[LeifCarrotson]

That's absolutely a possibility, but even in those conditions - especially in those conditions - one should always be careful to not drive off a cliff, or off the outside of an unexpected turn in the road, or into a fallen tree, or into a pedestrian, or into a stopped car!

In about two months, I predict, some dark November morning here in Michigan will have hundreds of "accidents" because the first snows will fall. Some drivers will be cautious and slow, while others will be going 5 mph over the speed limit. The latter will slam on their brakes far too late given the icy conditions, and will rear-end the former. That's not an accident, that's a negligent collision. Seven months of clear roads have conditioned Michigan drivers into assuming that everyone else will always be going about the same speed. When that ceases to be the case, there will be a few weeks of adjustment. Years of following Maps directions, and seeing uninterrupted roads, conditioned this unfortunate North Carolina Dad into assuming that reliable GPS directions and maps were guiding him down an unobstructed road like any other. When that ceased to be true, it's sad but not entirely unexpected that this happened.

Therefore, I propose Google respond to this incident by deploying an automated "Netflix Chaos Monkey" approach to their mapping data: Every thousand turns or so, provide bad directions - guiding people down boat ramps or through forests, send the wrong way up a one-way road. Show graphical maps with straight roads where there's a turn, and turns where the road is straight, show stop signs where there's a stop light. Show the speed limit as 25 mph when it's 55 and 55 when it's 25. All of those things will happen accidentally, so make them happen intentionally and help drivers build robust error-handling practices.

[happytoexplain]

>one should always be careful to not drive off a cliff, or off the outside of an unexpected turn in the road, or into a fallen tree, or into a pedestrian, or into a stopped car

All of those examples are more visible in low-vis conditions than a missing bridge, due to the presence of physical objects - e.g. cliffs and unexpected turns always have barriers/signage. A missing bridge is the absence of an object. I think this is a really particularly easy case in which to give the driver the benefit of the doubt.

[cf141q5325]

I think the mentioning of the pedestrian holds weight.

NYT has a picture of the site https://www.nytimes.com/2023/09/21/us/google-maps-lawsuit-co... Its not just the absence of the road but there is a bush/tree growing on it.

If you are unable to see that and the height change from the end of the bridge you are in all likelihood unable to see somebody lying there. Not being able to come to a stop in time would apply to both.

Had he run somebody over the google maps excuse wouldnt fly.

[crazygringo]

> but even in those conditions - especially in those conditions - one should always be careful to not drive off a cliff, or off the outside of an unexpected turn in the road, or into a fallen tree, or into a pedestrian, or into a stopped car!

Yes, but you're missing the fact that that's not always possible.

You can be as careful as any human being can be, going the speed limit (or slower in bad weather), but unexpected things can happen faster than human reaction time can allow you to avoid them.

And in the heavy rain at night, figuring out that the black patch of what looks like road a few yards ahead isn't darker asphalt because the road was recently resurfaced (as you might easily assume), but is actually the road entirely collapsed -- I'm not sure that would even be possible visually.

So "always be careful" isn't helpful here.