BMW driver follows satnav to edge of cliff

blind leading the blind

Typical BMW owner

Anyone want to hack TomTom?

To give suicide instructions? "Drive into garage. Leave engine running. Open car windows. Close garage door. Wait. End of line." The gene pool is getting rather stagnant.

Gimp.

What a dipshit. If you rely on your satnav to such an extent that you don't actually look at the road and make some informed choices about where you're going (he could have got out to take a look?) then you deserve all you get.

Modern reliance on "dumb" tech will produce more and more stories like this. Hell, the other day Jennifer Aniston apparently dumped her boyfriend because he was very publicly twittering too much and said to her that he was working too hard to talk to her...

If this guy relies on satnav for his job god help his customers and colleagues.

Take the ferry

Of the 59 phrases that make up my sat-nav's vocabulary, I've wondered when I might be advised to take the ferry, (large unavoidable metal thing at a river or sea crossing). Maybe it would be better to include a watch-out-for-the-impending-cliff-edge! phrase instead.

Poot chap!

Leaving aside the fact that chappie was driving a BMW, I can understand how something like this can happen. You see a narrow road which the Satnav suggests you take, you follow the directions NOT KNOWING WHATS AHEAD!, and that's it. You're out of road.

I used to cover some pretty areas in Wales, Dorset Cornwall etc and many a time the Satnav has suggested taking one and I've always thought better. I have got my car stuck in the past, but that was my own stupid fault, not the GPS. That's why I am pretty careful now.

Without seeing the road, I can't really throw stones at the driver, but I bet he felt a right pillock..

Dork

If he'd failed to stop he'd be a front-runner for the next round of Darwin Awards.

In a word....

Cock.

What an utter utter cock.

Hope he's f*cking banned from driving anything more risky than a supermarket trolley for the rest of his brain foresaken life.

Paris... for blatantly obvious reasons...

I love the way he only stopped when he actually drove into a fence

Once I was 'recovered' when my car broke down (no satnav involved at this point), and the pick-up driver insisted on driving from Coventry to Manchester via Birmingham, because the satnav didn't have the M6 Toll on it (allegedly) and he 'didn't believe there was another way to Manchester'. Clearly the road signs were lying. (Perhaps it's because of how easily duped many of us are by what's written on a screen that we believe our lovely Fisherprice-coloured XP 'desktops' are all rosy and good, and not in fact loaded with spyware - an additional IT angle for you there)

Of course a good experiment for the reader would be to 'hack' their friends'/enemies' satnav devices so that they 'insist' the owner carry out a range of hilarious activites, from messing themselves after a particularly heavy vindaloo to ramming all 'I must drive at exactly 40mph everywhere' drivers.

"I rely on my satnav"

To the point of thinking it's right even when its obvious you are off the road? What sort of brain dead numpty is this man? Can we find out who he works for because a company that employs such brain dead people is probably one to avoid.

I wonder if he's been fleeced by our Nigerian friends yet... he seems to be the right type!

*Duh*

It was the Satnav guv!

Which tool drives almost drives off a cliff just because a satnav tells him to. The worst thing of all he relies on it for his job!!

It reminds of the chick who's car got pranged by a train after she left it parked on a level crossing. Pillocks. What happens if the satnav's batteries run out? Do the drivers just stop since they lack any intelligence to figure out their own way or what?

Go - maybe he should have kept driving!

Sounds familiar...

Wasn't that last night's Dr Who repeat plot?

Clearly...

Not a paid-up member of the self-preservation society, then.

driving AID...

I think there's a reason why thay're classed as a driving AID..... don't think of sat nav as some nagging person in the passenger seat (though you probably shouldn't listen to them either) telling you where to go, think of it like that big paper map sat in your glove box, but doesn't obstruct your windscreen while trying to drive...

Sat Nav's should come with a competence test, if you are incompetent of working out when the road you're about to go down leads to a dead end, or off the edge of a cliff, you really shouldn't be driving the car in the first place.

I generally tell my Sat nave to "Get Lost" but it never listens...

BMW driver

'nuf said.

Dumb ass...

title says it all...

Title

Not exactly ROTM, is it? More of a subtle opposite: Fall of The Machine (but with meat-ware still inside.)

<- Flames for the inevitable (movie) result.

I feel sorry for him....

....he simply got confused as there was no car to tailgate....a BMW drivers nightmare.

BMW

What a suprise... another BMW driver not paying attention!

Or was he just busy trying to overtake time itself and get back to saturday?

What a

TWAT!

freaking idiot...

Need I say more?

Stop, well, he should have

I think this is a brilliant idea...

we haven't had a good cull of the stupid for while now.

sue

sue the hell out of tomtom!

Encouraging numpties on the road

I know they are handy but I swear satnav has been responsible for so much dodgy driving as people just listen to the navigation and stop paying attention to what is going on around them. Pretty soon I expect they'll be there with phones on the "don't use one and drive" list...

Also it's another gadget on the growing list of things designed to make us more stupid ( see also: Twitter ) which I am increasingly starting to suspect are part of a despicable plot on the part of the Rising Machines to make humanity so incapable of independant thought, concentration or any other significant mental endeavour that we are powerless to resist our robot masters when they decide it is time to take over.

BMW drivers

I swear, these people don't pay attention to what's outside the windows anyway.

*angry cyclist goes raaah*

Shame it didn't go over

could have been a good Darwin.

BMW sat nav

maybe it was trying to find a way to poland

Without due care and attention.

BMW on the edge of a cliff... hmmm that also counts as a twatdangle.

Stop sign.. well it's not rocket science is it?

Yet another story..

... about a tosser who disengaged their brain as soon as they engaged their sat-nav. Though given his choice of car and the fact that he uses his sat-nav extensively for his job then I'd say the brain shut down is probably irreversible by now.

Hopefully the cost of recovering his car will be extracted from him rather then the local tax payers having to cough up for his stupidity

What a moron

He obviously does not have the wit to drive safely. Jail him and then ban him for life.

Pratt

As someone who lives just below where his car got stuck I can testify that he is a prat of the upmost. There is no reason why he disbelieved his eyes and kept going along a path which was obviously not a road. As for being a "professional driver" and trusting his satnav, words fail me.

One thing I am glad about the case is that the police are going to charge him with driving without due care and attention. It's about time such stupid actions were publicised so that fewer drivers make such mistakes - especially truck drivers.

More pictures on the Halifax Courier website and elsewhere

http://www.halifaxcourier.co.uk/news/Satnav-takes-BMW-driver-to.5101232.jp

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1164705/BMW-left-teetering-100ft-cliff-edge-sat-nav-directs-driver-steep-footpath.html

"I rely on my satnav. I couldn't do without it for my job"

Yes, I wonder how on earth ordinary people managed to navigate before the wondrous satnav was available. I hear tell of a mythical device, knwoledge of which is passed to only the initiated few - known only as 'map'.

Natural selection

tbh its just the next level of Natural selection at work...

@Jaowon. Your example is different.

Mr BMW saw something was wrong before it was too late to recover the situation but made a decision to follow the satnav. This is an example of someone gathering data before making their decision (to drive over a cliff.)

You launched yourself at the national speed limit over a blind summit on an unfamiliar road. This is an example of someone choosing not to gather data (what is over the hill?) before making their decision (to drive too fast).

As for "In the country you have nothing" - you very often do. The indication is that you are in the countryside and there aren't many signs. This means "take care".

Stop - because maybe you should.

He should have noticed the lack of road, but...

While I agree with all the posts that query his ability to use his eyes for anything further than the satnav. It is interesting to find the location on a map. It appears to be called "Watty Lane":

http://maps.google.co.uk/maps?sll=53.727023,-2.197152&sspn=0.158839,0.416794&ie=UTF8&ll=53.704919,-2.109879&spn=0.002483,0.006512&t=h&z=17

As far as I can see his final failure was in failing to make the left turn that might have got him onto the next road! It doesn't even look like he tried. So maybe he couldn't see the satnav properly either. Interestingly google show the lane running a bit further north across the field so maybe it was navigable (to a 4x4) at some point. I guess that his Satnav developers got their data on the cheap and allow you to use any road as big as a Lane.

Stop - as that's what he needed.

Luddites, the lot of you!

Actually, I think old-fashioned maps are bloody dangerous compared to sat-navs. They're fine if you have a navigator sitting next to you in the car but - to be honest - a good sat-nav will give verbal instructions that are right 99.9% of the time. Far safer than holding a map against the steering wheel. IF you even have a good map of the area that you happen to be in.

I only had cause to gripe once myself when a trip in the Lake District ended up on a farm track that needed gates to be opened. Cost me about half an hour, I suppose. Nothing, compared to the convenience of the sat-nav on numerous other trips.

Of course he trusted his GPS...

It's smarter than him, after all...

Reading a map?

You mean, actually unfold it, manually find the route and turnoffs, then fail to fold it and just cram the wadded-up paper back into the glove compartment?

Or even, horrors, reading roadsigns...

Actually, this has just reminded me...

...of an incident I was involved in some years ago.

A gas leak had necessitated the closure of a main road at short notice and a diversion sign had been set up to direct traffic into the nearby village. From there, the diversion led to the next village by way of back roads, and then back on to the main road.

Unfortunately, the second diversion sign was nearly invisible in the darkness, so all the main-road traffic (including me) missed the turning and just went straight on through the first village. This put us all on to a no-through road that gradually turned into a single-track lane, and then a farm track, and then deposited us all into a field up on the nearby downs.

It was quite a sight in the darkness to see a field full of vehicles realising they had been mis-directed and attempting to turn around as a constant stream of new ones arrived, blocking everyone's exit. Eventually the problem was solved by people walking back down the lane to stop more vehicles piling in.

But the moral of this story is... When the road is deteriorating, at what point do you actually decide that you've been mis-directed? My experience suggests that most people (including me) make that decision rather too late.

Self Preservation Society?

Re: Dark Ian: I'm curious as to what you would suggest is the best route from Coventry to Manchester if not the M6. The M6 TOLL is good for relief from traffic but the route is over 5 miles longer than the regular M6 and will probably cost the poor bugger towing your car £10 in real money so is only really worth considering if your travelling at rush hour.

I'm amazed by the number of people who can judge a persons character by what make of car they drive. Next we'll be locking people up based upon their skin colour or religeous beliefs...

Greenlaning

Fair enough, he's a complete nutter.

But about the satnav telling him it was a road. It plainly (from the photograph) isn't. So it's not a public highway, and at best it's a bridleway -- from the looks of things.

In that case, why is he being charged with a motoring offence? He was just doing a spot of greenlaning, and like all BMWs, it doesn't have the backbone for it. At worst, he should be charged with criminal damage to a fence, but even that seems to have stood up pretty well to the Deutsche Plastick.

Now, as for calling the bobbies in on this, that's a bit stupid. He should have walked down to the nearest farm and paid a farmer a few quid to haul him out. Stupid twonk.

Sat Nav is a driving AID

This has happened so often now, what was the last one? Girl drives into a river in her Merc?

These sat navs should come with a big warning on them that they are a DRIVING AID ONLY.

I'm sure lots of us with these things have been told to do some silly stuff by our sat navs but have the common sense to carry on going and wait for a new route to be worked out or whatever.

Should be banned from driving

He didn't notice the road had stopped and he was following a footpath?

He's too stupid to have a driving licence. Lifetime ban.

if all your friends ...

I can just hear his mum saying, "If all your your friends drove their BMWs off a cliff, would you do it too?"

@Very easy to do in rural areas.

"Having been a victim of a satnav taking me up a road over a hill, over the apex and suddenly finding myself rolling through a field down the other side."

You were clearly driving too fast then.... you should be able to stop in the distance specified.

And this idiot had clearly driven some way down the path, and it is very clearly a path. Only the most obtuse BMW driving members of the population could ever confuse it with a road

Missing the beauty

Bravo to the Beemer/satnav! It clearly recognised the lesser mind behind the wheel and tried to do something about it. It almost, ALMOST succeeded.

I for one welcome our human killing mechanical (r)overlords.

I was about to join the hordes in slagging him off...

I'm a Darwinist, and I do personally believe that we need to take the warning labels off everything letting stupidity sort itself out.

then I looked at the picture. Seriously, I was looking forward to giving this guy a good roasting until I inspected the image to find a typical scenario so many townies find themselves in if they dare venture away from the street lamps. This guy was just particularly unlucky to get stuck. Defeated not by the cliff, but the overly sharp corner.

I heartily agree with Jaowon on this one. I've seen plenty of roads like that in yorkshire and lincolnshire. During WWII, the government had a programme of removing all the signs from our roads in case the germans invaded, so they wouldn't be able to find their way around our country.

It would have been really nice if they'd put the bastards back up afterwards though! I've driven for miles along faceless, nameless roads, only to find them slowly diminish into footpaths or fields. I'd wager the ONLY sign he'd seen in the last 15 miles of his journey was on that little LCD screen. My dad used to run a recovery service in licolnshire, and there are plenty of roads like this that couldn't have been better traps for cars if you had sat down and designed them as such.

The police grossly exaggerated the "hanging off the edge of a cliff" part. clearly from the image, all 4 wheels are clearly planted on tera firma. His front bumper is touching the fence, but clearly this is from futile attempts to get round the 90 degree bend. If he had 4 wheel drive, he could have reversed, but a Discovery wouldn't have made that corner either due to its size. The road looks totally unsuitable for vehicles, but it won't have when it started.

I can easily understand the mindset. "God, I'm well off the beaten track here, but roads are built to link one point to another, so if I keep going, I'm bound to find a way out" Unfortunately, on those roads, by the time you realise you're trapped, it's too late.

Yes, he should have got out and walked the path, but hindsight is 20:20. More importantly, where were the signs saying no entry or 4 wheel drive only? The locals would have known, but only from experience.

RoTM?

I don't suppose the driver worked for Microsoft and the sat-nav was a TomTom out for revenge

I was only following orders!

Also...

> These sat navs should come with a big warning on them that they are a DRIVING AID ONLY.

Er, they do :-)

All the instruction manuals, and most of the units when they boot up, will tell you that they are only to be used as a guide and that the driver still has responsibility to pay attention and not be a tard.

Volvo Drivers == BMW Drivers == AUDI Drivers

I think the "typical BMW driver" is a bit out of date. Most BMW's seem to be driven by old people nowadays having moved on from Volvos. Audi Drivers on the other hand....

digitization errors

I'm guessing it's here, http://maps.google.co.uk/maps?f=d&source=s_d&saddr=&daddr=53.704438,-2.11016&geocode=&hl=en&mra=mi&mrsp=0&sz=20&sll=53.704359,-2.109937&sspn=0.000391,0.001207&ie=UTF8&ll=53.704456,-2.110153&spn=0.000391,0.001207&t=h&z=20

And indeed google shows it to be a lane. It's a fair bet he was driving too fast in spite of the state of the road. If he had been following google's directions he would have been running down sheep.

The hills are alive with the sound of Beamers. la la laa

I blame the government

And their failure to put stop signs along the periphery of this pleasant land.

It's okay people laughing at Mr Twatdangle but just imagine if this cliff had been over a beach and this unfortunate sod had driven over the edge and killed some children.

And what about when ( not if, but when ) those bastard beardy-terrorist types hack into SatNav Central and have us all driving over cliffs ? There could be hundreds of children killed on beaches below !

And what if they have BMW drivers careering straight into nuclear power plants, reversing up and driving into them again ? The potential horror ! Thousands of children at risk !!

Me; I'm not going out until this government WAKES UP and does something about this deadly threat.

Clarkson was wrong

the germans car satnav doesnt just go to poland...

@ AC 16:00

In my experience, *any* back-end-drive car, irrespective of who made it, is likely to be driven badly.

@Ross Fleming

I, for one, welcome our sat-nav overlords. I only pray they don't mislead us like xenu.

@ I blame the govmint

ROFLMFAO!

My ideas on the matter.

Ban Twat-nav while the car is moving.

Print a route from the AA or similar, print it out. Read it!!! Check it!!! Take it with you, and refer to it if needed, and when safe to do so. Take a GOOD MAP. FFS. man, you call yourself a professional driver?

Look where you're going! Use your brain!

In all fairness to the wanker in question, he's not on the public highway, so therefore no charges under the RTA are possible. He might have been pissed though. But IANAL. And I wasn't there.

Still a twunt though!

The one with the map and compass in the pocket......

What you people don't realise.....

is that it's probably a `feature` of TomTom. It can detect whether you're driving a BMW and so takes the appropriate action. In this case, driving straight over a cliff.

To make it even worse (or better depending on your point of view) it happened in Todmorden - a right shit-hole nobody in their right mind would want to visit anyway, so he could have lain at the bottom of said cliff without being discovered for months.

Please, blaming satnav is lame

And claiming that in rural areas this happens often... then clearly your satnav is retarded.

TomTom 5 has never taken me down a footpath. A lane, yes, but never a footpath. And the lanes tend to show when they run out ahead of time. When you don't use the 3D display (which I don't), you don't get nasty little surprises.

Jeez. Talk about being... well... you know.

@ I blame the govmint

no. don't blame the gvt. their response would be to:

a. make some new laws making it illegal (of course being suspicious terrrrrrrrrist behaviour) to be parked out there for no good reason. and

b. plant a cctv camera or 2 there to enforce said new law.

Did no-one else spot...

A West Yorkshire Police spokesman said: "Officers received a call at 11.18am on Sunday March 22 reporting that a BMW was hanging off the edge of a cliff off Bacup Road."

If he'd only read his satnav instead of listening to it :P

@ Rotacyclic

>I've used both, maps, satnav, an hand written instructions sellotaped to the dash board.

Both implies two not three options, fail.

> There is no doubt that satnav is easier and it is safer to use.

Safer than having a mental route plan, involving reading signs?

>Once the satnav has been programmed, it doesn't need to be touched again, unless planning >a new route, so the argument that satnav is dangerous because people keep fiddling with it, >shouldn't hold any water.

I never said it did.

>All you need do is occasionally look down at the next instruction icon to ensure you turn the >right way or come off at the right exit on the roundabout.

Right exit as "advised" by the twat-nav? Fail 2

>I challenge anyone to prove that using paper maps is safer.

I challenge you to prove that it isn't!

Wanker.

BMW

Blimey!

Me

Worried

Hmmmm, lots of hate here

Seems to be a lot of people here who hate BMW drivers. I presume you are all referring to the wankers (reps) in 320/520D cars who are slowly moving onto Audi's.

I drive a proper petrol big 5 series....and I can assure all of you twats who are complaining about typical BMW drivers, that the indicators all work, quite correctly every time I change lane/direction. More than can be said for the idiots driving insignificant little shitboxes at 90mph down the motorway. I watch them all kicking each other in the balls every day while I sit tucked in behind the lorries in the left hand lane and have a quiet chuckle to myself.

Oh, and the arrogant wankers who do not bother to acknowledge you when you have given way to them...just because you are driving a BMW. Cocks.

They say people with big cars have small dicks...so why is it then that all the little shitboxes are the ones screaming around everywhere...clearly trying to prove something or make up for something lacking in the trouser department?

</RANT>

And there is no way on gods green earth he would have been able to reverse that BM back up there. People do rely on Sat Nav too much, but that looks like the sort of typical rural non classified road/track that a Sat Nav would send you along.

Personally, I write down directions, take a map and only use the Sat Nav for emergencies!

AJ Stiles @ 17:18

Hmm people who like driving tend towards RWD, personally I hate driving wrong wheel drive cars., they do not feel right on the road, asking a road wheel to steer and drive is asking a lot, better the two are seperated.

From the Google map it does look like a road.

I expect he tried reversing out but the tyres would not grip.

Here is some advice.

1) Carry a map as well

2) If you get in this position let the air out of the driving wheels - gives more traction on loose ground, hen pump them up when back on the metalled road.

Ace

Fuckin LOVE IT.

Cock.

Bound to happen. . .

Put a story like this on El Reg and it's inevitable that poster after poster will follow each other down Cliche Lane.

Just think: in pre-satnav days, those same posters would be tailgating each other along the route of what-d'you-expect-of-Volvo-drivers-with-daylight-running-lights.

It's not only in the world of motoring that a few more arrests should be made of twats incapable of displaying an original thought.

@ So where is Gauxholme

In Multimap first find.. "watty lane, todmorden" then click on the OS Map view, top left of the map and hey presto!

Downhill MTB route

Watty Lane where he came unstuck IS an adopted highway, but might actually be no more than a public bridleway. In any case you'd have to be an idiot to do what he did. He had a hundred metres or so of flat grassy track when he should have realised it wasn't such a good idea, then a long rocky descent beside a precipitous edge (no doubt with rising level of panic) before getting stuck on a tight bend.

Youtube has some good videos of riders hurtling down Watty Lane.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eXXCz5g2v6c

Google Maps (and sat nav) routes you down quite a few public bridleways in this part of west yorkshire