Weird News Files

A Polish man drove his vehicle into a lake after following the instructions of a satellite navigation system, police have said.

The Mercedes mini-van driver ignored a series of warning signs before using an abandoned road which led to the lake. His vehicle was almost entirely submerged by the time emergency services arrived on the scene, but the man and his two passengers had already escaped unharmed.

“The man took a road that was closed a year ago when the area was flooded to make an artificial lake serving as a water reservoir – he ignored three road signs warning of a dead end,” Piotr Smolen, police spokesman in Glubczyce, southern Poland told AFP.

“It was still night time and he didn’t notice the road led into the lake. His GPS told him to drive straight ahead and he did.”

Smolen confirmed that the man in question made his first emergency call while he was still inside the sinking van. He then sat on the vehicle’s roof with his passengers as they waited for assistance.

Source: DigitalSpy Link filed under Weird World News.

GPS tracking devices have become widely used in recent times. The devices are used to log one’s location at predefined intervals.  Juergen Perthold took this idea with the thought: “I’ll tie that to my cat,” and Mr Lee’s CatTrack was born.

The CatTrack user programs the intervals which the device logs its location, via a Windows application, and then straps the device (which is about the size of a matchbox) to a backpack/harness on a cat. Set the cat free and, when it returns, simply display the data on a Googlemap.

After a couple of tracks with their cats, Juergen found that not only did his cat, Mr Lee, roam far further than thought, he clearly had some local neighborhood hangouts.

The basic CatTrack is a standard GPS logger. There is also a CatTrack Live, which provides live positioning, using a GSM cellphone module (you provide a SIM card, then it sends SMS text messages of the position).

The inventor is re-branding the device as CatTraQ and is looking for retailers. 

Also if you really want to know what your cat is up to, he makes a CatCam.

Mr Lee, the cat, the original tester of the device, is becoming a celebrity in Europe with a television documentary on his wanderings in the works.

See more details here.