More people who put their brains on "standby" while using satellite navigation systems: In July, a group of 10 children and 16 adults from California were stranded in their cars in wilderness near cliffs close to the Grand Canyon, to which they had been misdirected by their navigation system. Rescuers were able to talk them back the next day on their cell phones.

Also in July, a truck driver hauling a 32-ton load from Turkey through several European countries headed for Gibraltar in the southern tip of Spain missed his destination by about 1,600 miles, winding up at a dead end in Skegness, England. (Gibraltar is a British territory, though nowhere near the British Isles, but both places have a "Coral Road," which was the destination.)

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