Filed under: Gadgets
"Turn right" into a porta-potty
A German driver took his navigation system's commands a little too literally and ended up in deep doodoo. When he heard the command to "Turn right now!" from his navigation system he crashed into a small toilet enclosure by the side of the road. Apparently he turned about 100 feet too soon. The crossing he was supposed to take was another 30 yards down the road.
The 53-year-old resident of Freiburg didn't notice the error even after his SUV went off the road. He continued into a construction site, up a stairway and into the small toilet shack, according to police in the eastern town of Rudolstadt. The incident caused € 2,000 ($2,500) worth of damage to the stairwell, another € 100 in damage to his car, and he was also fined € 35. Sounds like the makings of a MasterCard-like ad:
New stairwell: € 2000
SUV repair: € 100
Traffic fine: € 35
Obeying your navigation system no matter what: Clueless
Not to cast aspersions on the Germans, but we can't help but remember that earlier this month an 80-year-old motorist also chose to follow his navigation system and ignored a "closed for construction" sign on a Hamburg road. He merely drove into a pile of sand. Neither he nor his passenger was injured. Maybe the voice prompts need to be altered to something more like, "Turn onto the road approximately XXX yards ahead, only after verifying that a roadway actually exists at that location."
[Source: Reuters]
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Tom Winch 7:35PM (10/24/2006)
Having spent a considerable amount of time in Germany, I've noticed that the older the person, the more blindly obedient they are. May have something to do with that old "NAZI" thing over 60 years ago, then dealing with a US occupation army for years after the war. That might carry over to blindly following an authoritative sounding voice (and in german everything sounds authoritative) emanating from the Nav system. I've been driving down the autobahn at 145 mph and had the NAV system loudly tell me to "make a U-turn" in an abrupt voice the startled me more than a little. This happened to me twice driving from Berlin to Gunzberg when I crossed over other autobahns. Fortunately I was in control of myself enough to keep driving straight ahead!
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Howard Kerr 8:24PM (10/24/2006)
Isn't one definition of crazy/insane: doing something the same way over and over again, but expecting different results? A corollary of that must be: doing something because a computer told me to do it...and computers are NEVER wrong.
I use nav aides as....aides. I don't use them as THE FINAL WORD. It's scary to think that so many people are willing to let a machine act as a substitute for their own brain.
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Annie Liebowitz 8:25PM (10/24/2006)
Bingo Tom!!
Europeans in general (YOUNG and OLD) are blindly obedient, and highly receptive to increasing bureaucratic demands.
They rarely lead, and almost always follow for fear of social reprisal.
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Steve.C 9:24PM (10/24/2006)
Ve Ver only obeying orders!
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Chris 9:30PM (10/24/2006)
Wouldn't you love to be some NSA/Military guy with a spy satilite and control over GPS accuracy? Damn that would be too much fun.
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percolator 9:36PM (10/24/2006)
Very nice someone stereotypes a whole nation, then someone agrees and stereotypes a whole continent... all of this certainly without setting foot there. This is autoblog not some GOP forum people. At least the euros fight their government when it does something it shouldn't, instead of sheepishly following their every stupid decisions.
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Zo 9:36PM (10/24/2006)
This would be the 3rd such incedent. There was another german man recently who drove onto rail road tracks and kept going. Apparently the tracks were parallel to the road he was suppose to drive onto. Luckily there was no train coming at the time.
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N Z K 10:58PM (10/24/2006)
Re: #6: Your statement strikes me as exceptionally ironic.
Quite frankly, given the events, I'm shocked that the damage to his SUV was only €100.
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John B 11:49PM (10/24/2006)
Is there a law somewhere in Germany that says one must wear a blindfold when using on-board navigation? I smell an imminent Darwin Award.
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M. 12:20AM (10/25/2006)
@7: We germans seem to be have big problems interpreting our navis:
http://www.spiegel.de/auto/aktuell/0,1518,grossbild-721275-443495,00.html
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iQuack 3:06AM (10/25/2006)
Not sure if my view of this is typically American, but I think I'd like a navigation system so I could deliberately disobey it.
While its computer voice directed me to turn one way or the other I could just yell "SCREW YOU" (or worse) at the thing and go the way I damn well wanted to go--lost or not.
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Adrian 6:22AM (10/25/2006)
#3 Have you ever actually been to Europe? Where is all that BS coming from?
Let me get this straight: someone from the same country as people who rebuild their houses in the exact same spot each year after losing them to tornadoes, a place that is coincidentaly named "tornado alley", is calling europeans crazy/insane for doing the exact same thing and expecting different results. And the same country seems to be filled with this sort of people: http://www.220.ro/stuff/Prostia_americanilor.htm , and is apparently run by a guy who remarkably resembles both in appearance as well as in thought an urangutan.
And let's not forget that americans have a bad opinion on europeans whereas the entire world has a bad opinion about them.
(Sorry to deviate this conversation from cars to stuff like that but it just agravates the hell out of me to see ignorant idiots like these that are living proof that americans really are as ignorant about the world around them as it is said. Not all, but a vast majority and I do feal sorry for those smart ones cought up in this.)
PS. Just so you know in some places in Europe the term "american" is slowly being turned into an insult. And I've had an american teach me english and i can confirm that hand on heart.
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Unbathed Euro 9:08AM (10/25/2006)
"At least the euros fight their government when it does something it shouldn't, instead of sheepishly following their every stupid decisions."
Like how the Germans fought Hitler's government instead of "sheepishly following" him to a world war. All makes sense now. Thanks for that revelation!
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mikomi 9:52AM (10/25/2006)
I suppose the 100 Euro to repair the SUV was not to repair any physical damage, but to disinfect the vehicle.
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percolator 11:37AM (10/25/2006)
You're doing it again. First off using a 60-year old argument, and then wrapping up a whole continent in the stereotype of one of its nations.
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