Trust in Sat Nav sees Brits into deep water

By redlined on Friday, April 21st, 2006 comments

In a Wiltshire village in the UK, a new hot spot has emerged when sat nav really can't work miracles. Drivers are following directions and ending up in a ford in the River Avon which is roughly 2ft deep, and to top things off there is a £25 charge to help get pulled back out.

Every day since the main B4040 was closed after a wall collapsed on April 8 one or two motorists have been towed out, having either failed to notice or ignored warning signs. Some farmers have been charging £25 to give a tow with tractors.

The ford, known as The Splash, is in Brook End on the edge of Luckington, which is near Malmesbury. Lesley Bennett, 59, a Luckington parish councillor who lives by the ford, said: “When the car conks out the driver looks stunned. When you ask what happened, they say, ‘My sat-nav told me it was this way’.”

Julie Jackson, 45, of Carterton, Oxfordshire, and her mother, Delcie Fielder, 70, had to abandon their Rover 220 in mid-stream after “we heard this gurgling sound and water came right into the car, covering our feet”. (serves them right for buying a Rover :)

Brits spent over £300 million on Sat Nav systems now, it seems on every motorway journey that a large proportion of cars have some sort of device stuck to the window, so it's only likely that these sorts of stories will become more popular. How long before someone does something really stupid like driving off a steep cliff edge ;) ?

Via TimesOnline