Three people have been killed in India after the route they were following on Google Maps reportedly took them over the edge of a damaged bridge. The three men drove off the bridge crossing the Ramganga River in northern India, despite the span being badly damaged earlier this year.
The three men were driving between Gurugram and Bareilly in Uttar Pradesh in the north of India. Along the route they were following, the three men were reportedly directed across a bridge that spanned the Ramganga River, a tributary to the Ganges, reports the Economic Times.
The bridge they drove over, however, was in pieces after it was damaged during intense flooding “months ago.” Despite its condition, there were no blockades across the bridge and the route they were following on Google Maps reportedly told them that it was safe to carry on and cross the bridge, as the Economic Times adds:
The incident occurred late at night, leaving the victims stranded without immediate assistance. It was only on Sunday morning that villagers from Khallpur spotted the vehicle under the incomplete bridge and alerted the authorities. Police teams from Faridpur and Dataganj rushed to the spot.
Faridpur Circle Officer (CO) Ashutosh Shivam confirmed the accident, stating that the bodies were retrieved using a boat.
Faridpur SHO Rahul Singh shared that the victims were navigating with Google Maps when the accident occurred. “We recovered the identity card of a Gurugram-based security company in the car,” Singh said. The victims were identified as Nitin Kumar (30), his cousins Ajit Kumar (35) and Amit Kumar (30). Nitin and Ajit, residents of Farrukhabad, worked as drivers for the security firm, while Amit, a distant relative, hailed from Mainpuri.
The three men were reportedly traveling to a wedding when the incident occurred, and family members have now rallied together calling for answers as to why safety measures weren’t in place on the bridge, reports Futurism:
According to local officials, mobile records indicated the group was using Google Maps right up until the accident occurred.
The victims’ families have since criticized the absence of safety measures and called for accountability.
“They were checking the route using Google Maps and fell from the incomplete bridge,” one of the victim’s brother-in-law Pramod Kumar told The Economic Times. “The road should have been blocked, but it wasn’t. The maps shouldn’t have shown that the bridge was complete.”
Usually when a bridge collapses like this, Google updates its Maps software to show that the road is closed or the crossing is unavailable, as it did when the Francis Scott Key bridge collapsed earlier this year. As such, it’s understandable that the victims’ families want to know why they were sent on this route, but a bigger question is maybe why wasn’t there a barrier over the damaged roadway?
Whether safety warnings were in place or not, this isn’t the first time that Google has come under fire for directing people down unsafe roads. Last year, the widow of a driver killed after driving through a damaged bridge attempted to sue the tech company.
