GPS News and Stories

GPS Leads to Truck Driver Getting Stuck for 5 Days

For all GPS owners out there, you’ve probably found out that it sometimes gives directions that are a little bit on the wrong side. Sometimes these errors can be quite small and they are often due to using out of date GPS maps. But one hopes that you haven’t suffered at the hands of your GPS like the poor truck driver who was driving his truck towards a small village in the Cotswold region of England. His GPS sent him down a tiny lane that was way too small for his rig and as usual in these situations, he realized too late that there was no way forward and that he had to turn around. Except he couldn’t. When he tried to back out, he got completely stuck. So much so that it took five days for a rescue truck to extract his truck. The village he was heading towards was cut off for the duration, allowing no vehicles to or from it.

This is seen to be an increasing problem in the UK where many of the country lanes are only just wide enough for a car, let alone a truck. Most GPS devices don’t distinguish between roads that are wide enough for trucks and those that aren’t. For truck drivers who often don’t know the area they are driving in, this can be a big problem.

A lot of villages in the UK have had to resort to placing warning signs telling truck drivers being directed by their GPS to turn back but following these is still at the discretion of the truck driver.