A Los Angeles woman is suing Google for allegedly giving her poor walking Google Maps directions that caused her to be hit by a vehicle while walking down a rural dirt road, according to a lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court of Utah.
The woman, Lauran Rosenberg, is also suing the man that hit her with his car, Patrick Harwood of Salt Lake County, Utah.
According to the complaint, Rosenberg utilized Google Maps on Jan. 19, 2009, on her Blackberry to get walking directions from 96 Daly Street in Park City, Utah, to 1710 Prospector Ave. in the same city. The directions told her to walk on Deer Valley Drive, also known as State Route 224, for 0.6 miles, a route that includes no sidewalks and a roadway with cars traveling at high speeds. It’s a route not reasonably safe for pedestrians, according to the suit. On that road, she was subsequently struck by the car driven by Harwood. As a result of “Google’s careless, reckless and negligent providing of unsafe directions” Rosenberg has suffered “severe permanent physical, emotion and mental injuries” that include more than $100,000 in medical expenses, according to the suit.
Rosenberg’s attorneys said Google should have known that Deer Valley Road was dangerous to pedestrians and avoided that route, according to the suit.
On Monday morning, Google Maps still offers the same route as it gave Rosenberg last year, but includes the warning, “ Walking directions are in beta. Use caution – This route may be missing sidewalks or pedestrian paths.” It’s unclear whether that warning was included on Jan. 19, 2009.
The bottom of the directions also includes the following note, “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.”
