Tech company faces negligence lawsuit after Philip Paxson died from driving off a North Carolina bridge destroyed years ago
Discuss!
neither the destroyed bridge nor the road leading to it had any barriers or warning signs to alert drivers of the hazard.
Well it seems clear who is actually to blame here.
Seems like most of the blame goes there but
a bridge that had collapsed nearly a decade earlier.
Lawyers for the Paxsons allege that several people have tried to flag the washed-out bridge to Google and have included email correspondence between a Hickory resident who tried to use the “suggest an edit” feature in 2020 to get the company to address the issue. Google never responded to the suggestion, allege attorneys.
It’s collapsed a decade ago and they’ve even tried to get Google to mark it so on their maps, unsuccessfully. Google must have some responsibility to the maps and routing.
Please refer to the Google Maps Terms of Service: https://www.google.com/help/terms_maps/
By using the service, every user agrees to these terms.Section 3:
Actual Conditions; Assumption of Risk. When you use Google Maps/Google Earth’s map data, traffic, directions, and other content, you may find that actual conditions differ from the map results and content, so exercise your independent judgment and use Google Maps/Google Earth at your own risk. You’re responsible at all times for your conduct and its consequences.deleted by creator
As your own link states:
Ironclad is not a law firm, and this post does not constitute or contain legal advice. To evaluate the accuracy, sufficiency, or reliability of the ideas and guidance reflected here, or the applicability of these materials to your business, you should consult with a licensed attorney. Use of and access to any of the resources contained within Ironclad’s site do not create an attorney-client relationship between the user and Ironclad.deleted by creator
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You can’t just guide someone off a cliff and say “hey, I said I wasn’t sure if that’s the route, so I have zero responsibility”. The idea that that terms of service absolve them of any part in it is just lol
If that person drives off a cliff because they trust a gps over their own eyes, then that’s fully their issue.
It was a dark and rainy night and he was following his GPS which led him down a concrete road to a bridge that dropped off into a river
I think that might’ve hampered his ability to see well. Not sure how visible the drop off is in general, not to mention on a rainy night, so it could look like everything is fine and then the bridge just drops off to nothing, so it isn’t necessarily a simple case of “should’ve stopped if he couldn’t see” either.
In any case, even though the “issue” is undoubtedly his since he died and if you mean responsibility then of course everyone is responsible for their driving. I’m just saying that (imo obviously) there’s other parties responsible here too. Municipality/landowners for not fixing, marking etc the bridge so this doesn’t happen. Driver for their part in the actual driving and decision made during it. But also Maps for the routing and not fixing the map even though they were informed of the issue. Since we don’t know the specifics it’s impossible to say specifically how much each part contributed, but I’d say most of the responsibility is on the municipality.
Since we don’t know the specifics it’s impossible to say specifically how much each part contributed, but I’d say most of the responsibility is on the municipality.
I agree entirely. The local authorities should clearly block off and indicate hazards like this.
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i seriously doubt that he saw that the bridge was out, and then chose to trust the gps anyway. you’re attacking a straw man, and the real man isn’t even alive to defend himself. every time you go around a blind corner at more than 5kph, you’re trusting that nobody built a brick wall across the roadway since your last visit. it seems far more likely that, due to the particular geometry of the situation and the generally poor visibility noted in the article, that he did not realize until it was too late.
i seriously doubt that he saw that the bridge was out, and then chose to trust the gps anyway
Well yeah, in the article it says that visibility was bad. I was more just making the point that discretion is important when using a GPS. That said, I’d say that the local authorities fucked up the most. A bridge collapsed a decade ago and it’s not blocked off? It should be obvious that you can’t drive that way.
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I’d say municipality/landowners, Google and the driver themself.
Municipality, land owners for not marking it, fixing it, making sure nobody mistakenly drives there. Google for routing him over it. Also the driver too for their part. Though not knowing the specifics it’s hard to say how much responsibility everyone has exactly but I’d say most of it lies on the municipality/landowners. Depending on who is supposed to mark those things over there.
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Not necessarily. Firstly because I don’t actually think there is any requirement that maps are 100% accurate, Google never a claim made anywhere that they are flawless. Secondly because if the city / town / local authority hasn’t put up signs, it’s entirely possible that they haven’t informed map makers either.
So map makers are not responsible for inaccuracies in their map, and even if they were responsible, they may not have been told.
There’s levels of culpability and in this scenario Google seem to be right at the bottom, if on the list at all.
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I don’t think you know how the law works. Google are not legally required to have accurate maps.
Ethically maybe (although even then it’s highly debatable), but not legally so, no, the lawsuit has no merit
You randomly arguing the point doesn’t change reality
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Not really. I think they have a part of the responsibility but as with previous similar cases, I don’t think they’ll see any legal consequences.
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Not sure what part of my comment makes you unsure on what I think. Yes they have some responsibility.
I’m not going to talk about this from a legal standpoint because I’m not a qualified lawyer, nor do I know enough about the law.
This philip guy, as unfortunate as his death is, is not google’s fault. As the driver of the car he is the highest authority and should make decisions after weighing the information. I understand that it was a dark and rainy night, however he was overriding his sight distance, which is something you are taught not to do in drivers ed.
Although his death was preventable, the blame rests on philip first of all, then the property management companies (which the family is suing), and to a much much lesser extent on google.
Would he have taken this route if not for maps? Unlikely. Does this mean that google maps deserves the blame? No.
As unhappy as I am with google these days, this one isn’t on them - atleast not to any point of legal liability.
When I think of the situations that occur in everyday traffic and how people behave there, completely without google being involved, I am absolutely not surprised at the level of carelessness that radiates from such events. Though it could also be my lower trust in services like google maps because I have a deeper knowledge of the technology behind it than most people. There may be people who think of google maps as some kind of authority that has proven to not be wrong at any time…
If google had enough information and time to correct such map errors and did not out of neglect, they may still be held accountable. And I think that this is a good thing.
Safety regulations are written in blood, warning labels are written by morons (usually)
We had this years ago…
We do so much for stupid people that some times it feels like if we do any more, we’ll lose our freedom and quality of life. There’s always going to be outliers and we should just be impressed they made it as far as they did. We can’t cater to them for everything.
How are you going to lose freedom or quality of life if Google is forced to maintain its services and provide you with better information?
counterpoint. google blindly accepts any change suggested by users leading to MUCH worse outcomes, or thoroughly investigates each request, GLOBALLY I might add, consuming more resources than exist in all the company.
or we just accept that maps are sometimes wrong and use our fucking eyes while driving
How about we split the difference and say that Google should look into it when multiple people make the same suggestion over a ten year period?
And good luck using your eyes to spot this when it’s dark and raining
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This is the best summary I could come up with:
Paxson, who was 47 and from Hickory, North Carolina (about 60 miles north-west of Charlotte), was returning home from his daughter’s ninth birthday before the accident, his mother-in-law wrote in a post on Facebook.
In addition to Google, the Paxson family’s lawsuit names a number of private property management companies who were responsible for the land where the crash happened and for surrounding plots, according to the Associated Press.
Lawyers for the Paxsons allege that several people have tried to flag the washed-out bridge to Google and have included email correspondence between a Hickory resident who tried to use the “suggest an edit” feature in 2020 to get the company to address the issue.
In 2020, an 18-year-old Russian motorist froze to death after he and a friend were stranded in a vehicle for a week after following a Google Maps route through Serbia’s “road of bones”.
In 2019, a truck driver in Jakarta, Indonesia, drove off a cliff after following a Google Maps route that was only meant for motorcycles, the Straits Times reported.
In 2015, 51-year-old Zohra Hussain died in a fiery car accident in Indiana after her husband, who was following his Nissan Sentra’s built-in GPS, drove off an unmarked toll road that led to a demolished bridge.
The original article contains 481 words, the summary contains 211 words. Saved 56%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!
In 2020, an 18-year-old Russian motorist froze to death after he and a friend were stranded in a vehicle for a week after following a Google Maps route through Serbia’s “road of bones”.
The road of bones is not in Serbia, it’s in Russia.
I feel like it might be interested to add this. Said “bridge” on OpenStreetMap https://www.openstreetmap.org/#map=19/35.78168/-81.28259
There’s a few photos from this article. It’s a dirt road, somewhere where you should (and he probably did) drive slowly.
Also look at this image of the former bridge from the lawsuit: https://i.imgur.com/CuKVarO.jpg
Most of fault lies with the road/land owner for not properly blocking of that bridge and for not maintaining it. Nearby residents have also tried to get them to block/repair the bridge properly, but they haven’t.
And they are luckily also getting sued in the lawsuit.
Googles should take some blame for not updating their maps for 9 years despite multiple notices from users that the bridge has collapsed.
Article + the full lawsuit: https://lawandcrime.com/lawsuit/washed-out-bridge-to-nowhere-on-google-maps-route-led-to-drivers-death-lawsuit/
Btw if you look at street view and satellite images, it clearly isn’t a dirt road.
The machine knows!
Stop yelling at me! Stop yelling!
hey ya’ll. google does not need your help defending them. they’ve got teams of highly paid lawyers for that, and you’re doing it for free? what are yous, some kinds of chumps?
I’m an OSM editor and I don’t want to go to jail because I made a mistake when drawing a building and some idiot drove into a wall.
The fact that they are being defended does not mean that I should attack them. I defend what I believe is right, and like every other commenter, i voice my opinion
Just because it’s shared by someone else who gets paid for it, it doesn’t mean that i should shut the fuck up
Well put. In so many of these threads I see childish “Boo! Fuck big corp Boo!!!” without actual discussion.
If this was Apple Maps do folks behave the same? Bing Maps? OpenStreet Maps? A printed Rand McNally map?
Or what if the car were a Tesla? Suddenly it’s “Boo cars”, or maybe we hate Ford? Boo Ford!!!
None of that is really relevant.
Now as was pointed out, there was improper signage, so maybe the state/county/city/local roadworks are partially at fault here. That is going to require some investigation.
By all accounts there was some bad weather and someone misjudged what needed to be done to keep themselves safe. That sucks, I feel for the family, but the navigation app they used isn’t relevant.
No one “Backing the big corp” because they are a big corp. I’m “backing the big corp” because we all know this is frivolous. If this was instead the “cool new app written by a middle schooler” I’d still be backing them because the app is completely unrelated to the accident.
