A few years ago my wife’s Mom gave us a GPS for Christmas.  As a gadget kinda guy I was pleased.  Now I’m wondering if she was just trying to get rid of us!  It’s an easy conclusion to jump to when you look at all the recent stories of GPS directions causing accidents.  It almost happened to us too!

The last time we used the device was our trip to Oregon last year.  We were on our way home, and knew where we were going.  We were using the GPS to keep track of our estimated time of arriving home.  As we were coming down the grade out of Whiskeytown, following a twisty road, Gertrude (the lady in the GPS….you have a name for yours too I bet) told us to prepare for a right hand turn in 400 yards.  I could see 400 yards ahead and all there was, was a cliff!  She even got a little snotty when I didn’t plunge down the hillside as she had instructed me to, “Recalculating”, indeed!

Here’s a story of a 47 year old woman that followed the instructions to a “T” and wound up with her car in a golf course sand trap!  It didn’t start with her driving down a fairway either.  First she detoured through a cornfield, then onto the golf course, then into the sand trap.

I think these four words go without saying, but I will report them anyway – “Alcohol was a factor”.

Since she couldn’t get out of the trap she had to take a 2 stroke penalty and a drop . . . . .