So you thought Sat Navs were dumb...

[ColinJ]

I've just used the RAC route planner to calculate a route for someone planning to drive from Hebden Bridge to Birmingham. I'm absolutely gobsmacked with what it came up with!

It has been snowing on the western side of the country overnight, including here. The M6 was shut overnight. So, of course, the route heads for the M6 rather than the M1 which is more likely to be clear.

Even more stupid, however, is the decision to send the driver up over a network of hilltop lanes to get to the M62. These roads are the lanes that I choose to cycle on because they are high up, narrow, and traffic-free, There are 20% gradients, and they will be lethal today.

This kind of thing... (and that was when the road had started to clear last winter!)

Anybody taking that route today would get themselves into major difficulty very quickly!

The stupid thing is - there are much quicker A-roads to use in the local valleys and they almost certainly will have been kept clear and gritted.

I suggest not only taking your Sat Nav's instructions as advisory only, but also to do the same thing with the online route planners if this experience is anything to go by!

 

[Spinney]

But the RAC thingy doesn't pretent to have 'live' conditions in it, does it? Looks to me like it's stuck on the 'shortest' route option rather than 'quickest'.

Try the Get Directions option on Google Maps. It seems to take your local A roads and, what is better, it gives you alternatives, and if you don't like those you can also drag the route to make your own variations on it. Still doesn't have live road conditions, but at least you can amend it easily.

 

[Brains]

Anyone that uses a satnav on a regular basis knows they are advisory at best, and downright dangerous at worst

Last weekend, my brand new top of the range satnav suggested I take a large 17 seater minibus down a byway I would have found impassable on a off road bike !

It also took me down a lane to the back of the local school when I wanted to be half a mile away.

Having said which, they are a godsend in a strange town.

 

[taxing]

Yesterday I was walking from the train station to a school in a strange town (Goole - very strange) and Google Maps sent me down a dead end street. The school was at the end of it, but there was no bloody gate. Unlesss I wanted to scale an 8 foot fence I might as well have been miles away, because there was no way I was getting in.

 

[twentysix by twentyfive]

Methinks one has to sort the route using the old style methods and then tell the Sat Nav the route you want via way points. Just my take on it - I don't own a Sat Nav as I find OS Landranger very good usually.