Elderly Woman Drives 900 Miles in Wrong Direction Due To GPS Error

In today’s post-physical map world we rely too much on our new and nifty gadgets for route guidance. There are many people who trust their GPS devices or even Google Maps blindly, without even using a little common sense. This is what happened to an elderly European woman. Who drove nearly 900 miles in the wrong direction due to a simple GPS error, sounds bizarre right?

According to a story published on El Mundo, a Spanish News portal, a 67-year old woman from Belgium drove nearly 900 miles in the wrong direction due to a GPS error and also her carelessness. The woman started her not-so-adventure from Hainault Erquelinnes, Belgium, she wanted to go to Brussels, that is just 93 miles north from her destination. Although, her GPS didn’t think the same, so it gave her some new coordinates and told her to go south instead, resulting in her 900 miles long journey to a completely new country, Croatia.
Even though it feels highly unlikely, how could a person be so naive to not realize they’ve left their country but the woman says she was distracted.  She added,

I was distracted, so I kept driving. I saw all kinds of traffic signs, first in French, then German and finally in Croatian, but I kept driving because I was distracted. Suddenly I appeared in Zagreb and I realized I wasn’t in Belgium anymore.

How distracted could you be to not realize that you’ve crossed a couple of other countries? Pretty Drunk distracted, I’d say.

We don’t know what company GPS she used for this mis-adventure but we’d like to suggest that don’t just trust your gadgets for everything, use your instincts and a bit of common sense won’t hurt either. Keep this story in mind when you’re leaving for a trip relying on your GPS. By the way, you can always ask for directions, old school way.
Do you have any stories to share? related with a tech malfunction? Do let us know.