Misguided driver plows into rice paddy

A Qingpu district resident drove into a rice paddy last week while trying to traverse rural Shanghai at night with a satellite navigation application, police said Sunday.

The driver, surnamed Sun, was driving back home from Songjiang district early on August 25 when he decided to take a shortcut through an undeveloped part of Qingpu, according to a press release from the Qingpu District Public Security Bureau.

Sun eventually came to an area where the navigation app no longer showed roads, but chose to forge on because the app showed his destination wasn't that far ahead of him.

In the pitch dark, Sun drove another 200 meters across the countryside until his car came to a sudden halt.

He tried to back out, but the vehicle would not move. He stepped out of the car and found he was in the middle of a rice paddy.

Sun got back in the car and managed to get it moving forward again, but then drove into a ditch.

Police said the front end of the vehicle was submerged in water.

It took a responding police officer about an hour to find Sun after he called for assistance. The officer and local villagers pulled Sun's car out of the paddy after daybreak. Sun compensated the farmer for the damage to his property.

Sun obtained his driver's license in May. Police advised drivers not to rely too heavily on satellite navigation systems.