# Talk about Wrong Turns!



## CHamilton (Jan 14, 2013)

Guess she didn't pick up her friend at the train station.



> Woman Drives for 900 Miles Instead of 90 Thanks to GPS Error (and Total Stupidity)
> A 67-year-old woman drove for 900 miles over the course of two days because of a GPS error combined with her complete lack of attention. Her actual destination was only 90 miles away.
> 
> The woman, 67-year-old Sabine Moreau, started her journey in her home town of Hainault Erquelinnes, Belgium. She wanted to pick up a friend at a train station in Brussels, just 93 miles north from her point of origin. But instead, she turned on her GPS, which told her to drive south, taking her turn by turn all the way down to Zagreb, in Croatia. Instead of a couple hours in the car, she spent a couple days to cover the 900 miles that separates both points in Europe.


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## Bob Dylan (Jan 14, 2013)

Ain't Technology Great! My old Grandpappy used to tell me "If someone tells you to jump off a cliff, Don't!" :giggle:

One of my tasks before a trip has always been to look up the Route of Travel and any other needed info so I know where I'm going and where I am when I get there!


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## pennyk (Jan 14, 2013)

My wrong turns don't look so bad now. :giggle:


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## Bob Dylan (Jan 14, 2013)

pennyk said:


> My wrong turns don't look so bad now. :giggle:


Have you started using a GPS when Traveling Penny? (Your Left, your Left, Your Left, Right, Left!  )


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## JayPea (Jan 14, 2013)

I read of another European driver (( believe that may have been in Belgium too) who, following his GPS precisely, drove up a flight of steps and crashed into an outhouse. Or another person who did the same with his GPS and drove off the end of a pier. When I drive from my mom's house to mine, my GPS instructs me to take a side road that doesn't exist, after first driving up an embankment and crashing into a barn.  Needless to say I haven't done that yet. :lol: There's no substitute for common sense and a bit of planning.


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## railiner (Jan 14, 2013)

"It is better to have absolutely no idea where one is and to know it,

than to believe confidently that one is where one is not...."

Taken from a poster hanging above the Chart Room bar, aboard the retired RMS QE2.


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## Devil's Advocate (Jan 14, 2013)

GPS systems are wonderful. At least insomuch as they alert us to people who need to have their licenses and keys taken away. I'm still trying to figure out how to get my blind, deaf, and perpetually confused grand parents off the road. What kind of logic lets people who can't see five feet in front of them or react faster than a minute later keep driving until _*after*_ they've maimed or killed someone? Get off the road already. As if that wasn't bad enough we get to clog up the roads one more time _*after*_ we're gone as a huge procession of still living people follow us to a hole in the ground. The roads are for the living, not the dead and _*nearly*_ dead. Can't drive for sh!t? Time to move somewhere you won't be needing a car anymore. You created a system that requires a car to get anywhere and then you forgot how to drive? Sucks to be you.


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## Swadian Hardcore (Jan 14, 2013)

Didn't she get suspicious when she had to cross country borders?


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## The Davy Crockett (Jan 15, 2013)

I never get lost. That is because people always tell me where to go. :huh:

So why on earth would I want a machine to tell where to go as well?


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## fairviewroad (Jan 18, 2013)

Swadian Hardcore said:


> Didn't she get suspicious when she had to cross country borders?


Most of her route was within the Schengen Area, meaning she would have not had to pass through border checkpoints

until nearly the end of her trip, specifically when she crossed from Austria into the small portion of Slovenia she drove

through before arriving into Croatia. By that point she would have been on the road for well past the expected amount

of time.

Another point to make is that the article refers to a "GPS error" when it's not clear that her GPS unit made any such

error. It's more likely, IYAM, that the woman improperly inputted her destination. The GPS probably correctly directed

her to the destination she told it.

To state the obvious, a rational person in full control of their faculties would not make this kind of error. She is probably

experiencing some level of early dementia. It's not unheard of for elderly people to do this type of thing, and no GPS

unit is needed. For instance, just last month an elderly California couple went out for a 10-minute drive and were

eventually found 400 miles away from home in Oregon:

http://www.katu.com/news/local/Elderly-couple-takes-wrong-turn-ends-up-400-miles-from-destination-184848271.html


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