The family of a North Carolina man who drowned last year
after he drove off a collapsed bridge while following
Google Maps directions
has sued Google for negligence, saying that the company’s failure to update its
maps led directly to his death.
اضافة اعلان
Philip Paxson, 47, a medical device salesperson, was on his
way home from his daughter’s camping-themed ninth
birthday party in Hickory,
North Carolina, on Sept. 30, 2022, navigating a rainy night on unfamiliar
roads, when he drove off a collapsed roadway into a creek and drowned,
according to the lawsuit, which was filed in Wake County Superior Court on
Tuesday.
Alicia Paxson, his wife, also sued two businesses and an
individual who the lawsuit says owned, controlled or were responsible for the
collapsed bridge, which was unmarked, with no barricades.
Paxson had taken their two daughters home from the party in
her car, while her husband stayed late to clean up and drove separately, she
said in an interview.
Our goal is to provide accurate routing information in Maps, and we are reviewing this lawsuit,
“This is horrific, what our family is going through,” she
said.
When she thinks about how easily it could have been
prevented, given that people had warned Google about the dangerous route it was
suggesting, “it just kills me,” she said. Paxson said she searched her
husband’s phone after the accident and found that he had looked up directions
home from the party on Google Maps.
A Google spokesperson, José Castañeda, said in a statement
that the company, which is owned by Alphabet, had the deepest sympathies for
the Paxson family. “Our goal is to provide accurate routing information in
Maps, and we are reviewing this lawsuit,” he said.
Google Maps has for years directed drivers to cross the
bridge, which collapsed in 2013, according to the lawsuit. In November 2020,
Google Maps acknowledged receipt of a complaint that a Hickory resident had
submitted about the dangerous route recommendation, but it continued to suggest
the route, according to the lawsuit.
“This was a crater literally in the middle of a residential
neighborhood,” said Robert Zimmerman, a lawyer for Paxson. “It’d be one thing
if it was there for a day or a week, but it was there for nine years.”
Nearly a year after Philip Paxson’s death, Zimmerman said,
the bridge has not been repaired, and Google Maps is still directing drivers to
cross it.
Google and the other defendants — Hinckley Gauvain LLC;
Tarde LLC; and James Tarlton, who, according to state records, owns Tarde —
would be served with the lawsuit paperwork in the coming weeks, Zimmerman said.
The companies and Tarlton could not immediately be reached, and it was not
clear if they had legal representation.
Zimmerman said that there was no valid reason for the
companies and Tarlton, who were responsible for maintaining the bridge, to have
left it in such a dangerous state for so long, with no barricades, warning
signs or lighting around it.
It’d be one thing if it was there for a day or a week, but it was there for nine years.
A spokesperson for the North Carolina Department of
Transportation said in an email Thursday that “the section of road where this
incident occurred is owned by a private entity” and that the department “has no
legal authority to make improvements to this location.”
The lawsuit said that Google Maps and other mapping and
navigation platforms had the responsibility to update their maps in a timely
manner and to correct routes once they were notified of hazards.
The lawsuit raises a question for GPS developers: Who is
liable when injuries or fatalities occur because of faulty directions?
The question has become particularly relevant for Google
Maps, the most popular mapping service in the United States. In 2018, 72
percent of smartphone users looked up directions on Google Maps, according to
Statista, a market insight company. The next most popular app was Waze, which
is owned by Google, which was used by 12 percent of smartphone owners that
year.
GPS services have come under criticism not just for
directing drivers through hazardous routes but also for disorienting hikers.
Mountaineering Scotland, a climbing organization, and the John Muir Trust, a
charity that maintains natural areas in Britain, have warned that Google Maps
may direct hikers to trails that would lead them over cliffs and rocky, steep
terrain.
Read more Technology
Jordan News
.jpg)
.jpg)
