Do you trust your satnav?

Cantona's Collars

After what happened to this guy,you might want to take a map aswell just in case.

This white van man had a lucky escape after his satnav sent him to the top of a mountain.

Driver Robert Ziegler, 37, found himself stranded near the peak at Bergun, Switzerland, after he was directed up a 'glorified goat track'.

Unable to go forward or turn around to go back the way he came, he was forced to call the emergency services.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1315762/White-van-man-airlifted-safety-satnav-sends-mountain.html#ixzz10oaZrFXf

Snakeblood

zerks wrote: »

After what happened to this guy,you might want to take a map aswell just in case.



Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1315762/White-van-man-airlifted-safety-satnav-sends-mountain.html#ixzz10oaZrFXf

Not when it tells me to kill. Not yet, anyway.

cormie

Has happened to me before so now I just make sure to tick the "prefer highways" option

This is something they should really sort out though, especially for winter time. It's also because a lot of roads have an 80kmph limit here but realistically with all the bends and turns, when your sat nav thinks you'll be going 80, you're only going about 50 which makes it a lot slower.

If you think you're getting a bit too much off the beaten track, stop and detour.

chin_grin

Directed up a 'glorified goat track'

Teeheeheee.

biko

I love my GPS, super handy, but there just isn't a substitute to stopping and asking directions (and I'm a guy).

Stinicker

Snakeblood wrote: »

Not when it tells me to kill. Not yet, anyway.

I trust it a good bit and it will usually direct me to where I want to go, however when using it on my known routes it does tend to send me some crazy ways but will always get you there in the end, it has a macabre sense of humour. It is very wise to be especially cautious of them on Motorway Intersections, potential oneway streets and if you find yourself on a bohereen it is time to question Sheila Satnavs Authority.

stovelid

Satnav is gay.

I just use a map.

Or drive around with a bogus air of confidence arguing with my wife and refusing to ask other men for directions.

bonerm

Trust it? No way!

This is one possible future if we keep trusting our satnav

alwaysadub

Not really no. Used it one day to get me home even though i knew were i was going, just wanted to test it out. It was trying to send me here there and everywhere. I would've ended up going round in circles on small country roads on the side of a mountain if i'd followed it.

rainbowdrop

I don't have a satnav, but I'm laughing at one of the comments underneath the article - "White van man, the brain dead of the motoring world":cool:

keano_afc

I've only used one twice, cartography is something I always enjoyed. I was driving to Killarney last weekend and the sat nav went a bit mad when I went on to the new M8 outside Portlaoise. It had me on screen driving around in a field for the next hour.

I borrowed my dad's one once. I decided it didn't know what it was talking about and ignored it. An hour later I passed a sign for the place I had left saying "10km".

Yes, yes I am blond.

JerryHandbag

Never had one & never will. Nothing like folding pages of a large map while driving, oblivious to the trail of desctruction you've just left in your wake :cool:

NothingMan

Used one to find a mate down the shticks and it took me an extra hour and a lot of country lanes to get there.

Used it in England and it was most helpful and took us to some remote places we would never have found on our own.

So....

fakearms123

biko wrote: »

I love my GPS, super handy, but there just isn't a substitute to stopping and asking directions (and I'm a guy).

You're a guy, I doubt it

bonerm

stovelid wrote: »

Satnav is gay.

You probably just downloaded the Alan Hughes voice by mistake.

Mint Sauce

i use one, wouldn't trust it 100%, no subsitute for a map, local knowledge, or road signs.

have often tested it on routes i know, often to hear it recalcualting route a few times along the way.

cherryghost

Turn LEFT... INTO ditch.

Ghost Train

Did anyone see that episode of "my family's crazy gap year" where this idiot set off with his family on a road trip around Africa, a week into the journey he driving pretty fast on back road watching the gps because he can't see the road. Leaves the road, rolls the car and nearly kills them all :pac:

godtabh

keano_afc wrote: »

I've only used one twice, cartography is something I always enjoyed. I was driving to Killarney last weekend and the sat nav went a bit mad when I went on to the new M8 outside Portlaoise. It had me on screen driving around in a field for the next hour.

update your software!

Ush1

Wonder how many people finding them useless just don't know how to use them properly?

NothingMan

Ush1 wrote: »

Wonder how many people finding them useless just don't know how to use them properly?

Well that's certainly an issue. Took a very long route once then realised it was set to walking! Woops.

Shenshen

Ours was quite useful when we were house-hunting a while back (the amount of driving around we did was unreal), but for the most part, it's pretty useless.

It's painfully inaccurate and inadequate outside cities, and driving around Ireland it keeps asking us to "return to the nearest road" most of the time. :rolleyes:

azezil

I take trains...

Ush1

NothingMan wrote: »

Well that's certainly an issue. Took a very long route once then realised it was set to walking! Woops.

Yep.

Big group of us were slagging it cause it took us so long to drive somewhere in America. Turns out it was set to avoid highways so a 4 hour drive took 8 hours.:o

Dravokivich

zerks wrote: »

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1315762/White-van-man-airlifted-safety-satnav-sends-mountain.html#ixzz10oaZrFXf

That guy's a moron... you can't blame the Satnav, it doesn't make you go the route it's suggesting...

I recall a while ago reading about a guy who almost drove his car off a cliff... turned out he'd been driving for 5 miles on a Hillwalking Path.

The problem is these drivers aren't paying attention to what they are doing...

GavRedKing

I used one for going to Dublin form Cork, mainly for finding my way around the city, but decided to power it up on the way for a bit of entertainment, on a new part of the Cork - Dublin strecth the Sat Nav had my location as driving through a field, fun times.

orourkeda

Do these people know how to look out the window and watch where they're going?

Ush1

gavredking wrote: »

I used one for going to Dublin form Cork, mainly for finding my way around the city, but decided to power it up on the way for a bit of entertainment, on a new part of the Cork - Dublin strecth the Sat Nav had my location as driving through a field, fun times.

Yep, and through water aswell.

That's the most annoying thing to be honest, that the maps aren't updated often enough.

Scuid Mhór

i'd never get a sat-nav. damn inventions have their own hidden agenda.

seamus

I use it all the time, but more for time & distance estimation moreso than direction.

The problem is that they all seem to be calibrated to the speed limit of the road rather than the possible speed, as I discovered in west cork recently. Rather than bring me down the relatively well-paved N-road to my destination, it took me down a boreen which, while it was 100m shorter than the N-route and had a speed limit of 80km/h, was barely the width of my car and had grass growing in the middle of it.

I generally check the map to find out roughly where my destination is. If it's on a main road, then I ignore any directions to leave the main road.

cormie

That's the problem alright, especially in a big van with a heavy load where you've to crawl along

The distance and time calculation is a great reason to have them too, when I can give my customers an arrival time correct within 5 minutes it's brilliant and when you can see how many KM's you have left of a journey and can see if you'll make it with fuel etc it's great.

I'd one customer in Manchester I texted when I left London at about 4 or 5am with an ETA of 08:05 (GPS said 07:50 or so and I added a bit for morning traffic), reversed into the guys drive way at exactly 08:05 and he was amazed

Noreen1

stovelid wrote: »

Satnav is gay.

I just use a map.

Or drive around with a bogus air of confidence arguing with my wife and refusing to ask other men for directions.

And I thought it was only my OH who refused to ask anyone for directions.:D:D
It must be a man thing:eek:.:p

Noreen

RoadKillTs

I trust mine way too much! Really handy though.

ringadingding

Used them in Ireland , uk and Europe.
Only had problems with it in Ireland.
Currently in Austria where it is superb and recalculates your eta every 5 mins with current speeds and gps position.

Was driving tiny country lanes in Wexford once and it kept showing non existent roundabouts!

Manic Moran

Portable Sat-Navs are so reliable that they are banned from being used as a primary navigation system in an aircraft, at least in the US. "Where's that mountain in the clouds, again?"

NTM

There's a "road" near where I live that appears on all the decent maps as a road, but is so bad it not only has grass down the middle, it has no tarmac, is difficult to walk along - let alone drive anything that is classified as a road vehicle.