In a case reminiscent of an episode of The Office, Three Mexican women in Bellevue, Washington for a meeting, drove their rental SUV into Mercer Slough, and have apparently blamed GPS for their trouble. In an aerial photo of what appears to be the boat ramp in question, I can see what may have been an old road bed on the other side of the Slough, but the road doesn’t show up on ether NAVTEQ or TeleAtlas maps, so I have my doubts.
Check out the video and map below (the boat ramp is near the bottom of the embedded aerial photo), and let us know what you think.
Via Seattle Times
About Rich Owings
Alright I am from this area and have launched from that boat launch before. There is no way that there GPS routed them there, and the road that you think you see is a power line alignment so there is in theory a track so workers can get to the poles, but there has never been a road there. (this after checking air photos from as early as 1939 in the area).
Here is my theory, They are on Bellevue Way south bound headded for I-90, The onramp ahead splits, the right to the freeway to seattle (I-90 West) the middle to I-90 east and to the left a reversable on/offramp to the express lanes that change direction based on morning or evening rush hour.
My guess is that it said bare left to I-90 east, and righ before this interchange is the turn to the left that takes them to the boat ramp. Given that the road parallels Bellevue Way and then starts to turn east the GPS assumes they are on the Freeway not the side road (and we have all seen that happen before) and if they looked at the map it would look “correct”.
That said. Its a small road that leads to a boat ramp, how badly distracted do you have to be not to see the ramp and water ahead.
Thanks Andrew. Nice to have some local insight. I heard this morning on the radio that they were waiting for the device to recalculate. Guess you can never have too fast of a processor (in your GPS or your brain!).