Autoblog

A little more than a month after one bloke followed his GPS guidance into the path of a train, we find a lorry driver in Great Britain pulling a similar blunder. Instead of looking outside the cab of the truck and noticing the large sign indicating the road was "unsuitable for heavy goods vehicles," he ignorantly followed the GPS display as it led him down a narrow farm lane. Within minutes, his 45-foot tractor trailer became firmly wedged in the mud and thicket. Needless to say, his trip to carry timber from north Wales to Birmingham was abruptly cut short. The driver's job is likely in jeopardy, but he is thankfully uninjured. The owner of the land, who now has to drive an extra two miles around the detour, is understandably irate.

This isn't a rare occurrence. In November, a Czech truck driver in the U.K. was led off course by his GPS and ended up spending three nights stuck in the woods. And who can forget the Brit who followed his GPS guidance into a river? GPS is a wonderful technology, but it is no substitute for common sense! Thanks for the tip Bobby!

[Source: Engadget]

England. Jolly Old. Coventry, to be exact. There resides a seriously bored driver going by the handle vennuth. Vennuth willfully ignored the cardinal rule of using nav systems: use your own judgement! It's always amusing when the navigation system gets confused and directs you up your neighbor's driveway when you're really trying to reach the Raccoon Lodge. Most of us would just chuckle at the idea of driving our vehicle up a path marked "Not Suitable For Motor Vehicles" despite the nav system urging us on. Not vennuth.

Vennuth's a member of the gtr.co.uk forum, so we were quite relieved to see it was a Renault van he managed to mire up to its hubs. The funny part comes when his amusing recounting notes how his ex gets more and more "narky," he gets increasingly thirsty, and several successive rescue teams also become stuck. What should have been a simple tug-out turns into a 14-hour ordeal that ends with a lowly tractor succeeding where an ex-military Bedford wrecker failed. In proper fashion, there was a pub at the end of the unfit road, so it ended well.

Thanks for the tip, Leon!