PAPAMOA UNDER-14 NETBALL BUS STRANDED AT FERRY TERMINAL AFTER GPS BACKS ITSELF
Driver insists the app said 'board vessel'. The vessel had left at 6.40am.
A bus carrying the Papamoa Sharks under-14 netball squad spent ninety minutes idling at a ferry terminal on Saturday morning after the driver's GPS routed them onto a sailing that had departed two hours earlier.
The bus was meant to be in Hamilton by nine. The app told the driver to queue for a vehicular ferry that doesn't service State Highway 29. My Gerald would've used a Wises and been at the courts by half eight.
Driver Lionel told The Daily Yarn he'd followed the app because "the lady on the phone has never let me down before". She has now. The girls were two hours late and one toilet stop short of mutiny.
Sideline mum Donna Petrie, whose daughter plays goal defence, said the WhatsApp chat "absolutely went off". "I said to the coach, where the fuck is my child, and he sent back a photo of a seagull. A seagull, Margaret. I rang my husband and told him to get in the Hilux."
By 9.15am four dads had convoyed out to extract the team. One father told Lionel he was a "useless tosser carrying on like a pork chop about an app". Lionel said the GPS was "having a moment". A wee shit of a defence, frankly.
The Sharks forfeited the first game and won the second 34-12, fuelled by servo pies and pure rage. Lionel is driving the under-12s to Rotorua next Saturday. The app has not been updated.
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Reader Letters
Garry (Halswell)
Back in my day, we relied on a bloody map and our wits. You didn't get lost thanks to some piece of tech pretending to know better! It's all these young drivers and their gadgets.
BusDriverBarry
Mate, Lionel's a good bloke. These apps can get any of us spun around! Not really his fault if the GPS sent him off to la-la land. We've all been there.
wayward_wendy
It's always a bloody GPS stuffing things up, isn't it? Why are we relying on them like they're some sort of techno-oracles?
PamFromPapamoa
I was at the court when they finally showed up. Those girls were fired up! Guess a pie from the servo does wonders for teenage spirit.
MargaretSingsHigh
@PamFromPapamoa Remember back in '06 when the lights went out mid-game and they played by car headlights? These girls are unstoppable!
couchgremlin
Lol. GPS should make its own seagull app for dodgy directions.