GPS not a license to turn off your brain

By ROBERT L. JAMIESON Jr.
There's an episode of NBC's hit show "The Office" where Michael, played by Steve Carell, follows his Global Positioning System device -- and drives right into a lake.

Art imitated life in a serious way Wednesday, when a bus carrying a Seattle high school softball team plowed into a brick-and-concrete footbridge.

The impact sheared the roof off the bus. The driver reported that he was simply following the route provided by his GPS.

I suppose that in a country that already has given us the "Twinkie Defense," we shouldn't be surprised by what's coming down the road -- The GPS Defense.

Even though car navigation systems are godsends for the terminally lost and eternally map-challenged, they are popping up on the radar of blame.

Last May, the BBC reported that a British university student got in a wreck after she followed her satellite navigation system onto a railway track.

A train smashed into her car.

"I put my complete trust in the sat nav," Paula Ceely said, using British shorthand for satellite navigation. "It led me right into the path of a speeding train."

It would be nice if such antics were isolated. They're not. Vince Yearley, spokesman for the Institute for Advanced Motorists, told a blogger for Computerworld.com: "We've heard some very hilarious stories where people just blindly follow (GPS) instructions. Like if the (GPS) says, 'Drive into this muddy field,' they think, 'That's weird,' but they do it anyway."

Wednesday's bus accident in the Washington Park Arboretum had a happy ending. Members of the girls softball team from Garfield High were shaken up, but no one was seriously hurt. One thing died at the scene, however: common sense.

The footbridge clearance is 9 feet.

The bus was nearly 12 feet tall.

Do the math.

The president of the bus company blamed the GPS for routing the bus into danger's way. "We just thought it would be a safe route," Steve Abegg, president of Lynnwood-based Journey Lines, told reporters.

Abegg's way of thinking hints at the underlying problem linked to GPS dependency -- people being so reliant on all kinds of technological doodads that they become stuck on stupid.

They stop thinking. GPS devices are driving aids -- not excuses to turn off the brain.

A mild confession: I was a GPS virgin until recently.

When a night news assignment beckoned in a hard-to-find neighborhood near Sea-Tac Airport, Seattle P-I reporter Casey McNerthney lent me his hand-held navigator.

Heading south on state Route 99, an authoritative female GPS voice guided me.

Right turn coming up, the voice cooed.

I was going a bit too fast, and flew into the turn only to see potential trouble a hundred yards away -- concrete abutments that marked a detour. Hitting the brakes, I stopped the car in time.

That's when the GPS piped up: Make a safe U-turn as soon as possible, it said, after "reconfiguring."

Had I been distracted, the GPS warning would have come too late. That experience gave me a bit of perspective on Wednesday's bus wreck.

Yes, the bus driver may have been unfamiliar with the road. And, yes, he may have failed to see the hard-to-miss flashing lights or the sign -- in black letters against blazing yellow -- that mentions the bridge height.

But a professional driver is supposed to be an expert, whether that means negotiating a passenger bus in rain or snow, or realizing if a road is washed out or a footbridge clearance is too low.

So, don't blame the GPS. Do take personal responsibility. A GPS device is helpful; it got me to my destination the other night. But it isn't a magic box.

People should not exercise less awareness or caution driving with a GPS than they would without one. Traffic experts say drivers need to realize that rules of the road and signs have priority over GPS commands.

After all, the siren call of the GPS voice may be reassuring, even alluring. But you never quite know where it might lead you.