Sat nav blunder places The Rock in Skegness

But which one has more apes?

By Robin Lettice • Get more from this author

Posted in Bootnotes, 22nd July 2008 12:24 GMT

In an epic, multinational sat nav cock-up, a Syrian lorry driver aiming for Gibraltar left Turkey and ended up in Skegness.

Only as Necdet Bakimci inched his 32-ton car transporter down a narrow Lincolnshire lane leading to Gibraltar Point nature reserve did he twig that he might have taken a wrong turn, but by this point the lorry had become stuck. Turning the vehicle back around took almost an hour.

The bewildered Bakimci explained to curious passing twitchers that he was looking for Coral Road, Gibraltar, and one Steven Humphreys then whipped out his laptop and solved the conundrum.

"I had my laptop and found the place on Gibraltar," the benign bird-botherer told The Sun. "Amazingly, the guy didn’t seem too upset."

The delivery firm, based in Antakya, Turkey, then arranged for the lorry-load of cars to be shipped from Birmingham to the correct destination. Bakimci himself rather sensibly headed straight home. ®

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