Apropos of Where 2.0, which started this morning, O’Reilly editor Brian Jepson sent a link to the editors list this morning about the dangers of blindly relying on satellite navigation applications while driving. In posting entitled Beware the Spime Cars, Régine Debatty repeats a warning from Bruce Sterling about “cars that follow outdated software maps and drive right off broken bridges.” She cites a story from the Times that describes “a new sport in the village of Luckington: fishing stranded motorists out of a ford at £25 a time. Since a road closure, dozens of drivers were blithely following directions from their satellite navigation systems, not realising that the recommended route goes through the ford. Every day since the main B4040 was closed after a wall collapsed on April 8 one or two motorists have been towed out, having either failed to notice or ignored warning signs.”
