Couple Stranded for 3 Days After GPS Misguides Them Into Wilderness

Posted on Dec 29, 2009

Flickr / kimubert

John and Starry Bush-Rhoads of Reno, Nev., made the biggest little blunder. Their GPS apparently directed the Rhoadses off the road they wanted to be on and into the Oregonian wilderness, where they were stuck for three days. Thanks to a more loyal GPS chip in one of their cell phones, they were eventually rescued.

We’ve all been there. “You’re going the wrong way,” says one person. “But the machine said turn right,” says another. All the way to Canada. Have we really become so dependent on technology that we can’t tell freeway from forest service road?  —PZS

AP has the full story, but we like Engadget’s take:

So you’re cruising along, in your GPS-equipped SUV, taking your dear wife back home to Reno. The trusty onscreen guide instructs you to “turn right” and you follow its typically reliable instructions. At what point in the next three days of plowing deeper and deeper into snow-covered Oregon do you start suspecting that maybe something is amiss? Alright, so this isn’t quite on par with others driving buses into low-clearance tunnels, dipping their cars into rivers, or jamming heavy load trucks into unsuitably tight farm lanes. But we don’t discriminate here, all instances of idiotic GPS dependency deserve their moment in the sun, so here’s to Mr. John Rhoads and his tastefully named wife, Mrs. Starry Bush-Rhoads, who are now safe and sound after their phone pinged out its coordinates to emergency services when it began losing signal.

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