Geography

[Phil Pascoe]

My friend and I were 16, hiking on Dartmoor in mid winter. The chap we were with was 23. We were steadily going up a hill when he asked who had taken the map reading, as we should have been down in the valley - he'd done the route before. We said we both taken the reading twice. We went back to where it was taken and we were standing on top of a lodestone outcrop - the reading was 90 degrees out. I wouldn't go any distance in a car without a good road map, even with a satnav, and for years when driving longer distances had a compass stuck to the dash so that if we got lost at least we could be sure we were heading in the right direction.

 

[treeturner123]

Hi,

Anecdote first, had to visit a number of shops in the Black Country some time with a colleague. Each had a car, his with satnav, me without. He was really upset when I arrived at each place before him using map only!! Also, anecdotally, people who put in Stratford, not realising that there is one in East London as well as the slightly more well known one in Warwickshire!!

Fact, We live in a small hamlet in South Worcestershire. When you put the Post Code in on Google, it shows the house is in the middle of a field about 1/4 mile from actual location. Some Satnavs also don't recognise the name of the lane that it is in even though there are some 25 houses in the lane!! I've found that the map on the Post Office Post Code finder is the most accurate.

I always have a map in the car, much the best. Anyway, sometimes the rout on satnav is only a minute less but several miles longer.

Phil

 

[RogerS]

Remember this from Metro ?

An 81-year-old man ended up in Germany by accident after trying to get from Newcastle to Rome. The ‘pilgrim’ OAP was on a mission to see the Pope, and decided to make his way there by car. He was surprised when his navigation system told him he had arrived, despite no signs of any of the famous buildings or architecture. The man, who hasn’t been named, parked up but didn’t put the handbrake of his Jaguar on properly. His car rolled backwards, and in a stunning display of irony, rolled backwards and hit a sign saying ‘Rom’ – the small town in North Rhine Westphalia he had mistakenly plugged into the Sat Nav.

 

[Phil Pascoe]

Years ago someone turned up in Troon (near Camborne, Cornwall) to watch the golf ...........

 

[MikeG.]

My friend and I were 16, hiking on Dartmoor in mid winter. ......

Ten Tors?

 

[Nigel Burden]

Kingston Lacey House just outside of Wimborne Minster is one place where a sat nav takes you to the wrong entrance. The sat nav takes you up narrow lanes to a gate which is not an entrance. The entrance is on the B3082 Wimborne to Blandford road.
Anther problem locally is lorry drivers following the sat navs shortest route between the A349 and Corfe Mullen. The sat nav takes them down a narrow lane with overhanging trees instead of onto the A31 and then into Corfe Mullen. I met a juggernaut reversing back to the A 349 having used this lane bringing down a fair sized branch some 400 odd yards into the lane. :roll: This is not an isolated incident, although my neighbour, who is a retired HGV driver said that they should be able to set the sat nav for lorries. There is now a sign warning that the lane is unsuitable for large vehicles.

Nigel.

 

[Eric The Viking]

Currently in Madeira.
The main roads are marvellous, never seen so much tunnelling in my life.
We did a short journey along the old routes took well over an hour, came on the rapido took ten minutes.

The tunnels were built by the Swiss (EU grants). Not sure about the bridges. The dual carriageway system above Funchal is somewhat terrifying, at least my better half found it so.

If you have time, and you like underground things, there is a "volcanology centre" on the north side of the island with lava tubes you can visit. Although they got rather sniffy when I stopped to take photos, it's still an interesting thing to do on a wet day.

 

[Nigel Burden]

There used to be a video on u tube of the chaos caused by some silly person trying to negotiate Bealach na Ba a single track road between Tornapress and Applecross in N W Scotland. Unfortunately I think it must have been removed as I can no longer find it.

Nigel.

 

[Phil Pascoe]

My friend and I were 16, hiking on Dartmoor in mid winter. ......

Ten Tors?

No, I didn't get to do that one.

Another time, another place - we used to leave details of the route we were taking and the expected time of return on the inside of the windscreen of the car/s we'd used to get there. If you did that now you probably wouldn't see your car again.

 

[Phil Pascoe]

From where I live going towards the A30 east there is a large red bordered sign - Ignore Satnavs.

 

[RickG]

A friend was sight seeing in France and set a satNav to Mont Blanc. They had a pleasant enough drive, until they went into a tunnel. At about the mid-point of the tunnel the SatNav proudly declared, "You have reached your destination".

I'm a sales rep - for want of a better job title. Years ago I used to have a large box in the back of the car filled with street maps of all the major towns and cities in the south-east. I and many others in the same profession actually used to drive about in city centres with a paper map spread out over the steering wheel. We used to drive though central London whilst reading small-print A-Z atlases; including turning loads of pages , whilst driving to follow the journey.

I've had a good few SatNavs. Most horror stories are very old now. They can be amusing, but largely don't hold true anymore, barr the ones of poor use by the owner. They have improved very significantly over the last 10 years. I wouldn't be without one, neither would any other pro-driver. After all, on today's roads, if I was still map-reading whilst driving as we used to, I'd either be banned from driving or dead.

 

[transatlantic]

My father (and brothers) have an amazing sense of direction, even for places they rarely visit.

Me - not so much.

They other day one of the roads I take to work was closed, and I genuinely had no idea which way to go. Had to follow those big green boards on the sides of the road, with the white names and arrows.

 

[Lons]

Anyone who relies purely on a sat nav without using common sense and their eyes to read the signs shouldn't be driving imo.

They hadn't been invented 40 odd years ago when I was in the car with my father driving back from London when there was an accident which closed the A1 and we were diverted through Doncaster. It was dark, traffic queues were horrific and he noticed some cars were turning left presumably taking a short cut, when the lorry in front did so he decided to follow it until after about 20 minutes the guy pulled up outside a house and went in for his dinner.
We had absolutely no idea where we were! #-o Funny looking back, it wasn't at the time!

 

[Eric The Viking]

Does anybody else remember the service the AA used to offer in the 1960s and 1970s: you could tell them your destination, and they would send you a route in the form of a pad of directions, stapled together at the top so you could flip it over as you went along. We used it for family holidays for a couple of years.

 

[Distinterior]

About 4 years ago, myself and the wife were in my van driving to a venue in France for a weeks fishing. My mate and his wife were with us in their own car. There were sat navs in both vehicles and they both seemed to be following the same route for the 5 1/2 hours drive south from Calais to the Cher valley.

According to both sat navs, we were only about 3kms from our destination and the sat navs instructed us to turn right in 200mtrs........As we slowed down and entered the ploughed field, we knew something was amiss. Less than 100mtrs from where we were "parked", we could see the River Cher that we needed to cross to get to the southern bank and the road beyond it......Needless to say, there was no bridge!

A bit perplexed, suddenly a car pulled up and we were a bit concerned that it was going to be an irate French farmer questioning why were were parked in his freshly ploughed field.

It turned out to be an ex pat British couple who had spotted our British number plates and stopped to lend a hand and give us directions. Apparently, the sat nav system that most of us use had NEVER been programmed correctly from day 1 and it had always been a local joke that visitors to that area often ended up parked in that field...... We eventually found the venue and a good many fish were caught that week, even though we were a bit late arriving......a couple of bottles of the local wine helped and we still laugh about it now.

 

[flying haggis]

Does anybody else remember the service the AA used to offer in the 1960s and 1970s: you could tell them your destination, and they would send you a route in the form of a pad of directions, stapled together at the top so you could flip it over as you went along. We used it for family holidays for a couple of years.

I remember them and if I remember correctly turning it upside down/over gave the homeward directions