Google Maps

Google Maps directions led to a man driving off a collapsed bridge, lawsuit alleges

Ben Schoon | Sep 22 2023 - 8:35 am PT

Google Maps directions are generally considered fairly reliable, but occasionally you’ll find the app putting you down a road that’s not traversable. For one man, Google Maps allegedly sent him down a road with a bridge that had collapsed, leading to his death.

As reported by CNN, Philip Paxson of North Carolina was driving home in September 2022 and using Google Maps to navigate the route late at night, with Maps sending Paxson down a road that had a collapsed bridge which he then drove off of, falling 20ft into water and drowning.

While Maps can’t necessarily see roads that have issues such as these immediately, a lawsuit around Paxson’s death alleges that the bridge had partially collapsed back in 2013, nearly a decade before the incident, and neighbors in the area noted that Google Maps kept instructing drivers down the dangerous route.

Notably, the bridge was left unbarricaded and unmarked, so there was no warning to drivers that the bridge was indeed out. However, reporting on Paxson’s death in 2022 reveals that the bridge is privately owned, and that “previous barricades had been vandalized and removed.” A 2022 video interview shows the bridge in question.

An attorney on the Paxson Family’s case explains:

For years before this tragedy, Hickory residents asked for the road to be fixed or properly barricaded before someone was hurt or killed. Their demands went unanswered. We’ve discovered that Google Maps misdirected motorists like Mr. Paxson onto this collapsed road for years, despite receiving complaints from the public demanding that Google fix its map and directions to mark the road as CLOSED.

Maps has, for years, supported the ability to report road closures through its mobile apps, but residents in the area apparently had reported the bridge as closed and Google just never made the needed updates.

Google, speaking to CNN expressed “the deepest sympathies for the Paxson family” and said: