Safe Speed Forums

"I’ll REALLY drive you mad!" the Sat Nav voice (in it's best Female Career Politico - voice to the driver!" - "This Lady's NOT for Turning but U-Turn when it's safe to on the motorway!"





No one with half a brain would have driven over Morley Bridge in Devon… A bridge not used since the stage coach transporting Ross Poldark back to Cornwalll after his stint as an MP ... in 1790 -ish... (OK so I wwere a lad when it were on the telly!)



A bloke on an articulated truck did.

Why?

Because that nagging dicatatorial “I know best voice” behind his Sat Nav “told him to.”


After all – getting stuck in the country and having the police chopper and half the force to help you back to civilisation just has to be better than sitting it out in the jam on the A wotsit… don’t it?


Ah.. for the good old days of having a ruck with my wife over the map reading - happy days…

But this gadget – can get you just as cross … after all they send you along a route which would have caused Christopher Columbus and Marco Polo alike to go a whiter shade of pale … after all no one with half a brain would surely take that road down to Slaley … well t' isn't exactly a road. More a - dunno really.

Look – no one tried to drive a stagecoach along it – let alone a car - since Dick Turpin rode Black Bess along it. Yeah I know – it told you the speed limit of that other road and just happened to mention that other kind of highwayman – but you sure this does the suspension any good?


Neil Lyndon in yesterday's Waily fondly recalls testing a BMW Sat Nav way back in 1995 – when it lost all 6 satellites and he got – er – a bit – er – well – er lost… Or rather the female voice telling him what to do - told him the quickest way to Cologne was driving into the Rhine… - and such was his faith in this superior intelligence that he almost took her word for it and drove. - Into the arms of Lorelei.

Lyndon confesses to doing the simple straightforward – ignore the wife and her maps - that guy walking his dog – just has to be local - he’’ be in the know … I’ll ask him…


And like the reporter - I appear to have a compulsion to choose the one who is either sizzled, demented or an eco warrior who takes one look at my nice family car (foreign make) … and …no dice…


His wife – just like my Alice storms - “look why don’t you let me read the. Map?



And like Neil in the paper – I feebly reply “But that’s less sociable. - Less human”!

But nothing’s less human than the Sat nav… proudly perched on the dash (and sensibly placed by normal drivers and positioned worse than those furry dice by the chav brigade (And we have a word in teir ear shell -- like and just offer some pally advice ) – it gives cheery messages like “You have a gooday! And smugly tells you have arrived at your destination … in the middle of the traffic jam from hell and forgot to tell about the congestion charge as well….

Neil Lyndon says his soothingly told him to take a U turn if possible… he was on the M1 at the time… He wanted to [i] " punch its self-satisfied lights out "/i] his amusing article.

He goes on to say







Don’t get me wrong… like all gadgets – you have to use it with common sense … and yes – since it does appear to know most speed limits on most of the normal roads and where the cams are. It can be helpful. However, if you take its advice as to how to avoid the speed traps. And dodge the “passenger lane jam” – you may find your journey takes longer than sitting in the jam listening to the dulcet tones of Fran, Fenella… and Sally Traffic in between the "Togcasters."

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Take with a chuckle or a grain of salt
Drive without COAST and it's all your own fault!

A SMILE is a curve that sets everything straight (P Diller).

A Smiley Per post
FINES USfor our COAST!

Approach love and cooking with reckless abandon - but driving with a smile and a COAST calm mind.

You could be right, In Gear but it is the usual story of how you use the gadget that is the answer.

We still carry a map in the car and like to know where we are going but Sat Nav has also helped a lot on some occasions.

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Shooting is good for you and too good for some people.

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Q. Are you a stupid fascist with limited reading skills or are you just a retard?

I blame the Highways Agency and the local authority. The Highways Agency for simultaneously carrying out major works on the A38, A30, and A303 (effectively strangling road communications into and out of Cornwall); the local authority for lack of signage.

The major road works on the A38 led to reported delays of over an hour and up to 15 mile tailbacks, so it's hardly surprising that the trucker asked his navigation system to route him around the blockage. Unfortunately, the only road suitable for trucks in the vicinity of the Highways Agency fiasco is the A38 itself. So, unless you left the A38 well before the works, any route around the blockage had to be on single-track roads. Once you've started down those roads, you're committed - particularly with a following queue of cars. I've driven around Ogwell often enough and can't remember any signs to say "unsuitable for HGVs", so anyone who didn't know the area wouldn't know about the problem until it was too late (i.e. when the choice was to attempt the bridge or reverse back several miles and upset the queue of cars who are also trying to route around the blocked part of the A38).

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Will

I think SatNav is good for when you get properly lost - you'd normally have a vague idea of where there nearest sizeable town is even if you don't know what road to take to get there. But a bit ify to rely upon if you ask me. My one thinks I should take the first exit on a certain roundabout on the way home. The first exit only goes to a quiet car park by some fields and woods programmed for dogging probably. Also has no clue about the amount of road works the local authority are up to at the moment, not to mention traffic jams, and no through roads that weren't no through when the maps it's based on were made.

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Make everything as simple as possible, but not simpler - Einstein