I get it - you should be in control of your car at all times and the ultimate responsibility for this kind of crash rests with the driver, but surely if a road would lead you over a bridge that doesn't exist, there should be some sort of major indication ahead of the nonexistant bridge.

If there were signs, then this is entirely on the driver since the visible information trumps sat-nav every day of the week. If there were no signs, then I'd expect the way owner to be liable* as roads probably shouldn't lead you straight off a cliff with no warning.

Really struggling to see how Google can be liable.

That's not to say that Google should probably have updated the way on Maps at some point in the last ten years as even if you don't drive off the edge, it'll be really inconvenient, but they're the last people you should be suing.

*Yes, the landowners are part of the suit, but based upon the article, Google is the primary defendant.

"That's not to say that Google should probably have updated the way on Maps at some point in the last ten years"

Their system seems to be a bit weird. Their map identifies the house of a colleague as a Middle Eastern embassy, which is actually around the corner from them. So they used the feedback link on Google Maps or something to report that error, with a link to the embassy website showing the real address. Google fixed that quite quickly and their map showed the correct location. But strangely enough, a few weeks later the location reverted back to their house. Weird.

I've updated a few, one was put back and turned out the company (Currys PC World) said I was wrong so Google put it back.

They updated their database from the feedback but they didn't send it to their upstream provider, so the mistake was re-made at the next sync....

I don't see that this can be pinned on Google - though I do see a plaintiff noticing that is where the money is.

The case against the landowner could also be tricky - you are supposed to look where you are going.

I do agree, but at a certain point it does go from negligence on the part of the driver to negligence on the part of the way owner.

If you drove as if every time the road dipped slightly out of sight, it might unexpectedly cease to exist where you would reasonably expect it to continue existing, then you'd probably be committing other driving-related offences as you sped up and slowed down "unreasonably".

In the Uk I believe the highway code, and thus the law, says something along the lines of 'drive at such a speed you can stop in the space you know to be clear'. Obviously going on to state an exemption for all Audis.

The articles I've seen report that the signs were missing "due to vandalism". You'd have thought if the bridge has been out since 2013 something rather more substantial than signs that can be removed by vandals would be there. Like big lumps of concrete, or barriers bolted to the road. Like you, can't see how Google can be liable, but sueballs & lawyers, big target with lots of money...

But then Google would be sued for not telling them there are big lumps of concrete in the road.

I doubt that. A big lump of concrete is quite noticeable sitting in the middle of the road in your headlights for any driver more competent than a Tesla autopilot.

Look at the pictures of that bridge. At night, the headlights are going to reflect better off of the [still standing] crash barriers on the side, and I could see the potential for your mind filling in the missing bits for long enough that it's too late to stop. There not being any signs up is scary; I know that leftpondians hate rules and regulations, but one would have thought that mandating a "bridge closed" sign be displayed is rather obvious common sense.

Not enough for Google.

The University of Northern Iowa, UNI, closed an on campus street that was a major short cut for many people. They put a large planter in the middle of the street with other signs or something on either side so obviously blocked on both ends. I reported it twice. The second time I included a picture of the blockade which had a sign saying road closed if I remember right. I can't find the picture now, don't know why I didn't keep it. :-)

I took them several more years to quit listing the road.

Fun fact about Google maps. If your looking at street view, you can keep going into the now missing street (UNI expanded the parking lot into it) and see the old street. I just checked and it still works that way. Nice for a road temporarily close for construction when the street view car drove by. But strange for a removed road.

For said bridge out. It should have had Jersey barriers across the road or a big pile of dirt or rocks. And maybe the guard railing should have been taken out, or cut and bent across the road. At night that would look like it still was a road/bridge with the railings still there. But that is on the local government, not Google.

This seems to be the somewhat overlooked but most key of issues here. The bridge has been missing for such a length of time and yet somehow the barriers are temporary enough to be stolen AND it appears that this has happened previously.

The road should have been blocked in a very obvious and far more substantial way. You should not be reliant on a soft safety mechanism for such a life threatening issue. Google maps marking it as 'closed' would be utterly useless if you're not using google maps.

Google might drive every road, but they won't know if a road is officially "closed" or not - that's taken from mapping data supplied by local authorities, the same as things like speed limits, etc.

Google can't just guess at those, because getting it wrong would result in things like this being their fault. But if the local authority never "officially" closed the road, that's on the authority.

Google does let people report map data problems directly. It's surprising that this did not happen. But maybe if they have other sources of data that keep insisting the bridge exists it could be overwritten.

This is like all the other stories we get about Google. People attempt to contact the company for all sorts of reasons, and it's like a big black hole. I read a story the other day about Google spending billions with cell providers for search & Chrome exclusivity. You would think they could spend a fraction of that on product service. It's not customer service because we aren't the customers, we are the product.

It's pretty surprising, because Google Maps does have a UI to report issues with the map data, and as far as I heard they do react and fix issues — they even regularly mark roads around my place as closed for temporary events like marathons and the like.

Maybe they reported the bridge collapse by sending a letter to "Google, California"?

The road is still there on Google Maps even now:

[1]https://www.google.com/maps/@35.7816226,-81.2829091,3a,75y,219.98h,62.97t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sgmKlW68IxhxRlu9SkSQCPQ!2e0!7i13312!8i6656?entry=ttu

The Street View data is all the way back from 2012, so it still shows the road, even though the 3D view does show the bridge is collapsed:

[2]https://www.google.com/maps/@35.7813855,-81.2835562,84a,35y,62.65h,34.08t/data=!3m1!1e3?entry=ttu

[1] https://www.google.com/maps/@35.7816226,-81.2829091,3a,75y,219.98h,62.97t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sgmKlW68IxhxRlu9SkSQCPQ!2e0!7i13312!8i6656?entry=ttu

[2] https://www.google.com/maps/@35.7813855,-81.2835562,84a,35y,62.65h,34.08t/data=!3m1!1e3?entry=ttu

I notified them via Maps that a "Shell Petrol Station" round the corner from me was actually a residential house (this was after a car driver stopped to ask me where it was) and that did get updated and has stayed that way.

Interestingly, bing maps (yeah, sorry) shows the road as not going there and in their streetside view you can see the barricades, such as they were in 2014.

The view from bing

you need to select the streetside view

https://www.bing.com/maps?osid=3ba6a883-33e7-4fc7-b041-e97fa436035e&cp=35.781419~-81.283135&lvl=22&dir=37.856346&pi=-11.106718&style=x&v=2&sV=2&form=S00027

Here Maps also [1]shows the road is out .

[1] https://wego.here.com/?map=35.78115,-81.28262,18.32,satellite

"and as far as I heard they do react and fix issues"

If you've ever tried to report issues to them, you'd know that their response to such reports varies all the way through from:

Taking you at your word right there and then, with the change you've suggested being immediately applied to the map

via

Taking your report, doing nothing with it for months and offering no feedback as to whether or not this is because they've completely forgotten about it, or need more info, or are just waiting on someone to get around to fixing it for you, until, just after the point at which you've given up any hope of them ever fixing it, as if by magic you suddenly get a notification to say they've fixed it

to

Flatly refuse to accept anything is wrong with their data and everything remains as-is for the rest of the lifespan of the universe...

It honestly wouldn't surprise me if, given the lack of any streetview imagery along that exact section of road showing the collapsed bridge, they simply did what I know they did for one of my reports and just went "nope, can't see that in our latest SV imagery, change request denied...".

I can't speak for now, but about a decade ago I noticed that Google was navigating people down an off ramp, and telling them to perform a U turn into oncoming high speed traffic going the wrong way up a road.

In Google's defence it was a new road where an older one used to be, however they had all the new roundabouts and all, so it's like somebody just guessed at the way the road system worked and got it badly wrong.

Against Google, there didn't seem to be any mechanism (at the time) to flag this as dangerous and not to do it.

So I took the issue up on the support forum thing. Eventually a volunteer with map editing abilities stepped in to help. This involved going back to take photos to show what was actually there, plus the volunteer changing the road a section at a time and waiting for each change to be "approved" by some opaque process before doing the next part. It took weeks .

Other map issues? Oh boy. Many rural roads here in France have communal numbers (like C4, C5, etc) and just as many aren't named. So Google has ignored the C numbers and instead given them the name of the nearest farm or other named building. This has led to a messy situation where driving from one turn to the next used to result in "slight right to stay on Bellevue" (fifty metres later) "continue on to La Maison Neuve" (a hundred metres later) "continue on to Les Marches". Navigation has stopped doing that, I'm guessing too many people complained, but the roads are still marked that way.

Which means people looking to find me are usually directed to halfway up the lane as navigation, for some reason, prioritises the road in preference to the building .

Oh, and recently they seem to have rejigged the route algorithm so a quick 5km jaunt using back roads is less attractive than 10km on major routes, because it's clearly more efficient when you can drive faster, right? Sorry, but I'd prefer the shortest most direct route.

Okay, granted, it's not quite the same as being directed off of a bridge, but it does highlight that any sane person will take navigation directions with a huge pinch of salt. It's useful when you're alone and don't quite know where you're going, but personal judgement should always trump what a machine says...even if she sounds like a Norland Nanny.

It took Google about a year after the new M1/M6 (S) junction was finished* to stop telling motorists to carry on going down the ( going nowhere) stump of the M6. And if you miss the new exit it's a f****ing nightmare** to get back on track.

*This wasn't a small or sudden change. It's arguably the main interchange for the whole of England, (if not the UK) linking London with the, respectively Birmingham/Manchester/Liverpool/Scotland and Leicster/Yorkshire/Hull/Newcastle routes, and they'd spent years building the bloody thing

**Unless you welcome tours of the Central English countryside

There is more than one party liable. In order of priority (highest to lowest, IMHO):

The first is the driver who has command of the vehicle and should drive to what the driver can see - particularly on unfamiliar roads.

The second is the owner of the road due to the fact that the road is public and should be secured through signposting and a barrier.

The third is Google - the liability in my opinion only arises where Google has omitted to update roads and routing and actively guides people down that route. But that does not absolve the other two parties. Many people using Google Maps - or any other SatNav - will have been guided down phantom or blocked roads and perhaps even be sent down one way streets in the wrong direction. It is a tool, but never more than that.

It's in America, so you could probably add jeep into the mix - the car was probably marketed as an 'off road' vehicle, yet when the road was missing it stopped working.

(partly tongue-in-cheek because if it had been a Tesla, people would be blaming the car/company/CEO)

Better get the ultimate off road vehicle next time: a plane

Here in rural Nova Scotia we've spent the last year trying to get Google to change the name of iur road

Musta changed it, canna find Iur Road, Nova Scotia

Hate phone typing!

No, forget that, I'm blaming Google for the Android keyboard.

Yeah, they seem strangely slow to progress street name change requests - 6 months was my personal record for this type of change.

When electronic maps became popular they started putting up "street name signs" on the country roads. One near us was given a name very different to the one it had been called for at least 4 centuries.

I asked the District Councillor when he deigned to come to our Parish Council meeting. He mumbled something about Google, and clearly said that it was essential for roads to have names. When I asked if the District Council would replace the signed with the correct name, he said they had no money to make the changes and didn't know how to tell Google that it had changed.

It made us think that Google had funded the signs to help their directions, but the wouldn't be drawn further on the matter. An FOI request received a reply that it was privileged information.

(For context there is one countywide committee that decides on speed limits, weight limits, etc. When you ask to see the meeting minutes you are told that they haven't published any in 25 years. My MP has also tried and received the same answer, but now he is a minister he has no time to pursue this abuse.)

I reckon my request to Google is way down the list. I just want the sat nav voice to say 'Pavillons Way' rather than 'Pavilions Way'. The map has it correctly marked so it must just be some kind of vocalisation issue. Perhaps the logic just refuses to use French words when outputting directions in English.

Here in rural Nova Scotia we've been trying for nearly a year to correct the name of our road from "Breakwater", which it's not, to "Lighthouse" which is what the sign reads.

We have failed, so every delivery includes special instructions for drivers, and new ones invariably phone us in confusion.

We did though convince Google to change the address for the 150+ year old lighthouse at the end of our road. We know the request worked because we received a notification that the "Western Head lighthouse has moved to a new location!"

You think that's bad... Depending on the satnav, I have 2 different addresses that are almost the same but not quite... So I got a delivery on Tuesday, but the same company couldn't deliver on Thursday because my address didn't exist... Different delivery bloke using different satnav.

I get stuff delivered to the local bar now.

In know what the law says about not driving faster than you can see/react, but I wonder how many of us would have met the same fate.

Poor fucker. RIP.

Exactly, you don't expect a road to just disappear.

A625 under Mam Tor, Castleton, Derbyshire. A main road until 1979 when some of it slipped away.

There are quite a few little oddities on my 10 mile commute in Brum. The main one being a 20mph zone that Google Maps still shows as 30. Which means you need to be aware of the moron brigade who switch their brains off when they turn the sat nav on.

There was also a 40mph stretch that is still showing as 50 - 10 years after it was changed.

Having worked in mapping and logistics software, I do wonder what the fuck Google are doing that makes it so hard. It's almost as if their obsession with consumer data means they can't do projects properly anymore.

Generally I have fuck all sympathy for the sad-face-sat-nav stories. But this does seem to be quite unique. RIP and condolences to the family.

Compare Google's Market cap ($1.032Tn) to The Netherlands' GDP ($909Bn), then compare the number of employees that Google has (174,014) to the number of people in the Dutch civil service (Approx 3.5Mn).

Google's market cap per head is $5.7Mn compared to The Netherlands GDP per Civil Service head of $260k, which is 21 times higher.

Even then, that 21 times would be much higher in a practical sense considering that a country has a lot more infrastructure to take care of within that budget.

I'm with you on the sat nav stories but torn on this one. The road itself disappearing on me isn't something I generally look out for.

You shouldn't compare the market cap of a company against a country's GDP. The market cap is total value, the GDP is yearly production. It would be more correct to compare the country's GDP against the company's yearly revenue ($60B for Google).

If they didn't use the SatNav, would this of still happened?

Yes, then it's not Google's fault.

No, then it's still not Google's fault.

Why?

I live in rural Shropshire and many, many roads are 60mph. On great deal of these, if you go above 20mph, you are riskng ending up in a ditch, a hedge or slamming into a car or tractor around the blind bend.

You drive to the conditions and the surroundings, end of.

If you are unfamiliar with the road and it's dark, slow the fuck down.

I go down so many of those 60mph single track "roads".

When there's a guy behind me trying to give me the hurryup beyond 20mph I get that he probably drives down the road everyday and can do it blindfolded but I'm barely even aware of what town I'm currently in, and at my age I don't care what other drivers think of me so long as I'm alive

As a general rule, yes to all of the above.

However, in this case it's a little more nuanced than that, because this wasn't simply GMaps telling the driver to head down a road where there would potentially be hazards such as narrow sections, blind bends (though these at least would be visible on screen if you're zoomed far enough into the map view...), oncoming vehicles etc. No, this was GMaps telling the driver to head down a road that wasn't even there in the first place. And not just "not there" in the sense of them having mapped a road that was actually a dirt path across a farm field which might at least still be followable to some extent and would give a driver enough opportunities to realise things might not be quite right and back things up to go find another more suitable route, but "not there" as in physically obliterated, leaving a gaping chasm into which a vehicle would fall unless the driver was quick enough on the brakes.

As a bare minimum, it's not unreasonable to expect that if you look at a map, or get directions from someone, and the map/directions are telling you that there's a road in such and such a location that's available for you to use, that there actually is a road there which is safe to use. And when you get to one end of that road and are faced with a complete absence of signage, barriers or other such obvious indications that the road ahead isn't perhaps in the same state as the maps/directions have implied, it's then not unreasonable to set off down that road still in the belief that there is indeed a road ahead you can follow.

So yes, ultimately, you still need to drive to what you can see and react to, but I can see why Google and whoever was responsible for the local signage will be getting squeaky bums now, because given the significant time period that elapsed between the bridge collapsing and this accident, it's entirely unreasonable for either of them to not have acted appropriately on the knowledge that the road was now impassable in all this time and made certain that it was marked accordingly in the map data and in reality.

" 1faced with a complete absence of signage, barriers or other such obvious indications "

Surely whoever is responsible for the road is liable? If it looks like a road, it's not unreasonable for somebody to think it is. And if it suddenly ceases to exist, why the hell isn't it marked as such?

At the very least, it wouldn't have hurt to bring in a backhoe to wreck a few metres of the road surface near the entrance. That way, it would clue people in to its state prior to the sudden gaping chasm.

You are dealing with leftpondians here. They are even worse than the stereotypical 70's British council workman. They probably stood there looking at the gaping hole and said 'someone should do something about that' and then walked off.

Not sure it's relevant, but my understanding is that commercial map producers throw in a few deliberate errors in order to discourage their competitors from copying their maps without travelling the roads in question. And in fact a few years ago saw a road on a map that looked like it might be a shortcut. I took it and about a mile in, I ended up in someone's dooryard face to face with a barn that looked like it might have been there for a century or two. I doubt the rest of that road ever existed beyond that point. Certainly not for a great many years.

Moral -- maps, Google's or anyone else's -- aren't completely trustworthy.

I think the deliberate erorrs in printed maps are far more innocuous. Like missing off an alleyway or a monument- not by providing a non-existent route.

There's also the shape of smaller lakes, slightly misspelled / changed names, I think I once saw power lines added.

commercial map producers throw in a few deliberate errors in order to discourage their competitors from copying their maps

Yes, they do. Useless trivia: these are called "mountweasels".

If Google Maps didn't exist, you would be using whatever the American equivalent of the A-Z maps is, and probably would stick to main roads.