A German driver took his navigation system's commands a little too literally and ended up in deep doodoo. When he heard the command to "Turn right now!" from his navigation system he crashed into a small toilet enclosure by the side of the road. Apparently he turned about 100 feet too soon. The crossing he was supposed to take was another 30 yards down the road.

The 53-year-old resident of Freiburg didn't notice the error even after his SUV went off the road. He continued into a construction site, up a stairway and into the small toilet shack, according to police in the eastern town of Rudolstadt. The incident caused € 2,000 ($2,500) worth of damage to the stairwell, another € 100 in damage to his car, and he was also fined € 35. Sounds like the makings of a MasterCard-like ad:

New stairwell: € 2000
SUV repair: € 100
Traffic fine: € 35
Obeying your navigation system no matter what: Clueless

Not to cast aspersions on the Germans, but we can't help but remember that earlier this month an 80-year-old motorist also chose to follow his navigation system and ignored a "closed for construction" sign on a Hamburg road. He merely drove into a pile of sand. Neither he nor his passenger was injured. Maybe the voice prompts need to be altered to something more like, "Turn onto the road approximately XXX yards ahead, only after verifying that a roadway actually exists at that location."

[Source: Reuters]