Repeat after me: Map apps can be useful, but you should not follow their advice blindly. For example, if you’re on your bike and it tells you to cycle through a tunnel meant only for cars. Don’t do that.
Port Authority police intercepted a delivery worker on the New Jersey side of the Lincoln Tunnel after he biked through it on his way to drop off food for a customer, NJ.com reports.
While it’s perfectly okay to cycle across many of the area’s bridges, bikes — and other “velocipedes” — are barred from entering the Lincoln Tunnel, according to Port Authority regulations [PDF].
The cyclist says he was simply following the directions on a mapping app. He showed the police his phone, “which supported his claim,” a Port Authority spokesman told NJ.com.
In the end, traffic wasn’t majorly disrupted, and police issued a traffic summons for trespass.
He’s not the only one who has blamed technology for leading them astray:
• A lost truck driver once landed a big rig on a public park’s footbridge and blamed his GPS.
• Then there was the driver who followed her map app and ended up crossing an airport taxiway.
• Back in 2013, a woman in Europe drove 900 miles instead of 90 due to a GPS error.
• And a year before that, a GPS failure led to an arrest after a woman drove onto a golf course.
• Of course, we can never forget when Australian police warned people against using Apple maps, lest they end up lost in the wilderness.
by Mary Beth Quirk via Consumerist