OT River Trips

[Mark T]

Another vaguely amusing sat nav story. Oh, and on an unrelated note Radio
4 has just talked about "pensioners under 25". That's what I call early
retirement.

<news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/norfolk/7362254.stm>

Sat-nav takes cabbie into river

A driver, stranded after he drove into a river, said his sat-nav system
guided him in there.

The mini-bus driver was on his way to collect a fare in Castle Acre, near
King's Lynn, Norfolk, when he took a wrong turn into the River Nar.

Pat Bowles, from Streamline Taxis, said: "Normal people would stop and back
out but because his sat-nav told him to keep going that's what he did.

"I don't think he did think until he couldn't go any further."

The incident happened as the driver was following his sat-nav on Saturday.

Ms Bowles said it had given the driver's colleagues plenty of amusement:
"He's had taxi drivers going into the office with snorkels on.

"We've also had phones calls, texts coming through asking if they can book
river trips."

 

[JNugent]

Mark T wrote:

> Another vaguely amusing sat nav story. Oh, and on an unrelated note Radio
> 4 has just talked about "pensioners under 25". That's what I call early
> retirement.

> <news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/norfolk/7362254.stm>

> Sat-nav takes cabbie into river
> A driver, stranded after he drove into a river, said his sat-nav system
> guided him in there.
> The mini-bus driver was on his way to collect a fare in Castle Acre, near
> King's Lynn, Norfolk, when he took a wrong turn into the River Nar.
> Pat Bowles, from Streamline Taxis, said: "Normal people would stop and back
> out but because his sat-nav told him to keep going that's what he did.
> "I don't think he did think until he couldn't go any further."
> The incident happened as the driver was following his sat-nav on Saturday.
> Ms Bowles said it had given the driver's colleagues plenty of amusement:
> "He's had taxi drivers going into the office with snorkels on.
> "We've also had phones calls, texts coming through asking if they can book
> river trips."

The BBC are quite simply wrong. He was clearly *not* a "cabbie"
("cabbie" meaning taxi-driver) because the mini-bus is not a taxi.

He could only be a "cabbie" if he was driving the mini-bus whilst
off-duty from his normal cabbing job.

I wonder whether the claim of a serial killer to be (say) a "BBC
Executive" would be as uncritically reproduced on the BBC News website
just because he said so.