Motor insurers may need to look again at crass stupidity exclusions after the Halifax Evening Courier reported the story of a Yorkshire man who left his BMW teetering over the edge of a 100ft precipice ‚ because the sat nav told him to!
Robert Jones, 43, of Doncaster, trusted his in car navigation system when it took him down a narrow footpath off a scenic road near Todmorden, West Yorkshire, ending in a sheer drop. Only a wire mesh fence stopped the vehicle short of certain total loss.
Suggesting wakefulness may have been an issue, Jones described the incident as a “nightmare”. He told the local paper: “It [the sat nav] kept insisting the path was a road, even as it was getting narrower and steeper, so I just trusted it.”
Likening the incident to “something off the Italian Job” onlookers noted wryly: “It’s all well and good trusting your sat nav, but how about trusting your eyes and when there’s not a road in front of you, don’t keep driving.”