Anti Sat Nav Signs

[sclayto2]

Due to the dangers of people blindly following Sat Nav systems. The UK has now started installing Anti-Sat Nav signs.

More here.

[sirhc]

The very same people that they will be aiming the signs at are the ones who don't pay attention to current road signs

I mean will these signs tell you why not to trust your satnav in any particular area??
Will they be offering an alternative route??
Im guessing the answer will be "no" on both counts, so total waste of time.
You would have thought with all the technology that goes into these systems they would have a car or commercial vehicle setting.
How many low bridges/ width restictions have been hit due to satnavs directing HGV drivers??
On a similar subject i saw a program a while ago about roadworks & the sub-contractors that were doing them.
Alot of them didn't have the correct authority & the diversions they were laying out were a joke
Shocking it was.
Never mind, must of saved the local councils £1.50 to sub it out , so well worth while!!

[Glassman]

This is about tourists / foreigners travelling into/through a Welsh village...

Edited by Glassman on Thursday 6th September 20:27

[sirhc]

Glassman said:

This is about tourists / foreigners travelling into/through a Welsh village...

Edited by Glassman on Thursday 6th September 20:27

Good idea
That should re route them

[lambogenie]

And whose fault is it we need sat nav systems/

once upon a time a DOT directive went out to local councils to remove traffic signs so that driving become a frustrating experience in the hope people would use public transport.

they didnt, they invented sat nav.

idiots.

[Thudd]

sirhc said:

The very same people that they will be aiming the signs at are the ones who don't pay attention to current road signs

I mean will these signs tell you why not to trust your satnav in any particular area??
Will they be offering an alternative route??
Im guessing the answer will be "no" on both counts, so total waste of time.
You would have thought with all the technology that goes into these systems they would have a car or commercial vehicle setting.
How many low bridges/ width restictions have been hit due to satnavs directing HGV drivers??
On a similar subject i saw a program a while ago about roadworks & the sub-contractors that were doing them.
Alot of them didn't have the correct authority & the diversions they were laying out were a joke
Shocking it was.
Never mind, must of saved the local councils £1.50 to sub it out , so well worth while!!

It's not hard to press the "road ahead closed, find alternative route" button, tho.

[Scraggles]

spotted a sign on the way to wales, it was for a walk on ferry down some very narrow track, with negligble turning space at the end, that sat navs had been sending juggernauts down

was tempted to buy one, but yet another thing to stuff in the pockets and getting quite good at going across country to avoid the jams

[Uncle Fester]

The problem is one of immature technology.

Instead of spending a fortune on road signs that will be outdated as soon as the satnav is patched, the money should be spent on legislation setting standards to be met by the satnav manufactures’.

We require car makers to improve safety/emissions etc by a deadline, so why not.

They need a better engine so that they don’t just assess the route by the speed limit on a road and the distance. I live in a rural area. Mine keeps trying to route me down miles of single track with passing places and bends/hedges so visibility dictates 15mph max. The stones/horse dung means any more and you need a respray.

The only locals to use those roads are driving tractors.

Local knowledge goes around the A roads not straight(ish) across country in half the time of the satnav route.

Then there’s the low bridge which is always getting a lorry stuck, the route onto the motorway (via the emergency vehicles only slip road) and the voice saying take the third exit on the roundabout. Meanwhile, the map is showing the second exit because its counted an on-slip as an exit.

If to sell the stuff you needed a system of feedback that was actually used to update everyone’s satnav within a time limit the problems would soon be sorted.

Microsoft patches their software every time I switch on. My satnav has internet access, so why can’t the same be true of that.

I have given up sending reports to Dick-Dick. They may have a reporting system on their website, but it doesn’t improve my satnav.

Fester

[Negative Creep]

The thing is they are only sold as navigation aids i.e an accompaniment to your navigation. Most models have re-routing anyway so if you see it's trying to take you down the wrong way, ignore it and you'll be shown a new route. I have nothing against them, they can be handy. However, more than once I have been stuck behind some moron, usually old and in a people carrier, dithering and wandering all over the place because they are blatantly paying more attention to their unit than the road. You do hear about the Darwin candidates who manage to drive onto railway tracks and the like, but these are the kind of people who would do that kind of thing sat nav or not

[need 4 speed]

lambogenie said:

And whose fault is it we need sat nav systems

We need them?

[Scraggles]

not need them, just makes it easy for some people who cant read maps

[Negative Creep]

I sell a lot of them at work. To be perfectly honest, a lot of the people who buy them don't really know how they actually work, having very little technological knowledge. We always try and explain they need to be updated via a PC and that by their very nature they can never be 100% accurate. Yet we still get complaints that they aren't working properly when they have year old operating software on them, or they won't recognise new roads. One of the odd things is that people who complain about how it takes them the wrong way already know where they are going. One of my colleagues was with one couple for an hour as they complained it took them a different way to their friend's house. He tried to explain to them in the nicest way that since they knew where they were going, it didn't actually matter if it told them to go somewhere else. This kind of thing still only amounts to a tiny percentage (1-2 perhpas) of the units we actually sell. As I've said before, the people who end up going down railway tracks with them are the kind of people who'd do the same thing without one, but there are some who expect them to be an all-knowing instant fix, whereas they are only a navigation aid; the best method is still the mk.1 eyeball

[flattotheboards]

how stupid is this country getting if we need these?

[Dracoro]

Scraggles said:

not need them, just makes it easy for some people who cant read maps

I've NEVER met anyone who can't read something as simple as a map.

Before sat nav, we didn't have a road meltdown of people driving around aimlessly and lost.

Anyway, if people can't read a map, what makes you think they can read sat nav either (which is effectively a map as well) as proved by people driving onto railway tracks or into rivers because they told them to.

Personally I think sat-nav is a useful *sort of safety* item (although not essential) for people doing a lot of journeys that aren't familiar. Better glancing at a sat nav than trying to read a map on their laps, turning the pages etc.

[jmorgan]

There was an interview a while ago with some body or another that represented sat nav software map type people. It appears that there is no version for lorries? That is no version with the needs for a 40 ton wagon heading to west wales.

There are a few signs appearing around here and they are not immediately obvious as to what they are saying. Bit late for someone from Poland getting lost.