Looks like some of the links have disappeared, but related stories are still available here (http://blog.washingtonpost.com/offbeat/2007/01/german_automatons_blame_gps.html) and here. (http://www.unexplained-mysteries.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=81054)
What I find fascinating is when people let the instructions override their common sense--driving around road closed signs, or making u-turns on highways, simply because they were prompted to do so.
Having worked in the I/T industry for twenty years, I know how easy it is to get things fouled-up. I'm one of those persons who always gets two independent sets of directions for a trip and compares them against each other. If they don't match, I go for a tiebreaker.
I learned that lesson years ago, when Hertz's automatic directions printing system gave me precise turn by turn instructions to my hotel-- which instead led to a seedy part of town, at 2AM no less. I drove away, found a payphone (ah, the days before cell phones) and called my hotel to figure out where I really needed to be.
When I returned the car to Hertz I complained, only to find out that they'd known for a while that their system had problems, where a number of their pre-programmed destinations had been input with the right street addresses but wrong towns. They were sure it would be fixed...eventually.
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Date: 2007-03-06 06:15 pm (UTC)What I find fascinating is when people let the instructions override their common sense--driving around road closed signs, or making u-turns on highways, simply because they were prompted to do so.
Having worked in the I/T industry for twenty years, I know how easy it is to get things fouled-up. I'm one of those persons who always gets two independent sets of directions for a trip and compares them against each other. If they don't match, I go for a tiebreaker.
I learned that lesson years ago, when Hertz's automatic directions printing system gave me precise turn by turn instructions to my hotel-- which instead led to a seedy part of town, at 2AM no less. I drove away, found a payphone (ah, the days before cell phones) and called my hotel to figure out where I really needed to be.
When I returned the car to Hertz I complained, only to find out that they'd known for a while that their system had problems, where a number of their pre-programmed destinations had been input with the right street addresses but wrong towns. They were sure it would be fixed...eventually.