He was traveling in his van and was following the Google Maps directionsbut it wasn’t on the route suggested to him no bridge. The infrastructure was collapsed 9 years earlierbut the app wasn’t updated enough: the man ended up in a creek and is drowned in the pickup truck. This story dates back to September 30, 2022 and happened to Hickory, in North Carolina. A year later, as reported by the Guardianthe victim’s family members did sue Google per negligence.
Philip Paxson, 47, was a native of Hickory. That day he was returning from a friend’s house, where he had celebrated his nine-year-old daughter’s birthday. His wife had left first with the two little girls, while he stayed to help with the cleaning. According to the prosecution’s reconstruction, the man did not know the neighborhood and therefore set Google Maps to guide him to his home. “He drove with caution in the dark and under the rain“, declared the family’s lawyers. There should have been a bridge on the road, but the app “It wasn’t updated”. According to what the mother-in-law reported above Facebookthere were not not even barriers or warning signs for motorists, neither before the bridge nor on the road that went down to the river. According to the newspaper Charlotte Observerthe barriers that physically prevented access to the road had initially been placed at the entrance to the bridge, but were no longer there due to repeated acts of vandalism.
According to the family’s lawyers, the residents of Hickory would have contacted Google several times signaling the collapse of what, among locals, had been dubbed the “Bridge to nowhere”. A man would even sent several emails to the IT giant because, in 2020, he had failed to correctly use the “suggest an edit” function. However, it would not have arrived from Google no reply. The Paxson family’s lawyers have therefore sued the tech giant for negligence. Also involved in the accusation three private property management companies, responsible for the land where the accident occurred and the surrounding land: the three local companies were supposed to provide maintenance for the bridge. The civil court is dealing with the case Wake County.
“Our little girls ask us how and why their father died and I can’t find words that can understand why, as an adult, I still can’t understand how those responsible for the GPS indications and the bridge could have acted so little regard for human life”said his wife Alicia Paxson in a statement. Meanwhile, a Google spokesperson sent the family “the most deep condolences” of the company, as can be read on Guardian. “Our goal is to provide accurate route information in Maps and we are investigating this cause.”