Epic satnav fail

[forddeliveryboy]

So we're in the generation of those who believe what they're told rather than what they research and read. Perhaps it's always been this way, it's just that the stoopid lot think they're as able as the IQ of their computer's desginer or database compiler? I read an article recently on the problem of traffic police who believe they've super-human virtues on account of being online in their cars with digital cameras linked to databases, creating an arrogance which is escalating into a serious problem. Possibly the same happens to motorists who drive into an estuary in their car because the satnav said to do so.

 

Thank god the Russian military guy http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanislav_Petrov whose computers assured him there was a Western nuclear missile attack underway not only ignored the computers which told him this was happening but also his superiors who ordered a retaliatory strike.

 

Anyone got any stories of satnav fail-ness which the meeja haven't picked up on?

 

[Junkman]

My satnav hasn't failed me so far.

 

[inconsistant]

^^^atnav

[rml2345]

I've got one of those analogue navigation things too. It's got AA written on it and lives in the door pocket.

[Richard]

My satnav took me to the wrong side of the Clyde once, £25 for the ferry. I check what it's telling me before I set off now.

 

It has tried to take me on footpaths, forest tracks, farm roads, people's gardens etc. Sometimes I follow it to see where it thinks it's going, though obviously I wouldn't follow it over a cliff or anything.

[catsinthewelder]

My dad has a sat-nav so if we are out with 2 cars somewhere that neither of us know then I'll follow him.  A couple of years back it took us up a lane near Shrewsbury and at the last place that you could turn round was a sign saying 'sat-nav error'.

 

I found it funnier than him.

[Lukas]

I use my satnav around town when I have to go somewhere I don´t know. It´s been brilliant everytime. Vienna via car by map is not funny.

 

But outside town, when overland-driving, I don´t need it most of the time.

[NorfolkNWeigh]

A couple of years ago Mrs N and the kids went on holiday to The Dordogne a week before me , as I had a lot of work on and couldn't get away. Anyway I flew Ryanair into Bergerac and they picked me up, it was decided as we were halfway to the coast we'd have a day at the seaside, which we duly did.

End of the day ,time to head back to the git or whatever they call converted cowsheds in France, I'm now driving and enter the address in the sat-nav. After 10 minutes Mrs N and all 4 kids fast asleep as normal, I'm quite enjoying the deserted French roads and as I have no idea where I'm going following the sat-nav blindly......

 

I was just rounding a particularly tight hairpin on the single track pass when the guvnor wakes up ; 'What the fuck are we doing up a mountain!?' She enquires in a demure way. 'Its pretty much dual carriageway to within 10 miles of the house'

I stopped and got out the map, the stupid Volvo navigation had taken me on a 60 mile loop and onto some roads so minor I don't think some of them were surfaced. It added 2 hours to the journey and probably cost £50 in petrol ,T6 XC90's are thirstier than Turbo R's- fact.

 

As you can imagine ,this is Mrs N's favourite anecdote whenever the words sat-nav,lost or map enter a conversation over the last 6 years.

[Des]

Those devices are wonderful but best used as a guide, always check the route summary map thing. I find them most useful for towns like Slough or Luton, set a random destination 50 miles away and floor it.

[HillmanImp]

Sort of related: http://autoshite.com/topic/4173-garmin-speed-record/

[Timewaster]

I usually set mine, then completely ignore it until I get close to the destination.

It's a company tom tom with 2 settings.

 

Fastest route will take you via dual carriageways and motorways even if it is 20 miles out of your way. Or

Shortest route which will take you down farm tracks and peoples gardens to save going an extra 20ft.

 

Sadly there is no common sense mode.

 

Also, I had a massive fail a couple of years ago when I hurriedly googled the post code for the O2 on the way out of the door.

 

Unfortunately the O2 CENTRE is bloody miles away from the O2 ARENA. Luckily we had left early so we could have dinner before the concert.

 

We had a sandwich from the spar shop. Mrs TT NOT impressed!

[pshome]

I have a little Satnav
It sits there in my car
A Satnav is a driver's friend
It tells you where you are

 

I have a little Satnav
I've had it all my life
It's better than the normal ones
My Satnav is my wife!

 

It gives me full instructions
Especially how to drive
"It's thirty miles an hour", it says
"You're doing thirty five"

 

It tells me when to stop and start
And when to use the brake
And tells me that it's never ever
Safe to overtake

 

It tells me when a light is red
And when it goes to green
It seems to know instinctively
Just when to intervene

 

It lists the vehicles just in front
And all those to the rear
And taking this into account
It specifies my gear.

 

I'm sure no other driver
Has so helpful a device
For when we leave and lock the car
It still gives its advice

 

It fills me up with counselling
Each journey's pretty fraught
So why don't I exchange it
And get a quieter sort?

 

Ah well, you see, it cleans the house,
Makes sure I'm properly fed,
It washes all my shirts and things
And - keeps me warm in bed!

 

Despite all these advantages
And my tendency to scoff,
I do wish that once in a while
I could turn the damned thing off!

[pshome]

[Station]

Sat navs > paper maps. Accept it!

[retrogeezer]

sat navs are great - I've not seen a UK road atlas that gives you every turn and street name unless you are driving around with a bootfull of A-Z's for every single city,town,village in the country?

 

I've only ever had one issue when my old Navman F20 told me to turn right off a bridge over the M6 near Alsager. Other than that, quickest route, shortest route, nearest petrol, supermarket etc. You can see nearby rivers, ponds etc if you fancy a random stop somewhere picturesque. 

 

Oh, and you can get Yoda to give you directions too. 

[Pillock]

I've found a couple of oddities relating to new roads... Just outside Mansfield where the A60 and A617 meet it always wants me to turn off an overbridge with a 40ft drop. As a guide they're brilliant, I use Google Maps now rather than my Blaupunkt head unit one and it's even good for sitting there the night before working away somewhere new, working out when to get up because it knows that every Tuesday at 8am the traffic backs up at a certain junction.

[SambaS]

My satnav took me right through the Forbidden Corner the other day, beyond all the 'this is not a road' signs and along some dirt path. Id set it to shortest rought for a laugh. Didn't complete all my deliveries that day.

[steve_earwig]

Oh, and you can get Yoda to give you directions too. 

Drive over cliff, will you.

 

When I drove to Blighty a couple of years back I borrowed my bro's Tomtom (he sent it by post), bluddy briliiant, it even made up for the couple of times I effed up by instantly recalculating the route AND SAYING NOTHING! (Sat nav 1, wife 0). It even had all those stupid little roads around Dunkirk which I imagine would be impossible with a map.  The only country it didn't cover was Croatia, that's ok, we kind of know that one. Still, it was fun when we turned off the motorway here and it showed us heading off across a field.

[Pillock]

My Blaupunkt used to have a 60% mode. It was partway between shortest and fastest and used to get it pretty much spot on. Google is a bit better as it learns my favourite routes so now after a few days of using the A444 instead of further up the A42, it just sends me that way.

[Barry Cade]

Very topical thread, as I'm sitting at the laptop trying to recover my little Navigon which died just outside Osnabruck. I am in such fear of the Brussels ring road that I dropped in to the nearest Media Markt and dropped the price of a just about MOT'd Cinquecento on a spanking new Tom Tom. The Navigon was my best pal,confidant and stress reliever when on the breakdowns,taking me up hill and down dale, never getting upset and always sorting out my f*ck ups. Best 30 quid I ever spent...until it lost the ability to find satelites on the Autobahn south of Bremen.

 

You do need to get used to all the little quirks,ignoring some and going against your better judgement with others,sometimes you are best just putting your trust in them 100%, and sometimes best just switching them off. If you don't have a relationship with your navi, then you won't ever know how good they can be. Tom Tom, you have a lot to live up to....

[andy18s]

The better half's Outlander hasn't had it's built in satnav updated since it was built in 07, which makes for some very interesting choices of direction!

We go to the fallback option of Shaznav, which consists of her telling me "we should have turned off there/taken that last exit"..............

[PhilA]

A few years back I'd bought the old man a NavMan, little silver job (Running Windows CE, maybe it was more than just a few years then) and he drove around for ages with it.

We borrowed it to go visit friends a couple years ago, hit the M6 toll on a section that it didn't understand. It went silent for a few minutes, then zoomed the map out and started scribbling red lines (usually denoting the route you should take) all over the map like a five year old's crayon and then bricked itself.

I still think that's the correct reaction to the M6 toll.

 

I have found that GPS works a lot better here, because the roads are slightly less insane. It doesn't help though that the computer thought itself cleverer than the operator (who got into a furious sulk that Siri was stupid) when, in Philadelphia we were directed to the Liberty Bell Shopping Mall, a small run-down strip mall looking place on the outskirts of the city, rather than to the Liberty Bell itself...

 

Phil

[Skizzer]

Had a lot less trouble with satnavs than I used to with maps.  I once went to a wedding in Rennes using a road atlas of Europe:  the scale was different on every bloody page and it took me about four hours longer to get there than I'd allowed.  Arrived just in time for that part of the reception when everyone's pissed and people start fighting.

 

Also, anybody want a 1990s A to Z of Aldershot, Chichester, York, Cheltenham, Norwich, Derby, Canterbury and the Cinque Ports, Bath and Wells, Northallerton and Skipton, Brussels, Geneva or Munich?  All used once.

 

I've used satnavs on and off since I got Michelin Maps for my Palm Pilot in about 2001.  They're mostly GR12 but you still have to apply some common sense.  Which is as much of a design flaw on these as it is on steering wheels and accelerator pedals.

[I_am_Diesel]

I always Google the postcode before the journey and use the Google map street view thing  to locate where I want to go and pick up any points of interest to aid my navigation.

 

Sat Nav is shizzle! Phact!!

[Hendry]

I've got a Garmin for work and I'd be absolutely screwed without it, I generally head towards the town/city I want with the address punched in so I can just hit "go" to find the right street I want, as said, only ever use your sat nav as a guide don't rely on it 100% as it will come back to haunt you. Only thing that annoys me with mine is if I put the postcode and house number in then hit go it will bring up a wrong street even though the postcode is 100% correct and Google maps checked but type in the address manually and it finds it no bother. Another bit of advice, if buying one go to Hellfrauds as they usually have cracking deals on slightly outdated models, mine had just been replaced when I bought it and I got it for £150 half price with free lifetime map updates which are worth their weight in gold as they are about £75 sometimes for 1 update if you buy one.

[mat_the_cat]

Having been fairly set against sat navs for many years, I must admit I'm quite pleased with the one I got for Christmas a few years back. It looks at the average speeds of other sat nav users on the same roads, so if you pick the fastest route it will looks at real world speeds rather than a theoretical one. If I'm in the van I don't tend to go much above 60 mph, so I can set that as a maximum - that way it isn't sending me miles out of the way onto a motorway when perhaps a fast, more direct A road is the quicker choice.

 

The only downside (apart from the cost of map updates) is when we're in France, you can't find a balance between using *some* toll motorways to keep the journey time down - it's either all or nothing. I'd gladly spend a tenner if it saved an hour of driving say, or willing to drive an extra 20 minutes to save £20. That said, if you use it in conjunction with a map it's possible, and planning a journey on a map is part of the fun I find.

[richardmorris]

I was against sat navs too, but got a tomtom xl with Europe maps a few years ago and have found it very useful when driving alone and unable to check the atlas lying on the passenger seat. You do still need an idea of where you're going though, and the intelligence to ignore it from time to time ( I don't answer back to it honest). My maps haven't updated in the last few years, which isn't a problem in the uk where we don't build new roads, but can be tricky in France where they seem to sprout overnight.

 

On the satnav the 2cv shows 67at an indicated 70mph, the fiat about the same and the merc 70. The worst was the xantia reading 65.

I've chosen a sexy irish voice for mine with a little 2CV icon - I did have z sexy French voice for a while but couldn't translate and drive at the same time.

[Lord Sterling]

The only way SatNavs ever fail on me is when they physically fail. So far thats 2 of them broken now, the first one system froze despite resetting everything and the second broke it's charging point inside the SatNav itself, it'll need resoldering on again. These days I just look on Google maps now and get a rough idea of what direction I'm meant to be going, then I'll just follow the signs.

[Pillock]

Maps can't do traffic. Maps can't send me the back roads if some Lithuanian geezer has flipped his load of toilet rolls on the M5.

However, as a geek I still love paper maps. I don't find them useful for driving, but I'll happily "read" a road atlas even if I'm not going anywhere soon.

[mat_the_cat]

I'll happily "read" a road atlas even if I'm not going anywhere soon.

 

Me too. I love planning a journey, and guessing from a map which might be the interesting/scenic roads. Sadly I can only really do this when alone in the car (as Lana isn't keen on 'unnecessary' driving) and when I don't have too many time constraints, which makes it a rare treat.