Do you drive as per Google Map?These three men also did the same and their car tumbled into a ditch!

Thiruvanathapuram, Dec 8: We depend on technology for almost anything nowadays. While travelling, we save time of asking bystanders about a destination and switch on Google Map on our phones. There's no question about its authenticity often.

But there are also instances when the Google Map can be misleading and that was experienced by three men from Kerala in their 20s and 30s recently while travelling to Munnar via Palamattam-Avolichal road in the southern state in the dead of night on Thursday, December 6. Travelling from Ernakulam, the trio saw that road as a shortcut to their destination on Google Map and followed suit.

All the three - Gokuldas, Musthfa and Isahakh, are natives of Wadakkancherry in Thrissur.

It so happened that the trio, who were travelling in a car, followed Google Map for their route but it never told them that the route had a danger awaiting them. A trench was dug up in the middle of the road by the public works department for constructing a bridge on a ditch that falls on the way bit there was no warning sign on either side of the road.

The driver of the vehicle did not spot the dangerous edge in the night and when he did eventually, it was far too late and the car fell into the ditch that had eight feet deep water.

Mathrubhumi reported that one of the three travellers, Gokuldas, said they got saved since they could escape through the car's open windows. They held on to the car till help arrived. Six people who were on their way back home from night shift in a nearby rubber company rescued the three men from the ditch after hearing their scream.

The trio sustained minor injuries on head and chest but lost Rs 8,000 and two mobile phones. The car was pulled out of the water by the next afternoon.