Mandatory IQ tests for satnav users?

[Globalti]

Here's another crapnav-user bashing story: I drove up the M66 after work to meet two colleagues at a local curry house, they set off 10 minutes behind me. When I spotted a bad go-slow ahead I dived off the M66 and got onto the old A56 going parallel to the motorway. Got to the curry house and 'phoned my colleague and told him to get off the M66 at the Ramsbottom exit then follow the old A road as I did.

Then I waited.... and waited..... and waited.... until they arrived 30 minutes later. Turned out the idiot had followed my instruction, driven up the A56 then at the next opportunity his crapnav had instructed him to rejoin the M66, which he had done without a thought.... straight into the traffic jam! Feckin' eejit!

 

[Globalti]

Crapnav is perfect for people who don't understand orientations and directions. I thought this instruction I gave someone recently was pretty good:

"Follow the M6 north to the Preston and Blackburn exit. Head east towards Blackburn then branch left around the northerly ring road. Follow this until it crosses the A666 Blackburn to Clitheroe road and turn left towards Clitheroe."

Could anything be clearer than that? Anyway the bloke still ended up in Darwen on the south side of Blackburn, heading towards Bolton.

 

[Lazy-Commuter]

There's a village in North Kent called Stansted. Apparently, the locals are used to people turning up wondering where all the aeroplanes have gone ..

 

[ColinJ]

My sister and her husband bought a satnav for their car and came up to visit our mother while I was there. We decided to go to their house for the day, a journey that we've done many times. We got in the car, and they started fiddling with the satnav so I asked them what they were doing - "Putting our postcode into the satnav." They explained that the satnav would use this information to work out the way home for them. Strange. Even stranger - it started taking us by a longer route than we normally take. I asked why we were going that way instead of the shorter route. "I'm following the satnav's directions." I got irritated and shouted out "Why!" and they got really defensive about it. I don't get it.

 

[Mortiroloboy]

He probably had the SatNav set for pedestrian. Mine will direct me the wrong way on one way roads and along foot paths if I don't set it for vehicle.
No defence as he is still a dork.

I think if intelligence was a necessity for a driving licence there wouldn't be as many licenced drivers on the road, same number of cars but the stupid people would still drive without just as they do now.

OMG! I have just been trying to give directions to a mad woman, who was virtually crying, she was so stupid.

Whilst getting out of the car back from food shop this morning a female pulled up outside the house and asked for directions to Basingstoke, I directed her back out onto the A339 and the large Roundabout which takes you up the A4 or onto the A339to BASINGSTOKE.

It's a very large RA with traffic lights, having recently undergone some work to improve the layout, the road surface is clearly marked with road numbers and destinations.

The looney tune said she had been round the RA 5 times but could'nt understand why she was always directed left (down the A4)!

Incredulously I looked at her and tried to explain to her how to filter across the lanes so she was in the correct position on the RA to go up the A339, and not down the A4.

Mrs Mental just looked even more confused and told me it wasn't a roundabout, (funny that, it's actually called the Robin Hood Roundabout)

I tried one last time (before giving up the will to live) to put her right, I went in doors to unpack and saw her drive past the kitchen window again, having just seen her drive away to rejoin the main road.

Even with Sat Nav I think she would have still managed to get lost.

 

[Arch]

I got irritated and shouted out "Why!" and they got really defensive about it. I don't get it.

They'll have got defensive because they'd stumped up money for something you're now telling them isn't doing any good, and they probably realise that and feel stupid, but can't admit it.

 

[ColinJ]

They'll have got defensive because they'd stumped up money for something you're now telling them isn't doing any good, and they probably realise that and feel stupid, but can't admit it.

I'm not criticising them for buying it though - bro-in-law usually uses it to get to places he's never been to before for work. That's fair enough, but I can't get my head round (a) bothering to switch the thing on when you already know the route, and ( doing a u-turn in the road and setting off in the wrong direction just because a robot voice from the little box tells you to!

Before anybody who knows me pips in and mentions the fact that I use a Garmin Etrex when cycling... ... I only use it to show me the way on routes I don't know and I program those routes in myself from a map. At other times, I use it as a sophisticated bike computer. It doesn't have any mapping built in so it can't 'decide' to send me anywhere, it can only help me see where I am relative to where I want to be.

 

[nilling]

I love my TomTom and have used one for a couple of years now and would not be with out it.

So here's a positive sat nav tale...

Going to Manchester Academy for a gig one wet and dark Monday night. Traveling down the M61 towards Manchester. However, the police had closed the M61 after a fatal accident and all traffic was being taken off at the nearest junction. I just switched on my TomTom got it to calculate a route avoiding the motorways and arrived for the gig with time to spare

 

[Arch]

I'm not criticising them for buying it though - bro-in-law usually uses it to get to places he's never been to before for work.

Ah but maybe they find it hard to separate the concept of when it's useful and when not - so a criticism of one time is a criticism of all....

 

[ColinJ]

Ah but maybe they find it hard to separate the concept of when it's useful and when not - so a criticism of one time is a criticism of all....

Perhaps it was just their new toy and they wanted to play with it!

 

[Arch]

Perhaps it was just their new toy and they wanted to play with it!

Yeah. Like when my Dad brought a Dymo labeller home from work (the sort with the stiff plastic tape that embossed the letters up from the back). My sister and I labelled everything. 20 years later my mum still had the same kitchen scales with a label on from my sister that said "mumm I love you"...

 

[Globalti]

....until you tried to weigh your first elephant on them, eh Arch?

 

[Arch]

....until you tried to weigh your first elephant on them, eh Arch?

oh! oh, that reminds me...

<goes off to start thread>

 

[vernon]

Fantastic. You'd think he'd notice the lack of London on any for the signposts... Knowing Stamford Bridge (the real one, not the footie ground), I don't suppose a football board member's daughter would find much to do there.... There is a Co op, I think....

Forget the Co-op, there's a mighty fine DIY store opposite it with an annex devoted to various brands of Malt Whisky.

 

[vernon]

So here's a positive sat nav tale...

Going to Manchester Academy for a gig one wet and dark Monday night. Traveling down the M61 towards Manchester. However, the police had closed the M61 after a fatal accident and all traffic was being taken off at the nearest junction. I just switched on my TomTom got it to calculate a route avoiding the motorways and arrived for the gig with time to spare

A road atlas would have got me there too for a lot less money.