Yesterday morning there was a accident on the M3 southbound somewhere near J3.
The radio was reporting all clear but the tailback was still onto the M25 and back to J13 Staines ( on Thames?) of the M25.
With reasonable alternative routes ( 3 lanes free past the M25 tailback) I would have opted to get out of it but thank goodness many cannot navigate well.
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How good are you at alternative routes when you are out of your area of knowledge? Do you become a satnav muppet? At least my satnav routes me around delays if I choose to believe it. :-)
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Mine routed me round a big jam on the M25 the other day but so many drivers had satnav re-routing them that the alternative (A roads thru various towns) was clogged up to but at least we were moving!
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>> ... but so
>> many drivers had satnav re-routing them that the alternative (A roads thru various towns) was
>> clogged up to but at least we were moving!
>>
Exactly - and often I find the alternative routes are not moving. I don't get as far the M25 very much but find any alternative route off the M40 quickly gets jammed solid.
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>> Exactly - and often I find the alternative routes are not moving. I don't get
>> as far the M25 very much but find any alternative route off the M40 quickly
>> gets jammed solid.
>>
It must be absolutely wonderful to live in the south east. :-)
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Sure is ON, there was a tractor on the back lane today so I had to go the other way to get some milk, must have been all of 400 yards (well 403yards actually) to find a diversion
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>> It must be absolutely wonderful to live in the south east. :-)
>>
Apparently the streets are all paved with gold though. ;)
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The problem is, that most people think "route round" the jam, rather than "reroute"
"Route round" has one sticking as close to the original route as possible so one can rejoin it past the jam. Everyone thinks like this, so it gets jammed as well.
"Re Route" is more radical, and often the better choice.
In a big jam, I hit the TomsToms calculate another route, using the shortest distance rather than fastest. Its often way off the original track, and works better - well away from the sat nav muppets trying to mirror the original route.
Last edited by: Zero on Sat 7 Apr 12 at 11:51
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>> In a big jam, I hit the TomsToms calculate another route, using the shortest
>> distance rather than fastest. Its often way off the original track, and works better -
>> well away from the sat nav muppets trying to mirror the original route.
>>
I did that in my Merc when the M40 was closed one trip last year and it had me driving down the narrowest of single track lanes. If it had packed up at any point I'd probably still be there!
If there's enough warning I try and take a completely different route but unless you know the area you don't get enough of a view on the sat-nav screen to be able to see alternatives.
Last edited by: Bill Payer on Sat 7 Apr 12 at 12:11
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A trick I've always used in London, long before sat navs were available and which still stands me in good stead to this day, is to simply head roughly on the compass bearing I need. If there's a compass available ( there's one on the nav in my case ) or if you can see the sun and you know what time of day it is it's pretty easy to figure out which way you should be heading provided you know roughly where you want to go and indeed where you are !
Maps and indeed sat navs tempt you to follow major or obvious routes which by default are generally congested. By following a compass bearing, you tend to meander in your chosen direction of travel on more obscure roads which in turn are often much quieter.
As a result, I've learned a number of rat runs through the city which cut journey times significantly. Another tip is rather than waiting an age for a break in traffic to turn right on to a busy road, carry on where possible at such junctions, take the next quiet right and right again, then turn left onto your chosen busy road.
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That works a bit for me too, but I'm sometimes stymied by a new ring road chopping the old road in two with.no access.
That's not helpful
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Lots of the bog standard US hire cars I've had have had compasses built into the mirrors, they are an extra on some cars over here....very useful.
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I too use a "compass". Not that my car has one, but I note the wind direction when the clouds are separate and because my job was very closely related, I can look at almost any mainland TV aerial and know where it is pointed.
I don't usually get lost - and even if I did, I've travelled so much of the UK that I don't have to go far in most places to recognise where I am.
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>> I too use a "compass". Not that my car has one, but I note the
>> wind direction when the clouds are separate and because my job was very closely related,
>> I can look at almost any mainland TV aerial and know where it is pointed.
>>
>> I don't usually get lost - and even if I did, I've travelled so much
>> of the UK that I don't have to go far in most places to recognise
>> where I am.
>>
I still carry a compass in my work-bag; satnavs are worse than useless in my job so I rely on OS maps. Makes it a lot easier to find remote farms along sunken single-track lanes if you can orientate the map.
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>> I too use a "compass". Not that my car has one, but I note the
>> wind direction when the clouds are separate and because my job was very closely related,
>> I can look at almost any mainland TV aerial and know where it is pointed.
I know one town where they point in three different directions.
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Only three? When I tested signals at my house with a measuring vehicle, two main stations (seperate regions) and one relay were at service level field strengths. If I amplified the signals, another three main stations gave watchable pictures (two more regions) and a very distant main station gave what I call news worthy pictures.
And I don't live on a hill top either.
That's all analogue signals though, there may be channel clashes these days with digital.
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The Muppets are one of my favourite programmes. My favourite Muppet is Animal. I'm Waldorf.
;-)
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I was in the UK the other day and spent half an hour in Halfords, looking at satellite navigators, before deciding I do not have the mindset to ever become a muppet.
Incidentally, is it just me who seems to find that checkout operators in places like that now seem all to be hyperactive nutters? Is it something to do with wanting to be on reality TV?
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Sat Nav should not be blindly followed, thats where people go wrong.
View it as a pocket sized A to Z of the whole country, used to find roughly where in a strange area the destination is before departure, then used as background mainly for traffic info they are great.
The rare times i use mine i have it muted, i find my own way to the approximate area and then use the streetfinder capabilty to help guide me in the last few miles.
Most times if i know my destination address before, i look it up on googles maps (only google thing i use since they became the worlds adspy network) then zoom in on street view to see the layout of the final approach, once done don't usually need sat nav either.
Where sat nav excels is counting down distance to a turning, if no street names or signs it matters not as the sat nav knows...for that sort of thing they are unbeatable.
Last edited by: gordonbennet on Sun 8 Apr 12 at 08:37
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Incidentally, again, I was coming up the old Ridgeway road out of Weymouth when I was confronted with a large official sign saying 'ROAD CLOSED - IGNORE SATNAV AND TURN RIGHT'. I'd replace it with one saying 'engage own brain'.
One of my friends suggested that rather than buy a satellite navigator with Bluetooth I should get a parrot! A stranger in a strange land, that was me...
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A stranger in a strange land.
Another book to be dug out of my store of SF - Thanks Mike.
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A sat nav is a tool to be used by, not as an alternative to, the human brain.
Ok this may sound sad, but I planned one expedition to reconnoitre good video spots along 35 miles of railway track, about 15 of them.
Firstly I views the route with google earth, upon which I can overlay the OS maps as a .kml file.
This provides me with the locations and a view of the order they should be visited in Theses are merely plotted into the sat nav which then provides me with an uncannily accurate timescale of how long this would take, and then on the day guides me from spot to spot.
Its a trip i doubt I could have done with such ease using maps and notes.
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Well put GB. My thoughts exactly. I treat it as a map which is conveniently always open at the correct page. Combined with common sense, roadsigns and whatever local knowledge one may have it's just a very useful additional driver aid. Nothing more.
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it's just a very useful additional driver aid. Nothing more.
But a very useful one. The satnav is surely up there as one of the most useful bits of technology ever.
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Sat Nav muppets - Old Navy
