IT has all the makings of a sci-fi movie: evil phone app lures innocent drivers into the desert where they thirst and die.
But for the hapless drivers who one after another found themselves stranded in the Murray Sunset National Park because of a dodgy Apple iPhone navigational app, the Orwellian script became frighteningly real.
In the past few months police have been called to rescue no fewer than six people who have become lost en route to Mildura by slavishly following maps apps.
A dozen more subsequently reported becoming bogged in sand and driving round in circles without phone reception for hours before eventually making their own way out of what is essentially desert.
It’s not uncommon for drivers to take a wrong turn, sometimes fatally, on the advice of their sat navs.
Around the world, there have been countless recorded cases of people heading the wrong way down motorways, getting stuck under low bridges and even winding up in the wrong country altogether using navigation devices.
Part of the problem is that we have become so dependent on technology we are no longer using the software between our ears.
Common sense should dictate that an unmarked sandy desert track is unlikely to be the best or fastest route anywhere.
But such is their blind faith in gadgets, people are following them like lemmings, quite literally off cliffs and into the paths of trains.
People are increasingly unable to lift their heads, look around and think for themselves.
This is a worrying course for the future.
— sharris@mmpgroup.com.au
