Making a Convertible Out of a Hardtop

As a former bus owner I can appreciate this story:

The driver of the bus carrying the Garfield High School girls softball team that hit a brick and concrete footbridge was using a GPS navigation system that routed the tall bus under the 9-foot bridge, the charter company's president said Thursday.

Steve Abegg, president of Journey Lines in Lynnwood, said the off-the-shelf navigation unit had settings for car, motorcycle, bus or truck.

Although the unit was set for a bus, it chose a route through the Washington Park Arboretum that did not provide enough clearance for the nearly 12-foot-high vehicle, Abegg said. The driver told police he did not see the flashing lights or yellow sign posting the bridge height.

"We haven't really had serious problems with anything, but here it's presented a problem that we didn't consider," Abegg said of the GPS unit. "We just thought it would be a safe route because, why else would they have a selection for a bus?"

Some models that offer routing for larger vehicles base directions on general information -- such as routes that are closed to buses -- rather than painstakingly collected data such as bridge heights, GPS experts say.

The accident Wednesday afternoon sheared the roof off the charter bus and sent 21 students and a coach returning from a game in Kirkland to the hospital. All were treated and released.

Garmin, the company that made the GPS unit, had this observation:

A spokesman for Garmin Ltd., the manufacturer of the GPS unit used by Journey Lines, said an independent company that also supplies information to online mapping sites provides its underlying data.

Bus routes typically steer drivers away from roads or turns where larger vehicles are not allowed, but don't take specific bridge heights into account, said Garmin spokesman Ted Gartner.

"The bigger comment here is that drivers always need to obey all the rules of the road at all times," he said.

"Stoplights aren't in our databases, either, but you're still expected to stop for stoplights."

Just because the GPS says you can go there doesn't mean you can really go there. Those flashing lights and warning signs are pretty important too.