Darwin is alive and well in Wales, too…
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/wales/south_west/6646331.stm
sigh…
Well… the way I read it she either missed the lights were red, or the lights were indeed green, in which case she really isn’t to blame. Contrary to what I’ve heard in other cases, her sat nav directed her to a small (possibly rural?) crossing, but not onto the tracks as if it were a road.
So I don’t know how Darwin-istic she has been, but she’s been pretty lucky to not be in the car.
Having read the article; my major question is:
How would this system of manually operated gates at rural crossings
work in theUSofA,could it work here?
Knowing from comments made by some Operating employees on this Forum, brakes are not usually applied, in the real world, until the impact is occurring or a certainty, this practice due to the practicalities of motorists running stops and gates on a regular basis. Total lack of discipline in OUR motoring public…The English seem to adhere to a more civilized and disciplined code,most of the time.
Here in America there are rules disallowing liability against GPS Navigation. I am interested to see how this plays out.
I dont know what’s worse… lack of brains and information processing for successful piloting a vehicle or dumbkoft trust in a system that only gives your location.
I will share one of my own GPS stories from my work in trucking, we were in thick fog and after successfully navigating a series of bridges, ramps and turns we turned onto the very last road leading to our objective. I had to stop when a celluar phone tower filled my view. You see, at the time visibility was absolute zero and I was literally manuvering or “Flying” the rig under complete guidiance of the GPS with a error of 30 feet either way.
It turns out that the original road was there but was cut and turned into a compound to serve a great big celluar tower, the GPS on my laptop at the time was not updated to reflect the new road that was actually built 400 feet further away.
I managed to get my rig out of there without damage except to my pride and perhaps newfound lesson in not trusting technology with such a blind faith.
In another forum I regularly visit, there has been media reports of German Drivers instantly obeying verbal commands to turn left, right etc and found themselves in trouble because the turn was a little further down the road.
Drive with your senses…not the computer.
some people dont have common senses…had a car pull thru the flashers 8 years ago…smacked her at 25 mph…she was ok just shook up…heard her tell the police…“yes i saw the lights yes i heard the horn no i didnt stop…i was late for work”…[D)]
…That is more than just a little scary to understand there are drivers out there navigating by GPS alone under dire situations…!!! Sure glad I don’t find myself out in the “soup” very much at all anymore knowing of what might be happening.
Or even worse, landing a heavy jet in simulated ILS under GPS in the FSX Deluxe game, the only missing data is the location of the glideslope in a airfield that does not supply that service.