Flaming Sat Navs - yes its horsey

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rockysmum

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Went to Carlisle today to see a horse for my friend. Weather was dreadful but we got there, tried him out and set off home. Lovely horse by the way.

Got onto M6 and sign came up "long delays from a few junctions ahead" So I decided to turn onto the A66 and go via Scotch Corner. Seems everyone else had the same idea and the A66 was stationery. Seeing a small junction ahead I decided to ask my sat nav to find me the shortest way home rather than the quickest. It showed me a route that looked perfectly reasonable, so off we went.

The roads we were on got smaller and smaller until at one point we were driving down little more than a dirt track in between the northbound and southbound carriageways of the M6 :eek:

This continued for about 15 miles, single track broken tarmaced roads right over the top of Shap Fell, scary stuff. We eventuall came out onto what you might describe as a proper road and ended up in Kirkby Lonsdale.

I was just thanking god the whole way that I was in the car. I could just as easily have been in the Landy with the 510 on the back and I would have got horribly stuck on some of the old pack horse bridges and fords. Its a miracle the Focus didn't.

Cant believe that the Sat Nav thought this was an acceptable route. These roads were unclassified not B roads.

Last time I trust it, going to buy a paper road atlas again.
 
Very common! Apparently the satellite that feeds our UK sat navs is American and not ideal for our roads, hence the stories about big trucks getting stuck in tiny roads.

I threw my first SatNav out the window after it got me stuck up a narrow track in a 7.5t wagon with 2 on board and vowed never again.

5 years on I have another one, but never use it in the lorry as find good old fashioned maps so much better when horses are involved.

I believe that a new European satellite will feed our sat navs sometime soon, but not sure when or how much better it'll be.

At least you had an adventure today :p
 
A few years back me and my mum went to Devon for Christmas and we decided to visit the Eden Project.
So off we toddled aided by my brother's Sat-nav. The roads slowly got smaller and smaller, and became proper farm tracks, we agreed that we'd gone wrong somewhere but trusted the Sat-Nav to rescue us and put us back on track as my Mum's very nervous about driving places she doesn't know.
Anyway, long story short, we eventually ended up in a farmyard surrounded by cows and the Sat-Nav assuring us we could drive through the farmers house!
 
The Old Radio Mast site at Hiilmorton has a track (Unclassified Country Road) Running through it, the radio masts were put their because they wanted a good Earth Low Lieing and Wet and their is a confluence of two streams you get the picture.
Bomb holes that come over the bonnet when in flood of the Defender Snorkels are Good. I have rescued so many people thanks to their sat navs 6 month old BMW totally trashed as was the drivers gucci shoes and leather jacket various 4X4`S but the best was a van in the Ditch that took the Unimog and a chap who delivered some part to my Ex wife for her Mitsubishi Delica arrived on a Honda Fireblade and emtied his MC boots on the drive.
But what I cannot understand is how people just follow their Sat Navs like lemmings when it must be obvious they shouldnt be driving there.
 
Our SatNav took us very nicely up the A1 to Richmond yesterday but confused us somewhat, in both directions, when she suddenly started giving us directions to turn, looking at the screen, I saw that for some reason she thought we were travelling parallel to the road, presumably through a field. Goodness knows what she was up to, we just ignored her and carried on along the A1.

However we live on a no-through road which has a perfectly visible sign at the junction, the tarmaced road peters out into a very steep cobbled lane, which then becomes a foot-path, there have been so many vehicles stuck that the the council has put another sign up saying that the cobbled lane only leads to the 2 addresses at the end of it. Which is a bit silly really - why couldn't the drivers see and take notice of the no-though road sign that has been there all along?
 
When I was house hunting I was merrily following my Sat Nav's instructions. It try to send me up a little lane. I probably would've followed it except for the big hand painted sign that said:
DO NOT LISTEN TO YOUR SAT NAV. THIS LANE WILL NOT TAKE YOU TO [VILLAGE NAME] BUT TO OUR FRONT GARDEN!
It did make me chuckle, but I can imagine the annnoyance behind having to write such a sign :D
 
Sat navs, one of my pet hates. We went to look at a pony today, 40 miles straight up the A5 from where we live. From our house we can turn left or right and get to the A5 within 5 mins in either direction. Because we went right and the sat nav woman insisted we should have gone left, at every flippin opportunity she kept saying "Do a U turn" until we were literally right outside our destination. Call me old fashioned but I do prefer a map!!
 
I've kept my horses near several bridlepaths that regularly show up on Sat Navs as an acceptable route and seen them get stuck in cars never mind lorries. Mind one gets suggested on AA/RAC online directions.

I bought a Sat Nav designed for trucks, you program in height, weight length etc and I stick on the setting for keep to main roads and it has seen me right so far. I deliberately tried to put it a position to use tracks that had fooled other Sat Navs and it wasn't fooled.
 
I can't understand why people believe Sat Navs rather than road signs and common sense.

I shall qualify this remark by explaining that our road was closed in 1983, and a little beyond our house there are bollards then the road continues as a bridleway, before joining another road that leads to the motorway. We regularly have to explain to all manner of motorists that the road was closed almost 30 years ago and they have driven past a no through road sign and a no entry to motor vehicles sign yet they remain angry and adamant that their Sat Nav should be correct (despite the bollards!)No amount of explaining they've ignored basic road signs convinces them otherwise.


Just around the corner is a ford that can be deep and fast, it's clearly marked with warnings on approach and has depth markers, so it's easy to see that crossing might not be a good idea after heavy rain.
I've lost count of the number of people who get washed away and wail in the local paper how their Sat Nave 'sent them through the deep ford'
WHatever happened to looking for potential danger when they're driving and taking the appropriate action ie do not go through. There are two warning signs on the approach!
 
criso said:
I bought a Sat Nav designed for trucks, you program in height, weight length etc and I stick on the setting for keep to main roads and it has seen me right so far. I deliberately tried to put it a position to use tracks that had fooled other Sat Navs and it wasn't fooled.
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Need to get us one of these!!! Which one do you have?
Our sat nav takes us all kinds of insane routes and we never use it for horsey journeys because we'd end up going off the edge of a cliff if we listened to everything she said :D

Our sat nav once took us through a very busy city we'd never been to before with narrow roads and a lack of road signs, suddenly "she" turned us onto a busy tram line with trams coming from each direction and announced that we'd arrived at our destination :eek: :eek: not what I had in mind!
 
I agree not to trust the sat nav and use common sense. The New Forest is one place that it will send you off down dirt tracks and I also nearly got sent down another dirt track and over a cliff in Milton Abbas. All whilst towing the trailer. Have lost count of the number of people stuck on the bridle way outside our yard who have been sent there by their Sat Nav. The sign does say 'no access to vehicles' !
 
LOL, glad its not just me then :D

Pearlsasinger said:
Our SatNav took us very nicely up the A1 to Richmond yesterday but confused us somewhat, in both directions, when she suddenly started giving us directions to turn, looking at the screen, I saw that for some reason she thought we were travelling parallel to the road, presumably through a field. Goodness knows what she was up to, we just ignored her and carried on along the A1.

?
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That one I can explain. You will have the old map on your sat nav. They have just upgraded the A1 in that area and replaced the road with a new one alongside the old one. A year or so ago you would have been driving in a field :D
 
Is it a TomTom? I find they're really good but have used others which are dreadful. I use mine all the time, only once has tomtom taken me down a grass covered track to get somewhere but actually it was a short cut, just a very bumpy one!

Up here, roads dont change much but if we are venturing further south we always download updates beforehand.
 
we've just binned the tomtom and got another Mio, we can set it to truck or caravan so it doesn't take you down stupid tracks!
you do have to update the maps on any satnav though for it to be effective, i always have a map in the car as well as a back up as Tomtom had a habit of turning himself off randomly leaving you stuck until he'd rebooted and agreed to work again:rolleyes:
 
I have a truck satnav - its got me everywhere on a good route whether its programmed in car mode or lorry mode! Its even got a tv setting, when we got stuck in horrendous traffic on the way back from hickstead we sat on the m25 watching tv in the lorry :) its called a 'snooper'.
 
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