The family of a North Carolina man who died after driving his car off a fallen bridge while following Google Maps instructions is suing Google for negligence, claiming the technology giant was aware of the collapse but refused to update its navigation system.
According to a complaint filed Tuesday in Wake County Superior Court, Philip Paxson, a medical device salesman and father of two, drowned on September 30, 2022, after his Jeep Gladiator slid into Snow Creek in Hickory. Paxson was driving home from his daughter’s ninth birthday party when Google Maps allegedly advised him to cross a bridge that had collapsed nine years before and had never been repaired.
“Our girls ask how and why their daddy died, and I’m at a loss for words they can understand because, as an adult, I still can’t understand how those responsible for the GPS directions and the bridge could have acted with such little regard for human life,” his wife, Alicia Paxson, said.
State troopers who discovered Paxton’s body in his overturned and partially submerged truck reported no barricades or warning signs along the washed-out roads. According to the lawsuit, he drove off an unsecured ledge and crashed about 20 feet below.
The bridge was not being maintained by local or state government, according to the North Carolina State Patrol, and the original developer’s firm had folded. The complaint lists various private property management businesses as the owners of the bridge and nearby land.
According to the lawsuit, multiple people contacted Google Maps about the collapse in the years leading up to Paxson’s death and pushed the firm to update its route information.
Another Hickory resident used the map’s “suggest an edit” tool in September 2020 to inform the firm that it was sending traffic across the collapsed bridge, according to the court filing on Tuesday. Google confirmed receiving her report and examining the requested adjustment in an email sent in November 2020, but the lawsuit claims Google took no further action.
“We have deepest sympathies for the Paxson family,” Google representative José Castaeda told The Associated Press. “Our goal in Maps is to provide accurate routing information, and we are reviewing this lawsuit.”
