Can a Car Outrun a Sat Nav?

[Glassman]

Not so much on a balls out straight run, but how about in a city centre? Could a fast car ripping in and out of quick turns in a city 'lose' the sat nav tracking?

(assuming the signal was good throughout)

[Ry_B]

Easy mate. My satnav is a Garmin Nuvi 250, had it years and years now. Maybe it's because it was one of the first "mainstream" satnavs and is old but it gets confused quite easily.

[dan19evans]

I was watching some cop program on TV last night, the rozzers in their Evo10 outran the satnav and had to stop to let it figure out where they were

[Richard-G]

will there ever be a boy born that can swim faster than a shark?

[busta]

I raced a Satnav once. I won easily.

The satnav just sat there in the middle of the road, looking a little forlorn.

[BonzoG]

You have to make the distinction between losing the signal completely, losing the position fix, or the sat nav losing control of the map logic. I'd imagine it's perfectly possible for the sat nav software to be unable to choose which road to place you on, but still have an accurate lat/lon fix.

[Matt UK]

I have a 2002 BMW with factory nav. I can outrun it for the first few mins of every journey whilst it sits there 'calculating'. To be fair though once it's up and running it's pretty reliable.

[davepoth]

I've outran the satnav in a van. Any more than a couple of junctions in quick succession and you'll fox it.

[FasterFreddy]

Is this how young drivers get their kicks now?

Call me old fashioned, but I used to enjoy trying to outrun other cars.

Although, I suppose it won't be long before all we've got left are our Sat Navs.

Then we'll be racing Sat Navs against iPhones. Online, probably.

A virtual race which exists only on a small, high resolution graphical display and in our imaginations.

Is this really what you want?

Well, IS IT?

No, I thought not.

OK, just forget what I said.

[Steve in Stoke]

Is it not more fun to try to beat the ETA that satnav gives?

"ETA 2 hours? pah - I'll be there in 90 minutes..."

[Steameh]

Steve in Stoke said:

Is it not more fun to try to beat the ETA that satnav gives?

"ETA 2 hours? pah - I'll be there in 90 minutes..."

My sat nav seems overly generous with its time estimates.

I usually beat it by a good 30 minutes or so. My record however was when the Sat Nav told me it would take approximately 4 hours 20 minutes on the route it calculated, I believe I made it in 3 hours 30 minutes.

[Jammy2008]

dan19evans said:

I was watching some cop program on TV last night, the rozzers in their Evo10 outran the satnav and had to stop to let it figure out where they were

I saw that too. That Evo didn't look cheap to fix after the rear diff siezed either.

[dan19evans]

Jammy2008 said:

dan19evans said:

I was watching some cop program on TV last night, the rozzers in their Evo10 outran the satnav and had to stop to let it figure out where they were

I saw that too. That Evo didn't look cheap to fix after the rear diff siezed either.

Nope.. glad I'm not the one paying for it

[Glassman]

Steve in Stoke said:

Is it not more fun to try to beat the ETA that satnav gives?

Standard. But it adjusts the arrival time according to the speed you're doing, no?

[Trevelyan]

Glassman said:

Steve in Stoke said:

Is it not more fun to try to beat the ETA that satnav gives?

Standard. But it adjusts the arrival time according to the speed you're doing, no?

I'd always assumed that it calculated the arrival time using either preset average speeds for the different roads planned for the rest of the journey, or the applicable speed limit for the roads. I never have any trouble beating it either way. Typically on a 6 hour overnight run to Cornwall I'll have time to stop for a coffee on the way and still beat the original arrival time by 20 minutes or so.

Edited by Trevelyan on Thursday 15th July 07:59

[russy01]

Steve in Stoke said:

Is it not more fun to try to beat the ETA that satnav gives?

"ETA 2 hours? pah - I'll be there in 90 minutes..."

This is the best game!! Have shaved off over an hour on longer journeys. However on journeys approx 1 hour my sat nav is normally within 5mins or so.

[BlueEyedBoy]

russy01 said:

Steve in Stoke said:

Is it not more fun to try to beat the ETA that satnav gives?

"ETA 2 hours? pah - I'll be there in 90 minutes..."

This is the best game!! Have shaved off over an hour on longer journeys. However on journeys approx 1 hour my sat nav is normally within 5mins or so.

I once took off 40 mins in an hour, now that was good going It was all really small b roads and I guess it estimated a very low average speed, all the more impressive was I had a 3 bikes on the back on a rack

[Pints]

dan19evans said:

Jammy2008 said:

dan19evans said:

I was watching some cop program on TV last night, the rozzers in their Evo10 outran the satnav and had to stop to let it figure out where they were

I saw that too. That Evo didn't look cheap to fix after the rear diff siezed either.

Nope.. glad I'm not the one paying for it

As a taxpayer you are paying for it.

[Lord Pikey]

In Alex Roys book The Driver i think he chose a specific Satnav becuase all the others could not keep up with him when he was planning his Cannonball Route.