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An ICE crashed into a car standing on the track in the Peine district
Photo: Martin Dziadek / dpa
GPS prompts can be confusing, and if you're not paying close attention, you may end up in a place you didn't intend to go.
At the weekend, a driver in Lower Saxony had to experience this - with far-reaching consequences: After steering her car onto a track in Vechelde near Peine, there was a serious accident because an ICE collided with her car.
She took the instructions from her navigation device too literally on Saturday evening, turned left prematurely and then stood with her car on rails, said a spokesman for the federal police on Sunday.
Realizing she was stuck there, the woman got out and sought help.
But only a little later, the approaching ICE hit the car at a speed of around 160 kilometers per hour.
The engine driver hardly had time to react in the dark.
Around 750,000 euros in damage
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The impact wedged the car under the locomotive.
According to the federal police, the 320 passengers were not injured.
The rescue work was only completed after almost ten hours.
Delays occurred on the Braunschweig-Hildesheim railway line.
The federal police estimated the damage at around 750,000 euros.
Accidents happen again and again – or simply strange wanderings – because people let themselves be misguided by their navigation devices.
A good three years ago, a truck driver in Aremberg near Mayen in Rhineland-Palatinate apparently relied too much on his navigation device and got so stuck that he couldn't move for hours.
Once the technology guided a driver from Lower Saxony directly into the coastal canal.
And also in 2019, an Italian left Newcastle in the UK for Rome, but did not arrive in Italy's capital, but in the small community of the same name near Gummersbach.
jus/dpa
