"You have reached your (final) destination."
The passenger got out? Presumably the driver was still waiting to hear the "in 200 yards, swim for your life" message.
A Senegalese man drove by mistake into a Spanish reservoir on Saturday evening - and drowned. His passenger survived. Local authorities say the 37 year-old followed directions from his GPS on to an old unlit road that submerged into La Serena reservoir in Western Spain. By the time he realised his satnav error it was too late …
Not spectacular enough really, although stupid enough, to be a Darwin Award contender. I mean, how on earth do you get to be stupid enough to drive into a lake just because your satnav says that's the way to go? Was he not actually looking out of the windscreen at where he was going? Headlights not working? Or did he just think it was an unusually large puddle? I guess we'll never know.
NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO!
FUCKING NO!!!!!
IF YOU ARE SO FUCKING STUPID YOU DRIVE ALONG WITHOUT LOOKING OUT THE GLASSY BITS IN YOUR FUXXING CAR, YOU ARE A COMPLETE DIV OF THE HIGHEST FUXXING ORDER! OKAY?!?
The satnav is a tool and until the day it is connected to the car's wheel and accelerator with no manual override, there is no excuse for blaming the satnav to getting you into trouble!
*breathe* *breathe* * Think calm thoughts.....
... can't drive.
I mean, how hard is it? "Gee, look, the road is going into a lake[1] ... maybe I better stop and rethink my route a trifle." The Darwin Awards are going to be full of Nintendo Generation graduates for years to come, methinks.
[1] Up a footpath & over a cliff in the wilds of Yorkshire, or wherever.
http://maps.google.co.uk/maps?f=q&source=s_q&hl=en&geocode=&q=Electricidad+la+Serena+S.L.,+Villanueva+de+la+Serena,+Spain&sll=38.711233,-4.779053&sspn=5.520065,8.041992&ie=UTF8&hq=electricidad+la+serena+sl&hnear=Villanueva+de+la+Serena,+Badajoz,+Extremadura,+Spain&ll=38.899467,-5.19413&spn=0.010754,0.015707&t=h&z=16&iwloc=A
Cheers TeleAltas !
You don't normally expect a road to suddenly end in a reservoir, and if you have reason to believe it's a main road, you might be going along at a fair pace.
I would suggest it's more a failure of signposting & barriers on the part of the local authority, than a Darwin-award-style brain failure. After all, if he was just lost, and wasn't using satnav, but still drove into the reservoir, would you still call him stupid?
No I am not perfect, but when use my SatNav and it takes me down some pokey little single-track road in the back-of-the-beyond, I slow right down and I start paying even more attention to what's happening outside as a bloody great cow, tractor or hairy monster might suddenly appear out of nowhere.
Driving should be appropriate to the conditions, that's what a lot of people forget. They simply drive the same in 70 mph motorway, as they would a 30mph zone, as they would a single-track road up a Welsh mountain.
Two key factors on your test are observation and awareness. "Sorry I drove into the back of the car in front, I was too busy looking at my map book/cd player/sat nav.". Driving without due care and attention.
1) Guessing being Senaglese his Spanish wasn't first rate to maybe not his first language.
2) La Serena is in a rocky hill range, so I think the imaginations of just driving into a lake might be slightly off.
Still agree with most posters though, use your MK1 eyeball, still the best piece of kit out there.
Like all the other idiots who follow what the SatNav says blindly (hundreds of miles in the wrong direction, up goat paths, into fields, etc.).
One of the best peices of advice I heard on the BBC's 'Today' radio programme a few years ago: "Treat it like a wife". OK, perhaps not in all respects, but treat its suggestions like those from any other navigator in the car. Sometimes it will say 'right' instead of 'left', it may miss roads or invent ones which don't exist (mine sometimes thinks that a roundabout exit either isn't a 'real' one or treats a driveway as a road), or it will warn too late about a turning (particularly when there are several together), etc. And the maps are by definition out of date, at least some information will be months if not years old.
"Think for yourseld, schmuck!"
Take a look at the area on Google maps; ask it to plan you a journey; don't forget to take your boat...
http://maps.google.co.uk/maps?f=q&source=s_q&hl=en&geocode=&q=Capilla,+Spain&sll=36.597889,11.381836&sspn=18.100069,43.286133&ie=UTF8&hq=&hnear=Capilla,+Badajoz,+Extremadura,+Spain&ll=38.842348,-5.092421&spn=0.017181,0.058622&t=h&z=15
The source of this story has photographs:
http://www.lacronicabadajoz.com/noticias/noticia.asp?pkid=57548
(Un hombre fallece tras hundirse su coche en la presa de La Serena/A man died after his car sank in the dam of La Serena.)
The road glides gently into the water with no visible signs or barriers.
The area is featureless swampland.
The time about 12 Midnight.
The body was found eight meters from shore and three deep.
The translation does not make this clear, but it is possible the road still sees some use when the water level is lower.
Accidents like these have never been uncommon around canals, docks, boat ramps and so on.