Like mothers throughout human history, mine would often reprimand me for some childish act of group stupidity by asking, if my friends jumped off a cliff, would I do it too?
Of course, I never gave her the honest answer: of course I would. Children are idiots and born followers. The explosion in transgenderism is proof enough of that, just like every other dumb fad.
But to get a grown-up to go over a cliff? You need modern devices for that.
The family of a North Carolina man who died after driving his car off a collapsed bridge while following Google Maps directions is suing the technology giant for negligence, claiming it had been informed of the collapse but failed to update its navigation system.
Philip Paxson, a medical device salesman and father of two, drowned Sept 30, 2022, after his Jeep Gladiator plunged into Snow Creek in Hickory, according to a lawsuit filed Tuesday in Wake County Superior Court. Paxson was driving home from his daughter’s ninth birthday party through an unfamiliar neighborhood when Google Maps allegedly directed him to cross a bridge that had collapsed nine years prior and was never repaired.
Jokes aside, though, this isn’t the story of some dumb rube blindly driving like a lemming off a cliff’s edge.
In reality, it’s a tale of years of government neglect, buck-passing by developers, and Big Tech companies that are so busy silencing free speech that they can’t be arsed keeping their own apps up to date.
State troopers who found Paxton’s body in his overturned and partially submerged truck had said there were no barriers or warning signs along the washed-out roadway. He had driven off an unguarded edge and crashed about 20 feet below, according to the lawsuit.
The North Carolina State Patrol had said the bridge was not maintained by local or state officials, and the original developer’s company had dissolved. The lawsuit names several private property management companies that it claims are responsible for the bridge and the adjoining land.
Multiple people had notified Google Maps about the collapse in the years leading up to Paxson’s death and had urged the company to update its route information, according to the lawsuit.
Google can’t claim they didn’t know about it.
The Tuesday court filing includes email records from another Hickory resident who had used the map’s “suggest an edit” feature in September 2020 to alert the company that it was directing drivers over the collapsed bridge. A November 2020 email confirmation from Google confirms the company received her report and was reviewing the suggested change, but the lawsuit claims Google took no further actions.
No doubt they were too busy targeting us with annoying ads because someone in a 20m radius of our phones said something that triggered Google’s spy apps.
“Our girls ask how and why their daddy died, and I’m at a loss for words they can understand because, as an adult, I still can’t understand how those responsible for the GPS directions and the bridge could have acted with so little regard for human life,” his wife, Alicia Paxson, said.
Japan Today
What was that about “Don’t be evil”?
