Woman Sues Google After Being Hit by a Car

In an interesting report from SearchEngineLand, it seems that a woman has filed suit against Google, after being hit by a car along a highway in Utah. As insane as this sentence may sound, trust me that the story itself is even crazier.

The Salt Lake Tribune identified Lauren Rosenberg of Los Angeles, CA as the plaintiff. According to their report, Rosenberg was talking a walk and decided to use her Blackberry to consult GoogleMaps to find out the best way to walk from 96 Daly Ave. to 1710 Prospector Ave. in Park City, UT. The directions instructed her to walk along Highway 224, and while she was walking down the highway she was struck by a car driven by Patrick Harwood. Along with suing Harwood, she has also filed suit against Google claiming that the instructions she was given did not warn her that there would not be a sidewalk or pedestrian walkway and she was not cautioned that there might be cars on the road. According to the court papers,

"Google undertook the duty to exercise reasonable care in providing safe directions to patrons of its Google Maps service. [But] Google failed to warn plaintiff Rosenberg of said known dangers."

The papers went on to say

“Google’s careless, reckless and negligent providing of unsafe directions” resulted in “severe permanent physical, emotion and mental injuries” as well as more than $100,000 in medical bills.

When getting directions from Googlemaps on a PC, users are given a warning that “These directions are for planning purposes only. You may find that construction projects, traffic, weather, or other events may cause conditions to differ from the map results, and you should plan your route accordingly. You must obey all signs or notices regarding your route.” Additionally, for directions involving walking or taking public transportation there is a warning that states “Walking directions are in beta.
Use caution – This route may be missing sidewalks or pedestrian paths.” It seems that these warnings are not available when using mobile Googlemaps. But do we really need Google to tell us to use common sense?

The thing that is hard to believe in this case is why the Plaintiff feels that Google is responsible for telling her what to do and ultimately is in control of deciding how she should guard her personal safety. If I were to ask Googlemaps for directions from San Francisco, CA to Tokyo, I would be instructed to kayak across the Pacific Ocean for 2,756 miles. Next, I would take a break from all that paddling in Hawaii, then resume kayaking for 3,879 additional miles. I don't need Google to warn me that this sort of endeavor is not humanly possible. In fact, they didn't even caution me that there may be sharks in the Pacific Ocean who may or may not think that kayaks (and the people in them) are good choices for snacks.

On the other hand, Google handles all of my email, it sorts and archives and provides me with the gift of over 7484.699681 megabytes of storage and counting with any payment on my part. It reads all my email and reminds when I forget to enter text into the subject line. When someone invites me to a party via email, Google gently encourages me to add the time and date to my Google calendar. All of my phone calls are routed through Google Voice, as it safeguards my voice messages and even sends it as a text message to my phone. Google has mapped out the earth and gives us guidance whenever we need it. Any question from the complex to the simple, Google will do its best to share its wisdom. When we are lost and can't find a safe haven, or a Starbucks, we turn to Google. So perhaps Lauren Rosenberg isn't all that far off in thinking that Google is a supreme power.

By Melissa Kennedy- Melissa is a freelance writer and regular contributor to several websites and other publications, a volunteer, a full time mom and an active job seeker.