NC fatal crash results in lawsuit vs. Google Maps
Guided by app, man drove off collapsed bridge
The family of a North Carolina man who drowned last year after he drove off a collapsed bridge while following Google Maps directions sued Google for negligence, saying that the company’s failure to update its maps led directly to his death.
Philip Paxson, 47, a medical device salesperson, was on his way home from his daughter’s camping-themed ninth birthday party in Hickory on Sept. 30, 2022, navigating a rainy night on unfamiliar roads, when he drove off a collapsed roadway into a creek and drowned, according to the lawsuit, which was filed in Wake County Superior Court last week.
Alicia Paxson, his wife, also sued two businesses and an individual who the lawsuit says owned, controlled or were responsible for the collapsed bridge, which was unmarked with no barricades.
Alicia had taken their two daughters home from the party in her car, while Philip stayed late to clean up and drove separately, she said in an interview.
“This is horrific, what our family is going through,” she said.
When she thinks about
how easily it could have been prevented, given that people had warned Google about the dangerous route it was suggesting, “it just kills me,” she said. Alicia said she searched her husband’s phone after the accident and found he had looked up directions home from the party on Google Maps.
A Google spokesperson, José Castañeda, said in a statement the company, owned by Alphabet, had the deepest sympathies for the Paxson family.
“Our goal is to provide accurate routing information in Maps, and we are reviewing this lawsuit,” he said.
Google Maps has for years directed drivers to cross the bridge, which collapsed in 2013, according to the
lawsuit. In November 2020, Google Maps acknowledged receipt of a complaint that a Hickory resident had submitted about the dangerous route recommendation, but it continued to suggest the route, according to the lawsuit.
“This was a crater literally in the middle of a residential neighborhood,” said Robert Zimmerman, a lawyer for Paxson. “It’d be one thing if it was there for a day or a week, but it was there for nine years.”
Nearly a year after Philip Paxson’s death, Zimmerman said, the bridge has not been repaired, and Google Maps is still directing drivers to cross it.
Google and the other defendants — Hinckley Gauvain LLC; Tarde LLC;
and James Tarlton, who, according to state records, owns Tarde — will be served with the lawsuit paperwork in the coming weeks, Zimmerman said.
The companies and Tarlton could not immediately be reached, and it was not clear if they had legal representation.
A spokesperson for the North Carolina Department of Transportation said in an email that “the section of road where this incident occurred is owned by a private entity.”
The lawsuit said Google Maps and other mapping and navigation platforms had the responsibility to update their maps in a timely manner and to correct routes once notified of hazards.