Sat nav silliness

[2172cc]

Driving back home the other day, my sat nav directed me off at the next junction of the M4 only for it to take me around the roundabout and then back on to rejoin the M4. I wouldn't mind but exactly the same thing has happened previously on different occasions using a Garmin stand alone in my van, Google maps on my work iPhone, Waze on my Samsung Android phone and well as the standard MBUX of my Merc.
What's going on here?

[Dracoro]

Presumably you had a rough idea of where you were going and shouldn’t get off at that junction but still did?
Don’t get me wrong, I’ll use a satnav (usually for the end point for an unknown destination, or for long journey so it re-routes due to traffic) but always a rough idea of the route in case satnav plays up.

Anyway, it could be taking you off the M4 due to delays up ahead then at time you turned off, the data for the satnav told it delays resolved so best thing to do it put you back on the M4…

[LunarOne]

I don't know, but you're not the only one...

https://www.t6forum.com/threads/weird-satnav-route...

Unless that's you, in which case you are the only one.

[2 sMoKiN bArReLs]

There's a road in Nottingham that's buses & taxis only (and has been for nearly three years).

All the main navs direct cars down there. Council say thanks for the extra million pounds a year! (There are four bus lane cameras)

[2 sMoKiN bArReLs]

I followed my nav around Melton Mowbray. I know the town so was suspicious, but followed because I was hoping to find a new cut through the hideous traffic. It took me round in a circle, and I did it twice just to make sure I'd not misunderstood.

It would have left me doing that all day

[LunarOne]

2 sMoKiN bArReLs said:

I followed my nav around Melton Mowbray. I know the town so was suspicious, but followed because I was hoping to find a new cut through the hideous traffic. It took me round in a circle, and I did it twice just to make sure I'd not misunderstood.

It would have left me doing that all day

The future of self-driving cars. Trapped in a loop due to a poor database, a closed road or a mischievous so-and-so with a portable no entry sign.

[2 sMoKiN bArReLs]

When (if) self driving cars become the norm, will students just walk into the road to make cars stop just for the wheeze?

(I know that's the sort of jape I'd have got up to )

[LunarOne]

2 sMoKiN bArReLs said:

When (if) self driving cars become the norm, will students just walk into the road to make cars stop just for the wheeze?

(I know that's the sort of jape I'd have got up to )

Why, because you presume the AI will stop but a human driver will just mow them down?

[2 sMoKiN bArReLs]

LunarOne said:

2 sMoKiN bArReLs said:

When (if) self driving cars become the norm, will students just walk into the road to make cars stop just for the wheeze?

(I know that's the sort of jape I'd have got up to )

Why, because you presume the AI will stop but a human driver will just mow them down?

Exactly. It's a kind of eight pint Russian Roulette. (at lunch time)

[Mr Happy]

2172cc said:

Driving back home the other day, my sat nav directed me off at the next junction of the M4 only for it to take me around the roundabout and then back on to rejoin the M4. I wouldn't mind but exactly the same thing has happened previously on different occasions using a Garmin stand alone in my van, Google maps on my work iPhone, Waze on my Samsung Android phone and well as the standard MBUX of my Merc.
What's going on here?

Do you have it set to shortest route, rather than fastest route?

When they were in their infancy, sat navs had form for doing this as they would try their best to keep you on a route as the crow flies, which means they were sometimes coming off at a motorway junction and back on if it was shorter in distance to do that, than stay on the main road (even though it was slower).

[AgentZ]

My TomTom with live traffic (and set for fastest route) does this often on Motorways around major junctions if there is traffic backed-up but most of the time I've found the time saving small or non-existent. It did though save me quite a lot of time recently on the M1 by taking me off at junction 7-8 and straight back on for junction 6/M25 due to traffic build-up.

[scorcher]

My Garmin is terrible for this. Sent me about 2 miles around trading estates one day instead of 100 yards in the opposite direction. Takes me through lay-bys, Roman roads that are now overgrown footpaths, across old ‘droves’ that are rutted farm tracks that usually end up in a field, postcodes that are the other side of the motorway embankment and would mean stopping on thd hard shoulder and throwing stuff over the fence etc etc

[2172cc]

Yeah definitely something else going on here and I'm sure other people wil confirm as well as we've already heard. I've tried all different settings across all the different platforms I'm using and it seems to still be happening. In the past I've been pretty sure which junction I need to come off but followed the guidance in the hope it was rerouting to avoid traffic or some other issue only for it bring back onto the same road.

[LunarOne]

Does it regularly happen at the same place?

There's a roundabout near me where I take the second exit to go right quite often. If I have the hard disk-based sat nav in my Porsche on, it displays it as a roundabout but doesn't seem to understand that you can turn right there. It always wants me to take a right turn before the roundabout, then turn left, and then right back onto the road on the other side of the roundabout. If I ignore it and carry on past the right turn to get to the roundabout, it wants me to make a U-turn to return to that side road.

I've tested the same thing in my 21-year-old BMW which had a CD-based navigation system and it treats it as a normal roundabout. No silly shenanigans needed to make a right turn. Also tested with Waze and Google Maps and they don't have a problem either. I don't know who supplies mapping data to Porsche for their navigation, but it clearly has an issue at that spot. FYI that road has not had any layout changes for at least 100 years, so you can't blame it on slow updates.

[Got4wheels]

I've developed a dislike towards Waze. Like some I'm fine with getting to somewhere using road signs, but getting to a specific address is where I need it. It was well behaved last time I used it, but it's card has been marked. I went to Lincoln a week before Christmas and I can only assume it lost connection to it's satellite or something, as it kept issuing random directions onto roads I'd never heard of or was nowhere near. Eventually it got it's bearings and got me to where I needed to be.

A few days later, I was making a spur of the moment trip to Driffield. Put the postcode in, it was ok for 5 minutes and then lost its mind again I gave it the benefit of the doubt so it could fix itself, but no. So once I got into Driffield I switched it on again. It then took me on a needlessly elongated trip to the garage I needed...

Michael

[2172cc]

LunarOne said:

Does it regularly happen at the same place.

No, the last time was on the M4 , previously I've had it on the M40, M25
A12 and A40 plus a few I can't remember off the top of my head. Been bugging me for a while.

Edited by 2172cc on Sunday 22 January 19:49

[swisstoni]

Sometimes I’ll sanity check how Waze is planning to take me somewhere but usually I don’t.

And of course it’s then that it will come up with some harebrained route to save me 30 seconds or whatever.

I suppose sat navs mostly do a good job. It’s the times they don’t that you remember.

[SkodaIan]

I'll tend to run Google Maps on long journeys even when I know where I'm going just to get the traffic reports. It's saved me from long waits on several occasions.

For quite a long time, Google Maps used to tell you to "keep right" to turn left on the sliproad from M18 to the A1(M). Keeping in the right hand lane does work, but you have to then join and exit the roundabout rather than the simpler option of the left hand filter lane they've put in which avoids the roundabout. It's only a load of paint which separates the filter lane which was presumably how it got confused.

It's been fixed now though, so there clearly is someone somewhere who corrects these problems when they are reported.

[paul.deitch]

I once that happen to me in Frankfurt. I had the US CEO on board and my boss. The CEO thought that I didn't understand English as I was a local employee. Que CEO, "Does this idiot know what he's doing"?
I didn't but I took an alternative road just to escape going round and round! Very embarrassing.

[Pica-Pica]

paul.deitch said:

I once that happen to me in Frankfurt. I had the US CEO on board and my boss. The CEO thought that I didn't understand English as I was a local employee. Que CEO, "Does this idiot know what he's doing"?
I didn't but I took an alternative road just to escape going round and round! Very embarrassing.

‘Thought I didn’t understand English’ Then ‘Que..’ made me laugh.