The Associated Press has reported that the relatives of a North Carolina resident are taking legal action against Google, claiming negligence on the part of the tech giant.
They assert that Google Maps played a role in his tragic death when he drove into a creek beneath a collapsed bridge. State police discovered Philip Paxson drowned on September 30, 2022, under a bridge that had collapsed approximately ten years earlier.
He was found in his overturned pickup truck. Before the unfortunate event, Paxson, a 47-year-old individual residing in Hickory, North Carolina (situated about 60 miles to the northwest of Charlotte), was heading back to his residence after celebrating his daughter’s ninth birthday, according to a Facebook post shared by his mother-in-law. She went on to mention that there were no barricades or warning signs on the road leading to the collapsed bridge, leaving motorists unaware of the danger ahead.
The message in the post reads, “The evening was shrouded in darkness and accompanied by heavy rain, he relied on his GPS, which directed him onto a concrete path leading to a bridge spanning over a river.” His loved ones will deeply feel his absence. The accident might have been entirely avoidable, and his passing has left us in mourning. According to the Associated Press, several private property management firms were responsible for the plots near the crash site and the land itself when the Paxson family filed their lawsuit.
These firms are also named as defendants alongside Google in the lawsuit. A Google spokesman conveyed their sincere condolences to the Paxson family in a message to The Guardian, stating that they are examining the lawsuit and actively working to provide accurate navigation information in Google Maps.
Lawyers representing the Paxsons claim that multiple individuals attempted to notify Google about the damaged bridge. They have provided email correspondence as evidence, including messages from a Hickory resident who, in 2020, used the “suggest an edit” feature to bring the issue to the company’s attention. The attorneys assert that Google did not respond to this suggestion.
Alicia Paxson, Phillip Paxson’s wife, expressed her bewilderment at the situation, saying, “Our daughters inquire about how and why their father passed away, and I struggle to find words that they can comprehend. Even as an adult, I cannot fathom how those responsible for GPS directions and the bridge could have shown such a lack of concern for human life.” Phillip Paxson’s tragic death is not the first instance where GPS has been linked to such fatalities.
In his country, a Google Maps route along the infamous “road of bones” resulted in the death of an 18-year-old Russian driver in 2020 after he and a companion became stranded in their car for a week. In 2019, a truck driver in Jakarta, Indonesia, drove off a cliff while following a Google Maps route intended only for motorbikes, according to a report in The Straits Times.
In Indiana in 2015, Zohra Hussain, 51, was killed in a catastrophic car accident after her husband, who was using the built-in GPS on their Nissan Sentra, veered off a toll road that lacked proper signage and ended up at a destroyed bridge. According to the Chicago Tribune, her husband, Iftikhar Hussain, sued Indiana over the absence of barricades.
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