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The family of a US man who drowned after driving off a bridge that had fallen said that he did so because Google’s maps were out of date.
The family of Philip Paxson is suing Google for Philip Paxson’s death, claiming that Google intentionally concealed the bridge’s nine-year-old collapse.
After attempting to cross the broken bridge in Hickory, North Carolina, Mr. Paxson passed away in September 2022.
Google was looking into the claims, according to a representative.
On Tuesday, the matter was introduced in Wake County civil court.
According to the family’s lawsuit, Mr. Paxson, a father of two, was killed while returning home after his daughter’s friend’s ninth birthday celebration while traveling through an unfamiliar district.
He stayed behind to assist with cleanup after his wife had already driven his two girls home.
“Unfamiliar with the local roads, he relied on Google Maps, expecting it would safely direct him home to his wife and daughters,” the family’s attorneys said in a statement announcing the complaint.
He tragically followed Google’s out-of-date directions to what his family later learned for nearly a decade was called the “Bridge to Nowhere,” crashed into Snow Creek, and was killed there while driving cautiously in the dark and rain.
After the bridge collapsed in 2013, the lawsuit asserts that local people contacted Google numerous times to request that they modify their online maps.
According to the Charlotte Observer, vandalism has caused the barriers that are typically used to block the bridge’s entrance to be absent.
Three nearby businesses are also being sued in the complaint on the grounds that they owe a duty to maintain the bridge.
His wife, Alicia Paxson, said in a statement our girls ask how and why their dad died, and I’m at a loss for words they can understand because, as an adult, I still can’t understand how those in charge of the GPS directions and the bridge could have acted with such little regard for human life.
Google expressed its “deepest sympathies” to the Paxson family, according to a spokeswoman for AP News.
“Our goal is to provide accurate routing information in Maps, and we are reviewing this lawsuit.”
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