Philip Paxson’s family are suing the company over his death, alleging that Google negligently failed to show the bridge had fallen nine years earlier.
Mr Paxson died in September 2022 after attempting to drive over the damaged bridge in Hickory, North Carolina.
A spokesperson for Google said the company was reviewing the allegations.
The case was filed in civil court in Wake County on Tuesday.
Mr Paxson, a father of two, was driving home from his daughter’s ninth birthday party at a friend’s house and was in an unfamiliar neighbourhood at the time of his death, according to the family’s lawsuit.
His wife had driven his two daughters home earlier, and he stayed behind to help clean up.
“Unfamiliar with local roads, he relied on Google Maps, expecting it would safely direct him home to his wife and daughters,” lawyers for the family said in a statement announcing the lawsuit.
“Tragically, as he drove cautiously in the darkness and rain, he unsuspectingly followed Google’s outdated directions to what his family later learned for nearly a decade was called the ‘Bridge to Nowhere,’ crashing into Snow Creek, where he drowned.”
Local residents had repeatedly contacted Google to have them change their online maps after the bridge collapsed in 2013, the suit claims.
On OSM all it takes is one person to delete that bridge if it isn’t there anymore. That is what is so great about wikis.
Doesn’t that also mean that ONE malicious person can get traffic off their local street or hurt a competitor’s business?
Just like moderating Lemmy, effectively policing user-generated content is a huge challenge.
It does, but if someone makes changes that actively degrade the map, they can be reverted and blocked from editing. There are monitoring tools available and in general things like that don’t tend to happen, at least not in areas with an active good faith community.