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Technology is all around us, we are forced to trust it at every turn. We trust it to keep track of how much cash we actually have in the bank, we trust it to count that cash and give it to us in the street. Technology is responsible for making sure our train gets us to work on time, and technology makes sure that your dinner does not burn in the oven whilst you are watching The Simpsons. It is unavoidable; we have to trust technology many times a day.

But we can take things too far, some technology is imprecise at best, most people realise this and adjust their behaviour, many do not with disastrous consequences. Let us consider some of the startling road traffic accidents that have been caused by a drive following their GPS unit too closely.

In the USA, a bus driver, carrying a girls softball team as passengers, blindly followed his GPS unit under a low bridge, far too low for his bus, and sheared off the roof. Ignoring the large yellow signs that were screaming LOW CLEARENCE! At him, the driver proceeded under the bridge, as he believed the GPS unit was set to truck/bus mode and trusted its judgement. A spokesman for the bus company was quoted as saying “We just thought it would be a safe route because, why else would they have a selection for a bus?” which just goes to prove that people are somewhat dumb sometimes.

In the UK, a female motorist was following directions to Carmarthen, she was following here GPS unit and came to a closed railway crossing that was not highlighted on the unit. She decided the GPS was right (mind boggling) and that the crossing was not real (even more mind boggling) and proceeded to life the first of the closed gates (idiot alert). She drove her car onto the tracks and climbed out and went to open the gate on the other side of the crossing. She was completely amazed when a train came along and totally trashed her car! I mean, how stupid can a person get?

Again in the UK, a driver was following his GPS unit through the village of Luckington (appropriate name) and was not paying attention to the actual conditions outside of the vehicle. His GPS unit directed him onto a bridge which crosses the River Avon.  Unfortunately, the bridge had been closed for repairs for over a week, the car drove straight off the incomplete bridge and into the river. When local residents were asked to comment on the accident they replied that it was nothing uncommon and that they had been pulling an average of two cars a day out of the river for the past week! One resident told that when questioned, the drivers often replied with something along the lines of “My sat-nav told me it was this way”.

GPS accidents are now becoming a common occurrence, frequently lethal and easily avoided by following proper operating instructions.

The granddaddy of cool gadget manufacturers must arguably be the Wenger Company. Don’t know who they are? Ok three words… Swiss Army Knife. They are the current manufacturers of this world famous gadget that has become as much a status symbol as a useful gadget. I say current manufacturer, as originally the Swiss army knife was made by a company named Victorinox, but after some commercial manoeuvring, manufacturing was taken over by the Wenger Corporation in the early 90s. Oddly enough, Victorinox purchased the Wenger Corporation in 2005; it is a strange world we live in.

With a long history of excellent pocket knife design behind them, I was surprised to find a really rather ludicrous product in their line-up. Namely the exceptionally well named “Giant”. This crazy knife has a staggering 85 separate tools built into it and weighs in at a ridiculous 2lb. certainly not something you would want to carry around in your pocket!

Some of the more extreme additions to the veritable garage full of tools and devices which hide away into this Swiss army knife are:

• Golf club face cleaner – Why include this? What use is it when all you need is a pocket knife with a normal blade to do the same job?

• Golf shoe spike wrench – For those golfers who actually notice they have a loose spike and decide to make instant repairs on the fairway.

• Watch case back opening tool – Useful for those life and death threatening moments when you feel you need to take the back from your watch and start fiddling with the gears.

• Telescopic pointer – When a finger just won’t do!

• Shortix laboratory key – I don’t even know where the Shortix laboratory is, so why do I need a key for it? They should change the locks.

• Toothpick – Not a bad idea, but on a 2lb knife the size of a house brick, one wonders who would have the strength and dexterity to manoeuvre this small piece of metal into their mouth and extract the popcorn stuck between their molars.

I must admit I thought it was a joke when I first found details of the “Giant”, but no, it is a true production model of the Swiss army knife, ok it was created as a special anniversary model but even so, it is on sale to the general public.

Current owners of the Giant are somewhat taken aback that the model was produced too early to include the newly patented Wenger finger clipping tool, so we can expect a new model some time possibly named “Super Giant” or some other amazingly inventive name.

All joking aside, the manufacturers of the Swiss army brand have consistently created high quality and useful products for decades, it is quite a shame to see them making something of a laughing stock of themselves by falling so deeply into the “bigger is better” line of thinking.

Certain gadgets spring to mind when we think about badly designed products and failed launches. But none failed in quite such a costly manner as the De Lorean DMC-12. Back in the early 1970s, when the original plans for the De Lorean were made public, it quickly became the “Big boy’s toy” on every male shopping list. Like all good gadgets it contained a large chunk of new technology and some good old fashioned cosmetic appeal.

Unfortunately for the business man behind this infamous motor vehicle, John De Lorean, many of the new forms of technology that were originally intended to make it into the production vehicle were just not ready. Certain things such as the radical chassis design, which was to be built using a new form of manufacturing process named Elastic Reservoir Moulding (ERM). The patent for ERM was bought by the De Lorean Motor Company at great expense, only for engineers to finally report that the technology was useless for motor vehicle manufacture, and scrapping the entire design concept. Slowly, little by little all of the exciting new features that could have made the car the ultimate male gadget of the late 70s were replaced by run of the mill standard technology. Possibly the only radical design feature that remained in the final production model was the use of a stainless steel skin over a fibreglass panel for the body panelling. This interesting feature kind of backfired as owners of the few De Lorean that were actually made, found out quite quickly that stainless steel was something of a pain to keep clean and maintain.

Most of us remember Doc Brown of Back to the Future fame, and his amazing time travelling De Lorean (possibly the greatest gadget ever) replete with flux capacitor and a dashboard full of esoteric lights. Interestingly enough, all of the four cars that were used in the filming of the original movies had their standard PRV-V6 (Renault produced) power plant ripped out and a more powerful Porsche engine installed. This should give some idea of just how bad the performance was in the original vehicle, if you need to stick a bigger engine into a sports car just to get it up to 88 miles per hour quick enough to keep movie goers entertained, then something must surely be wrong?

The De Lorean did make it into production, although the retail price had risen dramatically from original expectations. The DMC-12 took its name from the fact it was designed to retail at $12,000, but actually went on sale at $25,000 which represented over 100% slip in pricing from concept to launch. Only around 9,000 cars were ever built before the De Lorean Motor Company went bust in 1982, following the arrest of its founder on drug trafficking charges (later disproved). What could have been one of the most innovative and technically exciting motor vehicles of all time became a legend in bad business management and silly ideas.