Man dies after satnav sends him into a reservoir
Fiona Govan in Madrid
The 37-year old drowned after following directions on the GPS device which had not been updated to show the creation of La Serena reservoir at Capilla, near Badajoz in southwestern Spain.
A 38-year old passenger escaped from the Peugeot 306 as it became submerged and managed to swim to shore.
he survivor told rescuers that the incident happened shortly after 11pm on Saturday when the pair were trying to find their way home from a fair.
"It appears that the vehicle's GPS device directed them down an old road which ended in the reservoir," a spokesman for the Red Cross said. "But because it was dark they didn't see the water in time to brake and the vehicle sank within a few minutes."
Neither of the men, who are both from Senegal and live in Seville, have been named by authorities.
A diving team found the body of the driver the next morning.
The incident is the latest in a series of incidents that have led road safety experts in Britain to warn that drivers were putting their lives at risk by blindly following instructions from satnavs.
In May, Nora Jaques, 69, from Barnsley, South Yorkshire, died after she waited 42 minutes for an ambulance that was sent to several wrong addresses by a faulty sat nav unit.
Last week a white van had to be airlifted off a Swiss mountain when the driver found himself stranded at its peak after being directed up a "glorified goat track".
In July 2008, a Syrian lorry driver transferring luxury cars from Turkey to Gibraltar mistakenly ended up 1600 miles away at Gibraltar Point near Skegness after unquestioningly following GPS directions.
Oct. 4, 2010