Safe Speed Forums

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

It gives me full instructions
On exactly how to drive
"It's thirty miles an hour" it says
"And you're doing thirty five"

It tells me when to stop and start
And when to use the brake
And tells me when 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
It lists 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!

I have a little Satnav
I've had it all my life
It does more than any normal one, for
My Satnav is my wife

I just updated the software - we bought a new AA road atlas!

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Time to take responsibility for our actions.. and don't be afraid of speaking out!

Is that one you made up ?

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Safe Speed for Intelligent Road Safety through proper research, experience & guidance.

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lets bring sanity back to speed limits.
Drivers are like donkeys -they respond best to a carrot, not a stick .Road safety experts are like Asses - best kept covered up ,or sat on

My mum forwarded it to me - and it works for me!

We seemed to manage without SatNavs for so long....

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Time to take responsibility for our actions.. and don't be afraid of speaking out!

So have we .My biggest compliment was from a young lad at work ,who used to follow his football team all over the country by car. It wasn't unusual for him to call me looking for an alternative route as the M so & so was gridlocked .
But then again ,my youngest is now growing in confidence in finding places ,since I bought her a sat nav that she's getting out and about more. ( And finding out that dad was right when he said she always takes the long route to anywhere).

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lets bring sanity back to speed limits.
Drivers are like donkeys -they respond best to a carrot, not a stick .Road safety experts are like Asses - best kept covered up ,or sat on

I DO find sat navs useful as someone who has to travel to other universities (which are frequently in the middle of cities). Find Leicester is easy with a sat nav, finding a particular car park at De Montfort (for example) much less so.

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I won't slave for beggar's pay,
likewise gold and jewels,
but I would slave to learn the way
to sink your ship of fools

Google maps.
Leicester.
Centre on de montfort.
Switch to satellite view.
pick the car park
Right click, down to "what's here"
Note map reference in address bar.
Enter into satnav

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The world runs on oil, period. No other substance can compete when it comes to energy density, flexibility, ease of handling, ease of transportation. If oil didn’t exist we would have to invent it.”

56 years after it was decided it was needed, the Bedford Bypass is nearing completion. The last single carriageway length of it.We have the most photogenic mayor though, always being photographed doing nothing

That's what I do

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I won't slave for beggar's pay,
likewise gold and jewels,
but I would slave to learn the way
to sink your ship of fools

I find they're a Godsend in an unfamiliar city. If reguarly updated, at least I have a fighting chance of knowing what that particular week's speed limit is in any particular place! Whilst it's true that we used to manage fine without them, (as did I!), I find that I'm much shorter on time these days than I used to be, traffic management is rather more counter-intuitive, there are more cars anyway, and the days of "built up area = 30, NSL 60 DC & motorway 70 are LONG gone!

First quote on this -

"I have a spell chequer ,it came with my PEE CEE ." Second one was from a bloke I met at college ,a few years back. I'd gone back as a very mature student, and he was about my age ,and taught a lot of teenagers .One day ,he decided to wake up the maths brains of his pupils after finding that if calculator said answer was ="x" ,then that was right. He took calculators of kids for session . The results were amazing- not one right. Third one is with my firefox spell/grammar checker ( it's gone red on this last sentence, fire fox ,should be fire-fox, apparently ).

But on a long trip - my sat nag always comes up trumps( stop for a brew up ,and what sat nav can provide a hot cuppa & a cheese butty) -but then what bit of technology can keep you warm on a cold winter's night, or cook you a decent stew . Dish washing- only tablets she needs are Worthers, or a box of Milk Tray, and a bunch of flowers .

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lets bring sanity back to speed limits.
Drivers are like donkeys -they respond best to a carrot, not a stick .Road safety experts are like Asses - best kept covered up ,or sat on

I remember a long time ago, a student at my University caused total amusement by using a spellchecker unwisely (and without reading the results) and produced a lengthy essay about a famous case oin Australia where a woman's baby "was stolen by a dildo in the outback".

and

About 40 years ago I was, as new lecturer in a college, confronted with a class of Police Cadets who were expected to do C&G Proficiency in Arithmetic ... I drew chalk marks on the road outside - got them measure the "tyre marks" and substitute into a formula... The result? A cadet, when asked, said, "The Mini in question was doing 172mph when the brakes were applied" - questioned, he stuck to his guns: "I done it on my calculator"

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I won't slave for beggar's pay,
likewise gold and jewels,
but I would slave to learn the way
to sink your ship of fools

That's funny!

Certainly I used to always map read and was taught that for safety to always have clear direction for the last mile or so in detail. That way I was looking so vulnerable to would be 'chancers' (Firefox spellchecker likes itself in Upper case Botach, but dislikes chancers!) or worse as I entered unknown destinations.
I still find women are better at some directions locally and men are far better at long distance directions and all DIY places !

At least I see a lot fewer hesitant drivers looking for destinations ... you could always pick them out by bad positioning, going far slower than conditions called for or stop /slow very suddenly and people 'moving heads'... etc
Sat Navs have been been for that part of road safety.

I certainly used to map read for Paul, but I (although a bit better now) find it hard to look at a map for very long before 'feeling funny'. Sometimes he didn't believe me and would stop and check for himself, but occasionally that was because his instinct (internal magnetic ? whatever) told him we were possibly going in the wrong direction. We weren't ! - well not unless you count deliberately going the longer route to enjoy the scenery and/or road!

Frightening to think though, that this is the 'up and coming' generation that might just possibly be part of those 'in charge' of us all, as we become old and frail !

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Safe Speed for Intelligent Road Safety through proper research, experience & guidance.

I also travel to places which are unfamiliar during the working week and I couldn't possibly safely get there as conveniently as using my Sat Nav.

I'm so well travelled that I can easily get to the town or city using my brain these days but it's that last few miles where it comes into its own. Blue-toothing to my phone is also another advantage.

You can't beat having local knowledge though and every Sat Nav I have used has quirks, but it has to be safer than trying to look at the AtoZ while driving because there's nowhere to pull over in moving traffic.

When my friend went down to London, to a concert recently without a Sat Nav, he carefully studied the route and got there no problem. What he didn't consider was getting back. He said he went around in circles for an hour hitting one way streets etc. late at night desperate just to head home.

Completely changed his mind about the virtues of a Sat Nav...

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The views expressed in this post are personal opinions and do not necessarily represent the views of Safe Speed.
You will be branded a threat to society by going over a speed limit where it is safe to do so, and suffer the consequences of your actions in a way criminals do not, more so than someone who is a real threat to our society.

When I was last at college, I heard a little nugget from a lecturer .Trying to get his class to be able to work out if the answer on the calculator was correct, he set some problems ,and banned calculators. Not one student knew how to work out the answer .
At the time ,I was running a 286 ( gives the time span away rather) , with a boot up virus checker. As a precaution, I stuck this on my floppies for use on college work. ( simple line in Autoexec.bat ran it) . It was amazing how many times it brought up infected machines. So much so that one bright bloke condemned my floppy as virus prone. Till I had a chat with one of the techs ,who found that a lot of the machines ,although networked, had a hard drive ,and most of these were infected .

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lets bring sanity back to speed limits.
Drivers are like donkeys -they respond best to a carrot, not a stick .Road safety experts are like Asses - best kept covered up ,or sat on

Yes, I've had that with a graduate we took on. Asked him to give me a rough idea of the volume of a fuel tank. I went off and did something else, and was a bit surprised an hour later when I cam back and he was still working on it. (this being a cubic fuel tank)! Eventually, he came back and told me it was 8.2154 litres.

"Bobbins!" I said (or something very like it)!

He absolutely stuck to his guns!!! Went through all the calculations again on his calculator (making the same mistake) and showed me the result to even more decimal places.

I asked him, if I fiilled it with beer, how long it would take him to drink it and he obviously had an intuitive idea of the volume, because he said he'd be able to swim in it, never mind drink it. I then asked if he thought he'd be able to swim in 8 litres of anything and it seemed that there was just a fundamental lack of an understanding of how big a litre was, coupled to the (these days customary) unshakeable faith in the calculator - mainly because you get the answer to a lot of decimal palces.

(it was 80-odd litres, by the way)!

Reminds me of the "Spelling Chequer" poem:

Eye halve a spelling chequer
It came with my pea sea
It plainly marques four my revue
Miss steaks eye kin knot sea

Eye strike a key and type a word
And weight four it two say
Weather eye am wrong oar write
It shows me strait a weigh

As soon as a mist ache is maid
It nose bee four two long
And eye can put the error rite
Its rare lea ever wrong

Eye have run this poem threw it
am shore your pleased two no
Its letter perfect awl the weigh
My chequer tolled me sew.

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"Show me someone who says that they have never exceeded a speed limit, and I'll show you a liar, or a menace." (Austin Williams - Director, Transport Research Group)

Any views expressed in this post are personal opinions and may not represent the views of Safe Speed

Peter E -that's the one I was thinking of .

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lets bring sanity back to speed limits.
Drivers are like donkeys -they respond best to a carrot, not a stick .Road safety experts are like Asses - best kept covered up ,or sat on

Superb poem Peter! Showed it to my teenage daughter (who still thinks it's cool to be fluent in "textspeak" and isn't the world's best at spelling but has unshakeable faith in the spell chequer)!