Driving without Satnav, Interesting.....
Discussion
The Moose said:
I've always thought it was pretty much the same latitude. I've just taken a look, and clearly it depends on where you take as the point for both cities, but I get it to be around 3 miles difference!
In fact at 268 degrees, it's almost as exactly due West as you can get!!!
Using your figure of 268 degrees west, I make it about 3 miles as well. For what it's worth(!), Wiki gave London as 51.5N and Bristol as 51.27N. 1 degree of latitude is about 69 miles, hence my figure of about 16 miles.In fact at 268 degrees, it's almost as exactly due West as you can get!!!
Whatever, it's a damned sight nearer West than either South-West or North!
When out on the road in the truck I had 2 satnavs , a smartphone, UK road map , greater London AtoZ , full size Europe road Atlas . Having grown up at a time when being able to use a compass and do basic mapreading was the norm and I learned the basics of rally navigation before I passed my driving test .
I have had friends and workmates phone me up at all hours to get them back on the right road and direction . The strangest one was a mate that went haywire enroute from Cardiff to Ramsgate and had somehow got himself lost in Tottenham!
I have had friends and workmates phone me up at all hours to get them back on the right road and direction . The strangest one was a mate that went haywire enroute from Cardiff to Ramsgate and had somehow got himself lost in Tottenham!
Chinagraph map books, road signs but my main navigational aid has always been the sun. If you wear a watch you can be sure of which direction you are heading too. Read here:-
https://www.wikihow.com/Use-an-Analog-Watch-as-a-C...
But I don't trust any GPS really. Does anyone remember the Turkish lorry driver delivering used cars? He was going to Gibraltar and on to Africa and set his GPS for Gibraltar Point. He arrived and got stuck in the sand dunes and had to be pulled out. Yes, you read it right. Gibraltar Point is in Lincolnshire.
And my new GPS took me to the Medoc from Le Mans via a non-existent ferry, so an about face was needed and we lost an hour. I still carry Europe's best map. It's the Michelin A3 map of Europe, only available in the UK.
https://www.wikihow.com/Use-an-Analog-Watch-as-a-C...
But I don't trust any GPS really. Does anyone remember the Turkish lorry driver delivering used cars? He was going to Gibraltar and on to Africa and set his GPS for Gibraltar Point. He arrived and got stuck in the sand dunes and had to be pulled out. Yes, you read it right. Gibraltar Point is in Lincolnshire.
And my new GPS took me to the Medoc from Le Mans via a non-existent ferry, so an about face was needed and we lost an hour. I still carry Europe's best map. It's the Michelin A3 map of Europe, only available in the UK.
I rarely use sat Nav. My preferred method of navigation is to pre-plan a route on a map, learn the route and then use Streetview or satellite images to familiarise myself before the journey. It sounds labour intensive but it's rather rewarding and I seem to have a good internal compass anyway, so this works well for me. Added bonus is I find it keeps my mind active on long journeys as opposed to aimlessly following a sat Nav, it keeps my situational awareness up significantly more as I'm eyes outside the car far more as opposed to inside, following the sat Nav, and finally it helps me have a good geographical working knowledge of the road network in this country.
HOGEPH said:
I use waze most of the time, mainly for the traffic and camera warnings.
I always have the back screen on in the car - not because I need it to tell me where I’m going, but for the traffic display so you can see jams. I’ve been using that since 2012 in all my Mercs and it is just so useful. There was a fault with Live a traffic a couple of months ago and it stopped working for several days - it was like I’d lost a limb. I always use Waze for any journey that’s a) to somewhere I would otherwise have to look at a map for or b) reasonably long. Maps don’t do live traffic or speed cameras and for that reason, I’ll always run the app. I’m not naturally gifted with a great sense of direction, but nowadays it doesn’t really matter. 
I never use satnav. Not because I always know where I'm going, but because I find it frustrating to be taken on some mystery tour where I need to have blind faith.
I worked as a courier in the early 90s, around the westcountry and SW Wales - draw a shape from Highbridge to Pewsey, then Lechlade to Bishops Cleeve, and down to Blaenavon and Newport. As a spare driver in the depot, I could be on any of the 40-odd routes as so frequently had to pick up a sheaf of scribbled maps to find where the various properties were. Sometimes whole streets were a pain to find in the middle of nowhere.
Australia's pretty easy to find your way around, though Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane can be a pain - like any major city there are multiple one way systems, and the signposting is consistenlty crap. MrsPB uses the satnav for some of the more mundane trips just because of the many No Right Turns too.
I don't get how people need to use it all the time though, surely they must have some form of memory??
I worked as a courier in the early 90s, around the westcountry and SW Wales - draw a shape from Highbridge to Pewsey, then Lechlade to Bishops Cleeve, and down to Blaenavon and Newport. As a spare driver in the depot, I could be on any of the 40-odd routes as so frequently had to pick up a sheaf of scribbled maps to find where the various properties were. Sometimes whole streets were a pain to find in the middle of nowhere.
Australia's pretty easy to find your way around, though Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane can be a pain - like any major city there are multiple one way systems, and the signposting is consistenlty crap. MrsPB uses the satnav for some of the more mundane trips just because of the many No Right Turns too.
I don't get how people need to use it all the time though, surely they must have some form of memory??
Contract Killer said:
I lost my iPhone at Slam Dunk music festival in Hatfield (London) last night,
Seeing as how Hatfield is 15 miles outside the North Circ, geography really isn't your strong suit 
I'm 38 and have had GPS in my cars since I was 21, I find the GPS is useful for the first time I visit somewhere, then after that I usually remember the route. Before then, I once spent a cold rainy night lapping a small town near St Albans as I followed signs for London... after my third lap I pulled over to check the map and realised I was lapping London Colney... FFS why did they put "Colney" on the line below "London"?!?! So I feel your pain.
My IQ is the first car I've ever had with SatNav... but I still don't use it. Can't be bothered with the manual, which is thicker than the actual car manual. I still use the old tried-and-tested method of ShatNav... which is memorising the route via road maps (plus one alternative route in case of road-closures, etc)... usually whilst sat on the bog (hence ShatNav).
I must admit the street maps on the IQ navigation are useful once I get close to the destination, if it's somewhere I've never been.
Toilets are great for this sort of thing.
I must admit the street maps on the IQ navigation are useful once I get close to the destination, if it's somewhere I've never been.
Toilets are great for this sort of thing.
While reading the thread on the Special Edition Silver Wraith, which mentioned, ”Alcock and Brown's compelling night time adventure - the instruments failed almost immediately, Brown navigating them by the stars" from Newfoundland to Ireland (!!)*, I was reminded of the OP's difficulty in finding Bristol from London(ish) on a modern motorway network complete with signs.
- For our younger readers, this was the first aircraft to fly the Atlantic non-stop, 100 years ago. An open-cockpit biplane, at night, in the rain, with no instruments. The flight took just under 16 hours.
Contract Killer said:
I lost my iPhone at Slam Dunk music festival in Hatfield (London) last night, unfortunately my iPhone was also my satnav!!
Being 29, I have only ever driven with Satnav!!
I had absolutely no clue how to get from Hatfield to Bristol, other than I need the M4 towards South Wales.....
After trying the M1, and realising going further north cannot be right!
I stopped at a petrol station, and the guy told me I wanted the M25 towards Heathrow, which didn't seem right! however took his direction and eventually found signs for the M4!
Im sure for most London to Bristol would be a snip, but I had absolutely no idea which motorway was which.....
Anyone else utterly useless without satnav?
This is one of the most depressing posts I've ever read on PH in the last 15 years.............Being 29, I have only ever driven with Satnav!!
I had absolutely no clue how to get from Hatfield to Bristol, other than I need the M4 towards South Wales.....
After trying the M1, and realising going further north cannot be right!
I stopped at a petrol station, and the guy told me I wanted the M25 towards Heathrow, which didn't seem right! however took his direction and eventually found signs for the M4!
Im sure for most London to Bristol would be a snip, but I had absolutely no idea which motorway was which.....
Anyone else utterly useless without satnav?
aeropilot said:
Contract Killer said:
I lost my iPhone at Slam Dunk music festival in Hatfield (London) last night, unfortunately my iPhone was also my satnav!!
Being 29, I have only ever driven with Satnav!!
I had absolutely no clue how to get from Hatfield to Bristol, other than I need the M4 towards South Wales.....
After trying the M1, and realising going further north cannot be right!
I stopped at a petrol station, and the guy told me I wanted the M25 towards Heathrow, which didn't seem right! however took his direction and eventually found signs for the M4!
Im sure for most London to Bristol would be a snip, but I had absolutely no idea which motorway was which.....
Anyone else utterly useless without satnav?
This is one of the most depressing posts I've ever read on PH in the last 15 years.............Being 29, I have only ever driven with Satnav!!
I had absolutely no clue how to get from Hatfield to Bristol, other than I need the M4 towards South Wales.....
After trying the M1, and realising going further north cannot be right!
I stopped at a petrol station, and the guy told me I wanted the M25 towards Heathrow, which didn't seem right! however took his direction and eventually found signs for the M4!
Im sure for most London to Bristol would be a snip, but I had absolutely no idea which motorway was which.....
Anyone else utterly useless without satnav?
NervousEnergy said:
Isn't this just the new version of "I can't read a map"?
Yes, it is. All of those jokes were written by people much older than millenials.
And I'm sure that, in 10-15 years time when cars have all got augmented reality displays which paint a Mario Kart like arrow in the driver's field of vision which points at the exit, we'll have someone come on who says "I can't find my way without the AR display! Help" and then we can come on with "back in my day we just used Google Maps, are you so thick that you can't even use that?"
I used to live down a road that had a poorly maintained access road halfway up it, unless you were in a 4x4 with decent ground clearance it wasn't worth attempting (especially in winter) it used to get one or two cars a week using it yet when satnav became common in cars suddenly it became quite popular and lots of idiots rather than realising the road maybe not suitable still attempted it and invariably got stuck halfway down as the road surface got progressively worse.
Modern realtime satnav has its place as it can save a lot of time rerouting on the fly to avoid accidents, often I think I know better than Googlemaps/Waze and go a quicker route but then get stuck in traffic rather than follow the satnav as it's a few miles in distance greater.
Satnavs have dumbed down driving quite considerably and have been quite disruptive (uber).
Some people are simply too thick to be behind the wheel, I know of one person who uses a cigarette lighter tracker blocker when using the work van for personal errands and yet they complain that when they do this they can't use the satnav.
Modern realtime satnav has its place as it can save a lot of time rerouting on the fly to avoid accidents, often I think I know better than Googlemaps/Waze and go a quicker route but then get stuck in traffic rather than follow the satnav as it's a few miles in distance greater.
Satnavs have dumbed down driving quite considerably and have been quite disruptive (uber).
Some people are simply too thick to be behind the wheel, I know of one person who uses a cigarette lighter tracker blocker when using the work van for personal errands and yet they complain that when they do this they can't use the satnav.
glenrobbo said:
red_slr said:
No doubt there are loads of tips like this but one that always stuck in my mind is old roads are bendy new roads are straight.
Ah yes, those lovely straight new Roman roads that have criss-crossed the country for about 1,900 years. 
Bury New Road (straight)
Bury Old Road (bendy)
Eccles New Road (straight)
Eccles Old Road (bendy)
IYSWIM....
Late to this, but really?
I recently turned 30 and I can navigate perfectly fine without sat nav - my car has it but I seldom use it, although, it is useful for fine-tuning to the destination exactly, should I need it. I do know where places are, though.
I moved to France when I was 21 and managed to get all the way there driving on the wrong side of the road without any trouble. It was the first time I'd been out of the UK.
I recently turned 30 and I can navigate perfectly fine without sat nav - my car has it but I seldom use it, although, it is useful for fine-tuning to the destination exactly, should I need it. I do know where places are, though.
I moved to France when I was 21 and managed to get all the way there driving on the wrong side of the road without any trouble. It was the first time I'd been out of the UK.
I always check google maps for traffic conditions and if going on a new route to get an idea on the roads to take.
To go to work/parents I actually go a slightly different way to what it gives and it’s always quicker. I found it doesn’t always account for traffic light hold ups and I’m sure lorry drivers just follow gmaps. When M3 was closed if I followed gmaps I would always get stuck behind lorries but found another route that was only 5 miles longer but my speed was much higher gmaps would never give it as an option.
To go to work/parents I actually go a slightly different way to what it gives and it’s always quicker. I found it doesn’t always account for traffic light hold ups and I’m sure lorry drivers just follow gmaps. When M3 was closed if I followed gmaps I would always get stuck behind lorries but found another route that was only 5 miles longer but my speed was much higher gmaps would never give it as an option.
Riley Blue said:
aeropilot said:
Contract Killer said:
I lost my iPhone at Slam Dunk music festival in Hatfield (London) last night, unfortunately my iPhone was also my satnav!!
Being 29, I have only ever driven with Satnav!!
I had absolutely no clue how to get from Hatfield to Bristol, other than I need the M4 towards South Wales.....
After trying the M1, and realising going further north cannot be right!
I stopped at a petrol station, and the guy told me I wanted the M25 towards Heathrow, which didn't seem right! however took his direction and eventually found signs for the M4!
Im sure for most London to Bristol would be a snip, but I had absolutely no idea which motorway was which.....
Anyone else utterly useless without satnav?
This is one of the most depressing posts I've ever read on PH in the last 15 years.............Being 29, I have only ever driven with Satnav!!
I had absolutely no clue how to get from Hatfield to Bristol, other than I need the M4 towards South Wales.....
After trying the M1, and realising going further north cannot be right!
I stopped at a petrol station, and the guy told me I wanted the M25 towards Heathrow, which didn't seem right! however took his direction and eventually found signs for the M4!
Im sure for most London to Bristol would be a snip, but I had absolutely no idea which motorway was which.....
Anyone else utterly useless without satnav?
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