2021 might just be the year of transportation versus canals. First, it was the ship now it’s the Ubers. Now it’s usually the norm when your Uber driver chooses not to listen to you and instead trust the navigation system instead but this time it really lead him bumper-first into a Canal.
This happened in Eccles, England just on the outskirts of Manchester. Emma Lavelle, 30 years old, called an Uber late at night or early morning however you call it, on the 11th of April. It was a normal night for her, going home using an Uber but little did she know what was going to happen. Like most Uber drivers, the driver was following the GPS to the letter.
The GPS isn’t always correct. It sometimes fails to show closed roads, even closed streets look like open streets on it. I know I’ve had my fair share of hiccups while trusting the GPS. According to Emma, The driver was closely following the GPS and didn’t even notice he was going towards the Bridgewater Canal.
Emma told reporters that “He turned down the wrong street and I said, ‘You shouldn’t be here, don’t continue down that road, there’s a canal. He just carried on and I told him he was in the canal”. The question is, why didn’t he listen to the passenger? Could have saved him a lot of work.
What followed was an unusually chill response from the driver. According to Emma, “He asked me if I could get out, and thankfully, I could. He then said ‘are you okay to walk home?’ It’s a 15-minute walk and not the nicest area to walk on your own.” He sounded worried more for her than the car but much to her surprise when she finally got him so checked and discovered she was still charged £29.31 for the trip.
Both the passenger and the driver were thankfully unharmed, aside from the car being stuck in a canal. The police arrived later at the scene and removed the car from the canal.
Emma Lavelle was not going to pay for the ride, of course, considering she almost got into an accident. She told reporters that she contacted the company, “I emailed them on Sunday saying I was involved in an accident and had still been charged. They said they would investigate but no one came back to me, then it was on the news, I contacted them again with the article and they emailed to say they would give me a refund”.
Emma further pondered upon what happened while saying that “He wasn’t going that fast; he was sort of going around 5mph, then all of a sudden the front of the car went into the canal. I thought, ‘What the hell has even happened? How has he not seen the canal in front of him?’”.
An Uber spokeswoman commented on the situation by saying that “We are currently investigating this concerning report. The safety of our customers, drivers who use the Uber app, and the general public is a top priority for Uber. All drivers who use the app are required to adhere to the Highway Code, and any dangerous driving can result in drivers being removed from the app”.
Hey at least she wasn’t stuck in a canal for the whole week.