Philip Paxson, a medical equipment salesman and father of two, drowned on September 30, 2022, after his Jeep Cladiator went into the river, according to a lawsuit filed in Wake County Superior Court.
After attending his daughter’s 9th birthday party, he drove out of his house and into an unfamiliar neighborhood, where Google Maps allegedly directed him past a bridge that had collapsed nine years earlier but had not been repaired.
Alicia Paxson, the victim's wife, “could not understand how the people in charge of GPS directions and the bridge could act with such disregard for human life.”
Those who found Paxton’s body in the overturned and partially submerged truck said there were no barriers or warning signs along the road. The vehicle fell about 20 feet.
According to the North Carolina Highway Patrol, the bridge is not maintained by local or state officials. The original construction company has also gone bankrupt. The lawsuit names several private property management companies as responsible for the bridge and adjacent land.
According to the lawsuit, several people had alerted Google Maps to the bridge collapse in the years before Paxson’s accident and urged the company to update its route information. Court documents include a copy of an email from another Hickory resident who used the map’s “suggest changes” feature in September 2020 to warn of the bridge collapse.
In November 2020, Google sent an email confirming that it had received the report and was considering changes, but has so far taken no action.
Google spokesman José Castañeda expressed his deepest sympathies to the family and said their goal was to provide accurate routes in maps. The company is reviewing the lawsuit.
(According to AP)
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