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Family sues Google after Maps allegedly directed father off collapsed bridge
(www.theguardian.com)
this post was submitted on 21 Sep 2023
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The bridge broke down years ago. Google is absolutely also at fault for sending someone down it, along with whoever didn’t have warnings up. Multiple entities can be at fault here.
There has never been a guarantee for a map to be absolutely precise and correct. Just because maps today are digital and get updated automatically - or are even something like "live" - does not mean that there can't be any inaccuracies.
And that's the reason one never relies on a map alone, but uses it as a guide.
I've seen road signs that were simply wrong. Always use a combination of informational input and always be aware of possible flaws.
Thing is, as the article points out, people had contacted Google trying to get this fixed.
There was more than one failure here. That’s why the family is suing more than one entity.
The family might as well sue the local medium that failed seeing the incident in their crystal ball.
Given that there weren't any signs or barriers, it sounds like the local authorities are the ones at fault here. It could even be that that didn't file the proper paperwork to indicate that it collapsed. Google gets it's information from some database and if their sources aren't accurately reporting data as they should, google wouldn't have any way of knowing that the bridge collapsed. Ultimately, hazards like this should be clearly blocked off. Google doesn't have the power to do that.