Strange sat nav route

[stevie_b]

Does anyone else on here have occasional trouble with the route that their sat nav tries to take them?

 

I was driving somewhere recently along a motorway, and the sat nav took me off at one junction, led me through a couple of tiny villages connected by narrow lanes, and put me back on the motorway at the next junction. Now, fascinating as the detour may have been, this was a touch annoying and not time-efficient.

 

I double-checked that the sat nav was set to "fastest route" (which it was) and not "shortest route".

 

Has anyone else had this type of problem? If so, was it corrected by map updates? AFAIK for my sat nav, updates are quite expensive, and the roads in question have been there for a good 20 years or more: we're not talking recent road-building here.

 

My sat nav is a Garmin c500 series, a few years old now.

[Smallshinyant]

I have to admit to ending up in on some strange roads, while blindly following my sat nav's directions.

 

This was a while ago while working nights travelling across the country. Twice i nearly drove into a river because the sat nav thought i was smart enough to realise that cars don't float unless they get on the ferry(Ha almost proved it wrong).

 

And while in Wales, i ended up on a dirt track at the top of a very big hill at night in the fog. Had to stop mainly because of the sheep thinking i brought them food.

 

None of them are perfect, they are getting better slowly. I tend to follow road signs until i get close to a location and then let the sat nav bring me in.

[MrRalphMan]

The only weird route that copilot on my desire tries to take me is when I go home, I go through the Lime house tunnel it wants me to take a left and go down the A13. Avoiding the A13 is what the lht was built for.

[Animal]

My old Road Angel did that to me, not helped by the fact that it would no longer update using Win7. The final straw was in London earlier on this year; it took 15 mins to find a signal, then got lost in the city centre, finally found the M1, then told me to come off the motorway, go round the roundabout and get back on !. It then proceeded to miss the M6 and send me the wrong side of the Pennines. I think it took me something like 8 hours to get from London to Preston.

 

I smashed it repeatedly into the steering wheel shouting "Lie to me now, bitch!" and bought a Garmin Nuvi which has not given me any trouble at all

[jackso11]

It could be that the motorway at that point was classed as a traffic hotspot so the quickest route may cut that bit out.

 

Does anyone else on here have occasional trouble with the route that their sat nav tries to take them?

 

I was driving somewhere recently along a motorway, and the sat nav took me off at one junction, led me through a couple of tiny villages connected by narrow lanes, and put me back on the motorway at the next junction. Now, fascinating as the detour may have been, this was a touch annoying and not time-efficient.

 

I double-checked that the sat nav was set to "fastest route" (which it was) and not "shortest route".

 

Has anyone else had this type of problem? If so, was it corrected by map updates? AFAIK for my sat nav, updates are quite expensive, and the roads in question have been there for a good 20 years or more: we're not talking recent road-building here.

 

My sat nav is a Garmin c500 series, a few years old now.

[Brett 1]

Ive been told to go the wrong way around roundabouts, through public footpaths in fields and down oneway roads (the wrong way)

[TonyP]

Ive been told to go the wrong way around roundabouts, through public footpaths in fields and down oneway roads (the wrong way)

 

Mine did that for a while until I realised I'd left in on "walking" instead of "driving"

[Rob]

Oddly if I head home to the North from Dartford, up the M11, TomTom 5 will tell me to get to the M1 by leaving the M11 by driving up the embankment onto a bridge miles before Stansted.

[ivan]

Please tell me you lot don't blindly follow these satnav misdirections?

[Havard]

I remember my old 52 plate Laguna had built in Sat Nav and in the middle of Wales took me down a road that hadn't seen a car for quite some time. I noticed that the road was rarely used but the road started about 2 cars wide and ended up much, much narrower and much more overgrown. The satnav had a plan, to take me all the way to the end of the road, if there was one....

 

I endup running out of road as the branches of the trees got closer and closer to the car.... Eventually a branch hit the roof and I decided to turn back. The problem was that the path was only about 7 feet wide. I reversed as far as I could and after getting out of the car a couple of times I found a spot to "try" to turn around. The was on a slight incline and I was worried that the front wheesl would not grip with all the weight on the rear of the car. How right I was, I went about a foot too far and the car started sliding back down the slope and possibly into a brook that I now spotted at the bottom of the slope.

 

I started to want my mum....

 

I found myself in the middle of "middle earth" wearing a suit in the pouring rain, and having to put my floor mats under the tyres to get grip. After 10 long minutes of trying to to lose my company car and explain to my boss that it was all the Satnav's fault, I managed to get the car going forward and got out of the hell hole. The car was only 3 months old and had picked up a couple of scratches and some now kanckered floor mats.

 

I reprogrammed the Satnav to go the quickest and not shortest route and it told me to go back into "middle earth"......

 

You need to be really careful, especially in rural areas as they can get you into real trouble very quickly..!!

 

H.

[stevie_b]

Please tell me you lot don't blindly follow these satnav misdirections?

 

Us lot don't blindly follow these satnav misdirections.

 

I see what you're saying though. I know they're not infallible, but it would be nice if they were able to plot a route between 2 points when there is an obvious choice (i.e. a motorway). If one has sufficient regional knowledge then their directions can be ignored.

[caseys]

Be glad it was just a village detour

 

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/oct/04/gps-driver-death-spanish-reservoir

 

 

 

It is perhaps the secret fear of all users of GPS systems: what if the device gets it wrong and leads you into danger?

 

The Spanish Red Cross said today this was exactly what happened to a 37-year-old man who died on Saturday night after driving his car into a reservoir near the western town of Capilla.

 

"It seems the GPS system pointed them on to an old road that ends in the reservoir, and that in the dark they were unable to brake in time, with the car taking just a couple of minutes to sink," the Red Cross said in a statement.

 

The victim and a single passenger were driving home towards the southern city of Seville after working at a street fair when the Peugeot 306 ploughed straight into the waters of La Serena reservoir.

 

Although both men managed to get out of the car, only one made it to the shore. Red Cross divers found the body of the unnamed driver at the bottom of the reservoir on Sunday morning.

 

The passenger was treated for bruising and light injuries.

 

Pictures of the scene show the old road running on a slight downhill slope straight into the reservoir, which is the biggest in the country.

 

There was no explanation of why the GPS still showed the road as usable. La Serena reservoir, which stores water from the Zújar river, was built in 1989.

 

Begs the question of if they were paying attention at all... or just darwinism.

[patrikbrunt]

I took this picture on the way back from Alton Towers a couple of weeks back.... did make me chuckle!!

 

[Havard]

[Neil-NA]

Sat navs can get you in deep poo poo, check this oot.

 

http://www.gtr.co.uk/forum/82089-never-trust-sat-nav.html