Recalculating.
When Tara Guertin lent her car to three friends from Connecticut for a road trip to Vermont, she had no idea the next time she'd see her Jeep it would be at the bottom of Lake Champlain.
"I was speechless," she told WCAX.
In an interview with the Burlington Free Press, Guertin explained that her friends had been using Waze, a popular GPS phone app owned by Google, to navigate the foggy route to Burlington, Vt., on Jan. 12.
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The app somehow led them to a boat launch not far from a local Coast Guard station, where the vehicle sank 100 feet into the lake.
The driver and passengers, who haven't yet been identified, were able to escape unharmed, according to the publication.
A police report obtained by the Burlington Free Press confirms that both bad weather and poor lighting at the boat launch may have been a factor in the crash.
The driver is not believed to have been under the influence of anything, though he did admit to having one beer at a nearby brewery.
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Neither the driver nor the passengers were cited by officers.
Guertin told the Burlington Free Press she initially believed the poor directions must have been a result of a glitch, but when she typed in the same destination again she was give the exact same directions to the boat launch.
A Google spokeswoman told the Burlington Free Press she was unable to comment on the incident for a number of reasons.
"It's impossible to comment here without seeing the user's driving file, and we haven't received permission to do so," she explained.
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The anonymous spokeswoman added that drivers should "keep their eyes on the road and use all environmental information available to them to make the best decisions as they drive."
WCAX reported that it would likely be difficult to obtain much logistics about the crash as the vehicle remained submerged for 10 days.
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