Philip Paxson’s family are suing the company over his death, alleging that Google negligently failed to show the bridge had fallen nine years earlier.
Mr Paxson died in September 2022 after attempting to drive over the damaged bridge in Hickory, North Carolina.
A spokesperson for Google said the company was reviewing the allegations.
The case was filed in civil court in Wake County on Tuesday.
Mr Paxson, a father of two, was driving home from his daughter’s ninth birthday party at a friend’s house and was in an unfamiliar neighbourhood at the time of his death, according to the family’s lawsuit.
His wife had driven his two daughters home earlier, and he stayed behind to help clean up.
“Unfamiliar with local roads, he relied on Google Maps, expecting it would safely direct him home to his wife and daughters,” lawyers for the family said in a statement announcing the lawsuit.
“Tragically, as he drove cautiously in the darkness and rain, he unsuspectingly followed Google’s outdated directions to what his family later learned for nearly a decade was called the ‘Bridge to Nowhere,’ crashing into Snow Creek, where he drowned.”
Local residents had repeatedly contacted Google to have them change their online maps after the bridge collapsed in 2013, the suit claims.
There was a minor map glitch in my neighborhood that kept directing people to my house instead of my friend’s house half a mile down the road, and it took me actual weeks of effort (persistent back and forth with them, repeatedly sending map screenshots and data from the county auditor, refusing to let my case get closed, etc) to get it corrected, which I had assumed was because it was a relatively small thing affecting a couple dozen people a year.
People fruitlessly asking them to fix a bridge out notice for 10 fucking years is horrifying.
I’m a local guide, they still routinely auto-reject mundane edits. I’ve added whole businesses, photos, hours, contact numbers and they reject them too. If I add them piecemeal they’re more likely to allow it. Their algorithm is awful.
Why do you perform free labour for a multibillion corporation?
Because in the end being a local guide winds up helping your local community directly in a number of ways.