Tell us about your navigating disasters

[DickyC]

Driving home along the M4 one evening I passed over a junction and was looking down at the roundabout below thinking how unfamiliar it was. It was my junction; Junction 13. As I usually join or leave there and rarely see it from above it was entitled to be unfamiliar. I had to drive to Junction 12 at Reading to turn round and drive back. It's miles. What a plonker.

[Papa Hotel]

I once drove past junction 4 on the M8. I had to go to junction 5 and turn back, cost me ten minutes.

[Contigo]

Dicky is that you? Ex-RS2? Newbury?

[buggalugs]

I remember not long after I started driving I was coming home from Salford Quays to Wigan and ended up in Bury.

I always used to find it really confusing how they would put the big signs like M56 (M6)... which frigging one am I on??

Nowadays I'm one of those bores who never uses satnav

[Contigo]

I think the saddest disaster is the one locally where a couple ended up following the sat nav through a local ford and it ended in disaster.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-berkshire-178...

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-hampshire-179...

Then the locals are so dismayed by the stupidity of more motorist who have become trapped after the recent floods that they added this lovely sign to the post!



http://www.newburytoday.co.uk/2012/unofficial-sign...

[Quikcurl]

Driving my mum up to Sheffield for my brother's graduation: got chatting as we'd not seen each other for a while and almost made it to Barnsley before I realised they had replaced the roundabout with a grade separated junction since the last time I'd driven up! Just about made it in time...

Also a Sheffield related trip, this time coming south, picked up a friend from university and again got chatting on the motorway, missed my turning again and ended up in Leicester instead of Peterborough.

Motorways and good ol' catch up chats just don't mix!

[DickyC]

Contigo said:

Dicky is that you? Ex-RS2? Newbury?

Hello Phil! Indeed, tis I.

Did I read your RS4 has gone too?

[dreamer75]

Before the days of satnav, and with rubbish directions printed out, I managed to navigate to Manchester.... except I ended up in the middle of Liverpool :blush:

[Contigo]

DickyC said:

Hello Phil! Indeed, tis I.

Did I read your RS4 has gone too?

Yes mate sold it a couple of years back and now in the M5 touring. How's tricks?

[joebongo]

Before the advent of car sat nav, my Wife's mother moved to Worcester.

I had a mate in Gloucester who we'd been to visit some months earlier.

Wife goes on train to her mother's house, I follow on a day later after my run of shifts was over.

I get there, drive around for a bit but can't see any landmarks to guide me to her mother's house and call her on my mobile to ask for some directions.

After a few minutes it is ascertained I had driven to Gloucester not Worcester and had a fair old drive to get to her mother's house that evening.

[DickyC]

Contigo said:

Yes mate sold it a couple of years back and now in the M5 touring. How's tricks?

Had a ropey couple of years deep in the recession hanging on to the Countess, the house and her car but not much else. With any luck we're on the way back up now. How's yourself? I'm doing bonkers hours and commuting by car to Norbiton currently, but how about meeting up at a PH do?

[DickyC]

Not really a navigating disaster but I was working in Paddington with the railway walking distance from home and work. I was obliged to use the stopping train going in early but had the high speed train coming home. The high speed train has a bar. Marvellous. The barman said one evening, "You going down to see your mum, Dicky?" "No, why?" "You're on the 6:03." "And?" "The 5:03 and the 7:03 stop at Newbury. This one doesn't." "Where am I going?" "First stop Taunton." "I'll have another." I had several as it happens. Got to Taunton just after the staff had knocked off and the buffet was about to close. "Is there any train information?" I asked the ladies in the caff. "Not really. You could ask the train spotters, I suppose." Very helpful they were. Strange, but helpful. Armed with the times of return trains (a long wait for a direct train to Newbury or less of a wait to go via Bristol or Reading) I rang home and was greeted with gales of laughter. That was a long night.

[Wheelrepairit]

One of the lads who used to work for me drove into a river ford, because the sat nav said so, bless him.

11k that cost to fix.

[inman999]

Navigating round Britain is a dream compared to Italy. Lost in Rome, Florence, very lost in the outskirts of Venice, Modena was not much better. st maps, stter road signs and no Internet.

[TheTurbonator]

After first passing my test, I thought I'd make the trip from Leeds to Crewe to see my Dad. Somehow ended up on the M6 Northbound instead of Southbound and wasn't until I was in the Lake District that I noticed.

[Riley Blue]

An internationally known racing driver once flew into Heathrow, got in to the car that was waiting for him to drive to Donington Park and programmed the pratnav - for the village of Donington, Lincolnshire, some 60 miles away.

[cptsideways]

A friend on here once came to join us at the Nurburgring, he rang us from Nuremburg wondering why it took so long to get there & where were we


Nooty are you lost again

[98elise]

Returning from a wedding in cardiff, I thought we were north of the M4 so just joined it heading the wrong way! I only noticed where we ran out of motorway. I wondered where that bloody bridge was.

[Jasandjules]

I am quite hopeless.

However, worst one to me is with the OH map reading, we went up and down the A2 about 6 times to find the exit we needed. Eventually I stopped and checked the map myself. Yes, it was a bridge not a junction so I'd been looking for a junction which didn't exist.

[Toooldforthis]

Orlando Florida, August just gone

Driving to the airport (Sanford airport) on our way home, decided that I knew better than the sat nav and ignored it completely once I saw signs to the aiport, even though it was demanding ueys at every junction

We got there just 15 minutes later than we were supposed to

Dead chuffed, I headed into the Hertz area of the car park to return the motor and asked the bloke where the Thomson airways desks were, he looked a bit puzzled and said you do know this is Orlando International, not Sanford don't cha? the only UK airlines from here are Virgin and BA. Thomson don't fly from this aiport.

I went cold while the missus went red hot and the kids asked if we could stay longer as there's no way we'd catch our flight now

I had precisely calculated how much fuel we'd need to reach the airport so I didn't give the hire car back with anything in it and the large gas guzzler we were in was running on excitement alone

We drove in silence to the nearest petrol station, I stuck a smidgeon of fuel in and drove like my life depended on it (because it did depend on it) from Orlando International to Sanford International in less than half an hour

Straight through check in, passport control and walked straight onto the plane

That first beer was one of the best I had ever tasted