Matthew Revell

BBC News has the story of a student who, whilst using a sat nav to aid her journey from Redditch to Camarthenshire, drove onto a railway line directly into the path of an oncoming train.

The good news is that Paula Ceely is alive and well, having stepped back from the car when she heard the train’s horn.

What astonishes me is that, according to the BBC’s quote, Paula commented, “I can’t completely blame the sat nav because up until there, it did get me where I needed to go”.

It seems it went like this:

1. Paula followed the sat nav’s directions until she came to a gate with a sign saying to proceed if the green light is lit; the BBC report doesn’t tell us if it was lit or not.
2. Paula opened the gate, drove her car through and stepped out to close the gate behind her.
3. As she was about to open the next gate, she heard a train and noticed the tracks in front of her and, presumably, realised she was on a level crossing.
4. After briefly considering getting back into her car, she stepped back as the train smashed into her car and took it half a mile down the track.

We’ve all made mistakes whilst driving and it’s good to read that Paula escaped unharmed. It’d be nice to think that Paula will now be a safer, more cautious driver but do her comments to the BBC suggest that she’s learnt from the experience?

“I’ll never use a sat nav again. You rely on them and if it all goes wrong, you’re horribly stuck.

“People should be more careful with them - you never know where they might lead you.”

Come on, it’s a sat nav, not an autopilot. It says, “Turn left in 200 yards”, not “I can’t do that Michael“.

It’s comforting to blame someone or something else for our mistakes. Surely, part of adulthood is the realisation that most of the time you shouldn’t look for someone to blame: you should learn from your experiences.

It would be unfair to highlight Paula’s story without also mentioning the “I tripped over a bit of wood that shouldn’t have been there” testimonials in “no win, no fee” accident claim ads and the numerous other, “it wasn’t me guv, it was the sat nav” stories of incompetent driving.

I don’t want to be harsh or to laugh at other’s misfortune. Instead, I want us to shake off the tendency to find a whipping-boy because once we acknowledge our failings we can work to fix them and have a better life.

Thanks to Techdirt for highlighting the story.