She rented a bicycle to visit the city, the GPS set her up and now she must pay a fine of thousands of dollars
While the service may be free, using map apps on your phone in an unfamiliar city can be costly when you get the wrong directions as one tourist found out.
There are a number of smartphone apps these days helping people navigate their way around, to avoid traffic or just get from point A to B. However, using these free services can sometimes end up costing people a lot of money when they are unfamiliar with the surrounding area.
That was the case for Emma Louise, a British tourist on holiday in Sydney, Australia. She posted a video on TikTok of her experience getting the wrong directions from her navigation app and needing a rescue. The New South Wales government used the opportunity to remind people about the up to $2,200 fine for not following the rules of the road.
GPS got tourist trapped in a motorway tunnel in need of a rescue
Electric bicycles that you can rent have popped up in cities around the world making it cheap and easy to get around to see the sights when on holiday, thus it was an obvious choice for Emma. However, these modes of transportation being motorized, able to reach speeds of 28 mph, have rules that are different than regular bikes but are still bikes and cannot go where motorcycles can go for example.
That’s part of where her problem began. When Emma set off on her journey, she asked the app for directions as if she was a pedestrian, but the navigation app noticed that she was moving too fast to be walking so it switched the directions to those for someone in a car.
Soon Emma found herself on a two-lane motorway heading into a tunnel that merged with another motorway, both full of traffic. Unable to get to the side of the road, which had no infrastructure for either pedestrians or bicycles, she was stuck in the middle hiding behind a support pillar where she began filming her situation while awaiting the police.
“Look, all these cars. People are beeping me. I’m just. Well, I think maybe I’m on a dual carriageway at this point,” she said into the camera as she begins to laugh at her situation. “I don’t have a helmet! They’re going to fine me for not wearing a helmet,” she suddenly realized.
Eventually a tow truck from the NSW Transport showed up to rescue the stranded tourist. It could’ve ended up worse for Emma. Last year a rogue e-bike rider who wasn’t wearing a helmet crashed inside a busy high-speed tunnel in Sydney.
Authorities warn of traffic fine of thousands of dollars for disobeying rules of the road
That episode and this latest prompted authorities to issue warnings to e-bike users about the heavy fines that they can face for not following the traffic rules and venturing into traffic tunnels.
The current fine for not wearing a helmet is about $260 ($410 AUD) and disobeying road access rules can incur another fine of roughly $200 ($320 AUD). If the infraction is taken to court, the violator could be hit with a penalty of almost $1,390 ($2,200 AUD).
Reportedly, because it was transport workers who retrieved Emma and not the police, she got off without getting a fine it was reported.
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