Driver Follows Outdated GPS Off Bridge, Wife Dies in 37-Foot Fall
You really have to see the pic of the bridge, so take a look:
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/gps-told-man-drive-indiana-bridge-cops-article-1.2166855
snip
An out-of-town driver following his car’s outdated GPS system drove off of a demolished Indiana bridge, killing his wife in the passenger seat, deputies said.
Iftikhar Hussain, 64, drove the couple’s 2014 Nissan Sentra off East Chicago’s Cline Avenue bridge — which closed in 2009 and is barricaded with bright orange barrels and cones. The car burst into flames after the 37-foot plunge into pavement below, The Times of Munster reported.
His wife, 51-year-old Zohra Hussain, died from burns, police said. Iftikhar Hussain was taken to a local hospital with non-life threatening injures.
Lake County deputies said Hussain was likely following directions from his GPS navigation system, which instructed him to turn onto a ramp to the now-demolished bridge over the Indiana Harbor and Ship Canal. The couple, from Chicago, was driving to visit family in Indiana and likely didn’t know the area, said Lake County Sheriff's Department spokeswoman Patricia Van Til.
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Chicago can be difficult, agreed. I would like to know if the pic shown at the Daily News is representative of where Hussain went off the road.
Cher
= new reply since forum marked as read
This is the bridge (from a few years ago):
The Northwest Indiana Times web page has a video that shows the barricades he had to negotiate.
Incidentally, this was in East Chicago, Indiana. This is what happens to essential infrastructure under Republicans:
Then-Gov. Mitch Daniels promised to swiftly rebuild the bridge, which had served the Midwest's largest refinery and the biggest steelmaking complex in North America, and gave Chicago residents an easy route to visit casinos in East Chicago and Gary. But the state reneged after deciding a replacement bridge would be too costly.
Plans to build a privately financed toll bridge have dragged on for years. Construction of a new bridge over the Indiana Harbor and Ship Canal is supposed to begin this spring.
Maybe I'm an old fogey--in fact, I probably am an old fogey--but I believe in paying more
attention to my surroundings than a computer screen. Maybe that's part of the reason
I've lived long enough to become an old fogey? 
But I'm having difficulty trying not to think of a scene from The Blues Brothers.
Oh, right. 
His GPS had sent him several miles out of the way (like 8 or 10 miles). He was SO MAD and was taking it out on me. Our location, while on the outskirts of a pretty big city, was sort of unfamiliar even to most locals, so I was used to people calling for help getting there. I offered to stay on the phone and talk him through the whole way there, but he was SO MAD and said he didn't want to do that - he wanted me to make his GPS show him.
I was like, sorry dude, I can't help you with that.
He never did show up.
I can imagine that there are probably a lot of people who don't understand that the map data is static.
It's not hard to picture someone who might believe the map data is somehow beamed into the device in real time.
People don't necessarily understand how these things work.
Even then, there are surprises sometimes. I have several degrees in electrical engineering and was driving in Puerto Rico toward the Arecibo antenna once. Damn thing decided to take me up some back road that turned into an unpaved road that turned into a cow path on the side of a mountain before I finally gave up and thought "This can't be right." Not much further, and it could have turned into an unexpectedly dangerous condition.
I'm curious about the cones and barricades in place here. Given the size of the ramp and the height of the drop, what did he have to do to get through? How hard is it to put a few concrete jersey barriers across a roadway that leads to a fatal end?
On edit:
I made it, but it failed to detect intelligent life.
