Photo: Connie Monsees / GMA / abcnews.go.com
It’s good that we have technology to rely on in times of need but that doesn’t mean that we should put our faith in it blindly. The same goes for following the lead of other drivers.
About a hundred cars became stuck on a muddy dirt road in Colorado, as drivers tried to find a detour to the Denver International Airport (DIA). Traffic on the interstate had stalled because of a crash and drivers on their way to DIA wanted a detour. Connie Monsees was one of them and she tells Good Morning America that she still blames Google for the snafu.
According to Monsees, the detour should have been half the time of her regular route to the airport. At first, the detour route seemed ok, but when she came off concrete and onto a dirt road, she started to suspect that something wasn’t quite right. She continued to drive because, as she puts it, if other people were driving on it, they must know something she didn’t.
A short distance away, she knew it was bad: because it had rained all previous weekend and because there were deep ditches across the road, cars became stuck. A line soon formed and frustrated drivers found out that, for them, this particular journey had come to an end.
“The question is, why did Google send us out there to begin with? There was no turning back once you were out there,” Monsees says.
Monsees and a few other drivers made it out, all of them with all-wheel drive. Her car was only mildly banged up on the ride (she tore the inside passenger wheel well) but she says others weren’t as lucky.
Ironically, Monsees is related to Jayson Luber, the traffic anchor for KMGH in Denver, who finds this messy predicament hilarious. It’s not Google’s fault that these one hundred drivers ended up stuck on a dirt road: they have no one else to blame but themselves. He believes people are becoming too dependent on smartphones and GPS apps instead of maps.
“You are driving. Google Maps is not driving,” Luber says. “Google Maps is not perfect. You need to know where you are going and, if it does not look like that’s where you should be going, turn around and try again.”
According to Monsees, the detour should have been half the time of her regular route to the airport. At first, the detour route seemed ok, but when she came off concrete and onto a dirt road, she started to suspect that something wasn’t quite right. She continued to drive because, as she puts it, if other people were driving on it, they must know something she didn’t.
A short distance away, she knew it was bad: because it had rained all previous weekend and because there were deep ditches across the road, cars became stuck. A line soon formed and frustrated drivers found out that, for them, this particular journey had come to an end.
“The question is, why did Google send us out there to begin with? There was no turning back once you were out there,” Monsees says.
Monsees and a few other drivers made it out, all of them with all-wheel drive. Her car was only mildly banged up on the ride (she tore the inside passenger wheel well) but she says others weren’t as lucky.
Ironically, Monsees is related to Jayson Luber, the traffic anchor for KMGH in Denver, who finds this messy predicament hilarious. It’s not Google’s fault that these one hundred drivers ended up stuck on a dirt road: they have no one else to blame but themselves. He believes people are becoming too dependent on smartphones and GPS apps instead of maps.
“You are driving. Google Maps is not driving,” Luber says. “Google Maps is not perfect. You need to know where you are going and, if it does not look like that’s where you should be going, turn around and try again.”
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