If the freedom of speech is taken away then dumb and silent we may be led, like sheep to the slaughter.

- George Washington

Tuesday 1 June 2010

Google Maps - it had to happen

From the storytellers at The Sun:

A WOMAN is suing Google after claiming its maps application gave her directions to a motorway where she was run over.

Lauren Rosenberg is seeking more than £70,000 in damages from the internet search engine claiming they were directly at fault for the accident.

Mrs Rosenberg used Google maps in January last year to get directions by foot to a pal's house.

The application told her to walk for half a mile along "Deer Valley Drive" — which turned out to be a section of the Utah State Route 224 — a motorway with no pavements.

So the route took her to a road that was clearly not a pedestrian route - and she walked along it, because Google told her to?

The case claims that Mrs Rosenberg wasn't warned about this by Google — making them responsible.

Ah, the old excuse. I have no responsibility for anything I do, so if someone doesn't warn me specifically not to do something and I get hurt, it's their fault. It's the logic of the spoilt and not very intelligent child.

Google say the directions came with a warning for pedestrians — but Mrs Rosenberg claimed her Blackberry screen was too small to display the caution.

Ah, I see. It's BlackBerry's fault for having a small screen, so that Mrs Rosenberg didn't see the warning NOT TO WALK ON FUCKING MOTORWAYS. I hope she sues them too. For a million dollars. No, make that ten million. Corporate America must learn that they can't just play with people's lives like this.

Actually, I hope the driver of the car that hit her counter-sues for reckless endangerment, or whatever they call it over there.

One of them will win, surely. My money, sadly, is on Mrs Rosenberg.

4 comments:

  1. Or where there's no blame blame will be invented.

    ReplyDelete
  2. That's exactly it. Whereas the law used to take account of common sense, and even had the concept of "author of one's own misfortune", that has now gone in favour of a blame-chasing exercise, with commercial operations the usual victims. After all, they can afford it, can't they? It's now rare, in politics or 'real life', to hear anyone admit blame for anything.

    ReplyDelete
  3. It's so unfortunate that people like this women are allowed to breed and there are so many individuals like her out in this world.

    ReplyDelete
  4. I don't think people were born this way. They develop from self-centred babies into larger self-centred babies - in other words, an important part of the maturation process is missed out. In the UK, I am sure it is a consequence of the 'State will always look after you' ethos. It works with dogs, after all - if you keep feeding a dog, he stays infantilised and tame. Perhaps in the US it is the culture of high self-esteem, the idea that we are all special and that everything should be arranged to our own personal satisfaction. (I'm not saying all Americans are afflicted with this, but it's a phenomenon that originated there, I'm sure.) It's almost a form of solipsism: the idea that you are the only one that matters ("Because You're Worth It"), if anything goes wrong to disturb your perfect world it must be someone else's malice or negligence, and never your own shortcomings, of which there are none.

    It's already here, though. No need to wait.

    ReplyDelete

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