Melbourne man follows GPS onto tracks.

That moment when your GPS puts you on the wrong path....



Melbourne man follows GPS onto tracks, car gets hit by train

http://www.9news.com.au/national/20...follows-gps-onto-tracks-car-gets-hit-by-train


*Article*

A Melbourne man's faith in his GPS may be wavering after he was forced to run for his life and watch his car get smashed by a train when he followed the device's directions onto a set of rail tracks.

The 25-year-old driver became stuck on the tracks at Coburg around 10.30pm (AEST) last night, the ABC reports.

Once he realised he was on the tracks it was too late.

The motorist tried in vain to extricate his car but to no avail.

With a train approaching the driver jumped out of the way just in time to see his Commodore get totalled.

A local resident named Robert said it was not a unique occurrence.

"His GPS has turned him left onto the railway lines. It looks a lot like a road at night," he said.

"It's happened before.

"I'm just glad he's alright and everything is good."

None of the 13 passengers on the train were injured.

This has happened 5 times at a CSXT/NS crossing in Cleveland Ohio. A highway entry is about 10ft on the other side of the crossing making people think the tracks are the highway.

I don't get it...

So people don't bother to look around them in addition to following the advice of their GPS?

I nominate this guy for the Darwin Award for being dumb enough to forget that GPS aren't 100% accurate on where and when to turn.

There is no substitute for looking out the window.

Must have been a Trainz AI motorist :hehe:

cascaderailroad said:

Must have been a Trainz AI motorist :hehe:

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Nah he'd have to go straight through the train to pull the whole act off!:hehe:

Azervich said:

A Melbourne man's faith in his GPS may be wavering

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My faith in humanity is also wavering.

In response to titanic, I fail to comprehend how anyone with a functioning brain can mistake two steel rails and a multi-lane interstate.

nicky9499 said:

My faith in humanity is also wavering.

In response to titanic, I fail to comprehend how anyone with a functioning brain can mistake two steel rails and a multi-lane interstate.

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Nicky, It happens because people are too busy doing other things and not thinking about what they are doing at the moment. To be done safely, somethings require one's undivided attention and driving is one of those. The brain might be functioning, but not on the task at hand.

Regards,

Maybe he was texting on his cell phone, while he was turning :hehe: Ahh-ha-ha-Dhurrrr

Einstien once said something to the effect: That when we rely more and more on technological devices, are destined become a nation of mindless imbeciles

Hi everybody.

jkinzel said:

Nicky, It happens because people are too busy doing other things and not thinking about what they are doing at the moment. To be done safely, somethings require one's undivided attention and driving is one of those. The brain might be functioning, but not on the task at hand.

Regards,

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Never was there a more true statement made on this forum than the above. From those forum members who drive, who can hold their hand up and state " I have never made a mistake while driving". when seeing any road accident always think, "their but for the powers that be go I"

Bill

jkinzel said:

Nicky, It happens because people are too busy doing other things and not thinking about what they are doing at the moment. To be done safely, somethings require one's undivided attention and driving is one of those. The brain might be functioning, but not on the task at hand.

Regards,

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Yup. I've seen it myself. I agree there are times when undivided attention is needed and this might be one of them

MIT did an interesting study on mobile phone use and found that most people failed talking and driving, or even walking at the same time for that matter. The people may think they are multitasking but in reality the mind is in a different mode when the person is talking on a phone. Unlike direct conversations, talking on a phone puts people into a different "zone" where they lose concentration on any tasks at hand, and the other tasks go into autopilot mode.

I'm not implying this accident was caused by mobile phone use, but if it is this guy is in deep doo because like the UK Australia has strict laws against using the devices while driving.

John

He may not have been talking on his phone but he was driving while trying to associate what he heard and saw on his navigator, with the outside world. I know from my experience with navigators at night, it can be downright dangerous, as distracting as answering a phone call. Legally he is to blame, but I think that the conditions where such that he reacted to the navigator instruction spontaneously. It could happen to any of us. Lets not throw too many stones.

Peter

Im sure he was using Apple Maps to navigate from, you can end up anywhere with that.

iannz said:

Im sure he was using Apple Maps to navigate from, you can end up anywhere with that.

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I know what you mean. My bro was showing them to me the other day...

A longtime ago, I got one of those mapping and directions programs. This was long before the internet and online maps. The system worked similar to what we have today in Google Maps when getting directions for a place. To test the program, I did a simple drive from Andover to Lowell, Ma. A distance of 10 miles and directly down a secondary road. I've driven the route probably 30 times in my life, even biked it when I was younger because I could.

The program sent me 30 miles south to Boston then 18 miles north to Tewksbury, back east down the same road I was supposed to take, then on to another road which added another 4 miles to the trip to the destination! I figured this was a good start, but a bit off base and still needed work.

John

As jkinzel said above driving a vehicle, any type of vehicle, on a public road is a full time job that needs undivided attention.

I have often thought that accidents which authorities blame on speed, loss of control, or various other things really go back to a loss of attention to what is coming up on the road ahead. There are lots of drivers you see every day who just watch the car or vehicle in front of them and are quite oblivious to what is going on around them.

Bill69.

Bill69 said:

As jkinzel said above driving a vehicle, any type of vehicle, on a public road is a full time job that needs undivided attention.

I have often thought that accidents which authorities blame on speed, loss of control, or various other things really go back to a loss of attention to what is coming up on the road ahead. There are lots of drivers you see every day who just watch the car or vehicle in front of them and are quite oblivious to what is going on around them.

Bill69.

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You just brought up another point... focusing just on the vehicle in front. The latest gadgets to be included with cars now is the new HUD to display text messages and incoming alerts from the driver's mobile devices. What worries me is people will focus on the windscreen and not what's even out in front of them!

We had a speed-related accident around the corner from me last night. The road is straight as an arrow for about 1 mile then becomes a very curvy, s-curved is probably a better term for it for the remaining couple of miles. This road, being a shortcut to the highway means we have a lot of extra traffic, which is not helped with their being a community college out that way as well. We saw a flash of light followed by cops flying by our house at a high rate of speed. There was another "Zoom-splat" as my brother and I call them. This time it was a teenager in a Honda Accord that go in the way of the guardrail and power pole located on the first curve.

The problem is these kids don't pay attention. I had one nearly clip me as I crossed my street to my mailbox. He didn't slow down and definitely wasn't watching, nor was he holding his steering wheel either because he was texting on his mobile instead, which of course is an offence here punishable with a fine and points on his insurance.

Driving is a full time job, I agree. I wish other people would take this into consideration.

John

JCitron said:

I had one nearly clip me as I crossed my street to my mailbox.

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Personally, I'd probably be given him The-One-Finger-Salute as he zoomed off. But that's just me. Then again I just about did that today at work. If you haven't been paying attention to the news recently, we're getting a lot of rain. Whenever it rains, a large puddle appears right outside the main entrance to the store. I was walking out the entrance and a red car sped thru the puddle, spraying water around it. Had I been about a foot closer, 9 out if 10 chance I would have gotten soaked. It would have been polite for him to slow down so that he wouldn't spray water as far as he did, but he didn't.

jordon412 said:

Personally, I'd probably be given him The-One-Finger-Salute as he zoomed off. But that's just me. Then again I just about did that today at work. If you haven't been paying attention to the news recently, we're getting a lot of rain. Whenever it rains, a large puddle appears right outside the main entrance to the store. I was walking out the entrance and a red car sped thru the puddle, spraying water around it. Had I been about a foot closer, 9 out if 10 chance I would have gotten soaked. It would have been polite for him to slow down so that he wouldn't spray water as far as he did, but he didn't.

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I did, and would have done the same if I were in your wet shoes.

My recourse is to catch him speeding and get his plate number which I can post on a local police website. They will then setup a trap and catch the speeders. I did that last year and they netted more than a few mostly around the time when school gets out. In addition to the community college, we have a middle school and grammar school located up the street from me. The parents, mostly soccer moms, go rushing to pickup or drop their brats off, and are always in a big rush. In the morning they go whizzing by as they race to Dunkin's on their way to work. I have a choice name for them which I can't post here....

John