Where's the streetwise Hercules ?

[venta]

I know we haven't had one for a while, but I've just spotted someone who should be Designated Hero of the Week:

Ms Paula Ceely

Who ? Well, according to the BBC she followed her sat nav's instructions and drove her car onto a railway line where it collided with a train.

Not very heroic, I hear you say. Arguably not very smart, either. Well, yes. But here's what she apparently said afterwards:

"I can't completely blame the sat nav because up until there, it did get me where I needed to go," she added.

"If maybe I had been more aware of the situation, I wouldn't have had the accident."

Now that is heroic. She hasn't threatened to sue the sat nav company. She hasn't railed at length about the lack of signs indicating the railway line. She hasn't called for the resignation of the cartographer/train driver/Prime Minister. She's actually (here's the scary bit) admitted that perhaps it might be her fault. When was the last time you heard someone in a news report attempting to take responsibility for their own actions like that ?

Ms Ceely, I salute you.

Comments

[cardinalsin.livejournal.com]

Chief Inspector Paul Richards of British Transport Police: "We would advise people to use sat navs with due caution."

Also: don't drive onto a level crossing if there's a train coming.

Although I admire Ms Ceely for admitting fault, I'm still a bit worried that her conclusion from the incident is "don't use sat-nav". No, the conclusion should be "don't drive unless you know how roads work". I mean, what if she'd followed a map to the level crossing? Would she stop using those too?

[chrisvenus]

And the other thing I wonder is does she drive through traffic lights when they're on red because the satnav didn't tell her to stop? Its exactly the same thing but I bet if that happened people would be correctly saying "She should know to stop".

[reddragdiva]

This girl got into university.

*facepalm*