Philip Paxson’s family are suing the company over his death, alleging that Google negligently failed to show the bridge had fallen nine years earlier.
Mr Paxson died in September 2022 after attempting to drive over the damaged bridge in Hickory, North Carolina.
A spokesperson for Google said the company was reviewing the allegations.
The case was filed in civil court in Wake County on Tuesday.
Mr Paxson, a father of two, was driving home from his daughter’s ninth birthday party at a friend’s house and was in an unfamiliar neighbourhood at the time of his death, according to the family’s lawsuit.
His wife had driven his two daughters home earlier, and he stayed behind to help clean up.
“Unfamiliar with local roads, he relied on Google Maps, expecting it would safely direct him home to his wife and daughters,” lawyers for the family said in a statement announcing the lawsuit.
“Tragically, as he drove cautiously in the darkness and rain, he unsuspectingly followed Google’s outdated directions to what his family later learned for nearly a decade was called the ‘Bridge to Nowhere,’ crashing into Snow Creek, where he drowned.”
Local residents had repeatedly contacted Google to have them change their online maps after the bridge collapsed in 2013, the suit claims.
I came here thinking it recently collapsed and Google Maps just never updated.
It collapsed a decade ago, and both Google Maps and local
maintainersorganizations (whoever maintains the roads) dropped the ball. You’d think someone would have built a wall blocking that road off by nowPutting the burden of making the maps work right on “local maintainers” is a bit much, Google has plenty of money and satellite/GPS based data to correct the issue.
It’s not their fault that the bridge collapsed or that the road isn’t blocked right, though. The lack of barriers is blamed on vandalism but I don’t see signs of anything resembling a concrete barrier or anything else reasonably capable of actually stopping a car here.
Ah sorry, I meant people locally that maintain the roads/signs/barriers. I’ll fix it to be more clear
I agree with your comment though
I mean, the county and local authorities are supposed to keep the official maps of where the roads are up to date. That’s actually one of the responsibilities of local government.
Google isn’t going out and mapping all these roads, they’re 99% just aggregating the data from all the different jurisdictions and making sure they play nice with each other.