ... driving towards the water is just... I have no words."

Me neither.

Another commented: "If you can't drive, fly! Doesn't your car have that function?"

Or swim? It would be pretty cool if the car actually doubled up as a submarine or a boat.

But it's not the first (or let's be honest, the last) time this has happened. When it comes to GPS and sat navs, people seem to throw their common sense out the window. Either they believe that the voice in the car knows what it's talking about when it says drive into a river, or it issues a warning that you totally ignore... to your peril.

This happened to lorry driver Steven Ablett, who got stuck between two walls when his sat nav sent him down a muddy country lane. The 47-year-old decided to trust the navigation aid despite a road sign warning of dangers to heavy vehicles.

His 17.5-tonne truck became jammed stuck and he could not reverse up the sloping lane because of wet mud. He had to spend the night in his cab missing his son's 18th birthday, and only escaped the next morning after rain washed away the sludge.

There's nothing more miserable than being trapped in a truck and missing a good party. It's a shame no one rescued him, but hopefully he learned his lesson.

Words: Laura Hamilton

Topics: China

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