We’re all used to stories of sat-nav units telling drivers to drive into rivers or across fields, but one motorist received a particular shock this week when his portable navigation system unexpectedly instructed him to kick a tramp to death.
Roger Gnrrrrt of Fumbling, in Darkness, was relying on his sat-nav system to take him to an important business meeting in Reading when the unfortunate instruction occurred, with disastrous consequences. ‘I was approaching a roundabout and expected my nav to tell me to turn left, head straight on or what-have-you’ Mr Gnrrrrt explained. ‘So when it instructed me to belt the shit out of a homeless man I was a little taken aback. Unfortunately, I’m far too feckless to think for myself and reluctantly had to cruise around the local area until I found a suitable vagrant upon which I could exact inexplicable physical brutality’.
A spokeswomaniser from Bongo, the makers of Mr Gnrrrrt’s unfortunate navigator, was quick to react: ‘Obviously we’re very sorry that one of our customers was put in this situation,’ he said. ‘It seems that in certain, very unusual circumstances, a tiny programming glitch can cause the Bongo 2000 to replace the standard “take the first exit” voice instruction with the less common “please kick a tramp to death as soon as possible” command’.
Bongo is now said to be working to prevent this embarrassing error happening unnecessarily in future. In the meantime, the company was keen to reassure its current users that there is no need for alarm or to buy some heavy boots just in case. ‘Unfortunately, given the complexity of modern navigation units, tiny glitches can occur, but we work very hard to fix them as soon as possible’ said their representative. ‘For example, we have already managed to remove a small programme bug in our set route through Mississippi so that it no longer has that thing about careering off the road and rolling your car’.
