Woman drives 900 miles out of her way after GPS error

rockin'robin

rockin'robin

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Put too much faith in technology and you may wind up in Croatia. A 67-year-old woman from Belgium learned that the hard way after she followed (faulty) directions from her GPS device.

The woman only wanted to go about 90 miles from her hometown of Hainault Erquelinnes, Belgium, to pick up a friend at the Brussels train station. Her GPS device sent her about 900 miles to the south before (during the second day of driving) she realized that something was amiss. It's unclear if she entered the address incorrectly or if the GPS was faulty.

Discovery explains that the driver, Sabine Moreau, stopped twice for gas, slept on the side of the road, and "even suffered a minor car accident" along the way. She told El Mundo that she wasn't paying attention.

I was distracted, so I kept driving. I saw all kinds of traffic signs, first in French, then German and finally in Croatian, but I kept driving because I was distracted. Suddenly I appeared in Zagreb and I realized I wasn't in Belgium anymore.

The lesson here: If you start seeing road signs in (multiple) foreign languages, pull over. You're probably going the wrong way.

Woman drives 900 miles out of her way after GPS error | The Sideshow - Yahoo! News
 
Wow!!! I would type in GPS and see miles were inaccurate so I checked the spelling and typed again.

I bet that the friend was so worried!!!
 
I always have a map in my head to know my general direction. The gsp is reassuring but will often be showing you extra long routes.
 
if she was that distracted to notice she was driving for 2-3 days for 90 miles drive... oh my... what was she thinking about? sounds like this "friend" must be causing her a deal of anxiety :lol:
 
Put too much faith in technology and you may wind up in Croatia. A 67-year-old woman from Belgium
Click to expand...
Will this result in an early diagnosis of Alzheimer's? :confused:
 
I leave for a multi-state road trip on Tuesday.

**note to self**... double check GPS.

:giggle:
 
wtf..that's not the GPS's fault as much as its hers..common sense should have kicked in after a few hours....wow lol
 
Distraction is a subjective thing I guess. We had a fellow up here that took the ferry to a small port town. He set up his GPS directions before driving off the ferry. In the early morning light and his own self described "distraction" he followed the GPS directions and drove down a nearby small boat launch off into the bay, whoa, he would have drowned out there if it had not been for a surprised witness that had a skiff nearby.
 
I often MapQuest for directions...and so many times it's the long route or the wrong route.....just don't trust a GPS anyway....
 
I think there's more to this story than that lady being "distracted". I mean, How do you get distracted for 900 miles? Beats me. :dunno:
 
we had pizza man who followed gps ended up going down rail track..i believe that not uncommon.it went into national papers too.....i wonder if derick know about the gps for bikes,they slightly different
 
From my experience, GPS is not 100% accurate. The older it is, it becomes out of sync, unless its (Mapping) being kept updated by well recognized GPS providers.

So what is likely happened is that this lady may have old GPS, and not updated it for years. Many GPS providers do offer map updates, and often it is not free, so this poor lady may want to save money, ended up losing even more.

I have TomTom, with lifetime map updates, and I find it much better than several other brands of GPS, worth the investment :) I originally didn't want one cause I have excellent map photos in my head. What made me decide get GPS is that one of my friend lend her GPS to me and wanted me to see why it is worth it. I was like okay, and had traveled 750 miles and made positive discovery... Much easier to find restaurants, fuel station, locations of ATM, and much more. I realized the benefit of having GPS and ended up bought Lifetime Map updates GPS.
 
Guessing this ol' Lady was singing..."Only 900 more miles to go....after another bottle of Beer on the Wall".....
 
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