Random Horrible Accidents and Blunders Caused by Google Maps (18 items)

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  (#12) Google Maps Loses Balboa Park

  Balboa Park in San Diego isn't the easiest place to find, and this is especially true if you try to find it with Google Maps. If you search for the park, you're sent directly to a series of random canyons. Maybe someone should at least put some slides in the canyon.
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  (#7) Scottish Island Disappears

  As if the Scottish weren't maligned enough, in 2013 Google made one of the country's islands straight-up disappear. A representative for Google said, "We hope to have the map of Jura back to normal as soon as possible." OK!
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  (#11) Family Farm Falls Victim to Digital Mapping

  For over a decade, the Vogelman family has been living in a nightmare world involving FBI agents, ambulances searching for suicidal veterans, and police officers searching for missing children, all because the original IP Mapping of the farm was wrong. 
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  (#17) Google Maps Labels Redditor's Home as 'Cult'

  A Redditor in Japan contacted Google in 2016 with a rather unique complaint: it seems that Maps lists his private residence with the name and contact details of a "religious group" about 100 meters from his property. He drops the more friendly term "religious group" a few lines down in his request: "While I can see the funny side of this, I am also a bit worried that for several years visitors looking for our house may have the impression that my family are members of this cult and living in their compound." Which raises the question: just what exactly is this cult up to that has the man so freaked?
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  (#2) Driver Follows Directions Straight Off a Cliff

  According to police in Indiana, a driver was following his GPS too closely when he plunged his car off an abandoned bridge into a ravine, killing his wife. A representative for the Sheriff's Department said "The Cline Avenue bridge is marked with numerous barricades including orange barrels and cones, large wood signs stating ROAD CLOSED with orange striped markings. There are concrete barricades across the road to further indicate the road is closed." This sounds like the plot of a film noir, in which the man in question gets rid of his wife by staging an almost preposterous accident, but sadly the incident, apparently, is what it is—the man was simply watching the GPS monitor and not the road. 
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  (#3) Demolition Company Tears Down Wrong House

  This story has one lesson: when in doubt, blame Google Maps. In 2016, a demolition company in Texas went to a misidentified address that they found on Google Maps and completely destroyed a family's duplex.

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