Newcastle OAP Blames German Staff For Rome SatNav Mishap

The Newscastle OAP whose sat nav led him to the town of Rom instead of Rome has blamed the German petrol station staff who helped him set the device for the mishap.

The bungling motorist has been identified as 81-year-old Luigi Rimonti, who was born in Italy but has been living in Newcastle upon Tyne since 1965.

Rimonti said: “I hate flying, I have often driven from England to Italy by car.”

Credit: CEN
The Jaguar that crashed into the street sign

The OAP, who used to be a hairdresser, said he wanted to make a pilgrimage to the Vatican to see the Pope and set off from Newcastle last week.

However, when he was driving near the German city of Dusseldorf, his sat nav began acting up and he sought help in a petrol station.

He said he made a stop at a petrol station in Germany where he thinks that an attendant set it incorrectly to the German town of ‘Rom’.

Rimonti said: “I asked the staff at the petrol station to set the navigation correctly.”

Meanwhile, Rimonti’s sat nav failed to recognise it as the Italian capital and instead pointed him towards a small rural community called Rom in the western German state of North Rhine Westphalia.

Rimonti said: “It told me I had to come off the motorway, but everything became more rural. Then my sat nav said ‘destination reached’. I thought ‘mamma mia, where am I?’”

When the OAP got out of his Jaguar to check where he was, the car started to roll down a hill because the pensioner had forgotten to put the handbrake on.

Credit: CEN
The Rom street sign

While trying to stop the car, he was hit by an open door and suffered cuts and bruising to his right leg and minor injuries to his head.

Ironically, his out-of-control Jaguar ended up knocking down the road sign for Rom, resulting in the police being called to investigate.

After he was released from hospital on Monday, Rimonti went to a hotel in Waldbroel where he is currently staying.

Rimonti said: “My son wants to pick me up, but that will take three or four days.”

He said he is not interested in visiting Rome anytime soon, adding: “I have had enough of it. No more Rome, I just want to go home.”

The OAP is currently waiting for his car to be released by the cops.

He said: “My luggage is still in there, I do not even have clothes.”

According to the police, Rimonti’s car is at a towing company in the town of Drolshagen.

Police spokesman Michael Tietze said: “He can pick it up any time he wants.”

However, he suspects that Rimonti does not want to pay for the damage and a resulting fine because he failed to secure his car properly.


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Story By: Koen BerghuisSub-EditorJoseph Golder, Agency: Central European News

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