Woman mistakes passenger's entrance for car park

[orudge]

I always plan my trips out in advance using Google Maps (typically with use of Street View at junctions) anyway, but will sometimes make use of my sat nav app on my iPhone. However, unlike the lady in the article, I also have a thing called my brain, and for a start ensure that the location on the map the sat nav gives me is actually the location I want to go to, and that the route it's trying to take me is the route I had intended to go (or at least a route that looks plausible). I daresay many people just punch in a name and then don't pay any attention to the route generated, just follow the directions mindlessly.

Typically I mostly use my sat nav for identifying where to turn in towns, as street names are often pretty difficult to make out from a car, and town driving is often quite horrible if you're not familiar with the area.

[Transportman]

I always plan my trips out in advance using Google Maps (typically with use of Street View at junctions) anyway, but will sometimes make use of my sat nav app on my iPhone.

I once did that for a trip of 15 km to the East, Google Maps ended up with giving me a route of something like 60 km North to the middle of nowhere. Satnav got it right however, and I knew I had to go East to start with.

However, unlike the lady in the article, I also have a thing called my brain, and for a start ensure that the location on the map the sat nav gives me is actually the location I want to go to, and that the route it's trying to take me is the route I had intended to go (or at least a route that looks plausible). I daresay many people just punch in a name and then don't pay any attention to the route generated, just follow the directions mindlessly.

I once did that, satnav said right while I should have gone left. Never completed the route it wanted to send me, I just turned around and after some time it picked up the right route (or I closed it, route was pretty straight forward from that point on).

[Ameecher]

When I rarely use the SatNav I always zoom out the whole route when it comes up with it so I can get a vague idea of where it is heading me so I know what signs to follow.

When I first drove from home to Dundee I looked at the map once looking for big towns and prominent road numbers and just went but that's just me I guess. I know somebody that can't drive anywhere without SatNav, idiots.

[John]

When I first drove from home to Dundee I looked at the map once looking for big towns and prominent road numbers and just went but that's just me I guess. I know somebody that can't drive anywhere without SatNav, idiots.

My preferred method of travelling. Also makes you remember the route much quicker than if you rely on satnav - so repeated trips become much easier quicker.

I did have to resort to satnav for a couple of recent trips into Bristol Centre, as unfortunately this country is crap at putting up road signs is a vaguely consistent manner (there almost always seems to be an assumption you know the name of the main road).

[orudge]

I once did that for a trip of 15 km to the East, Google Maps ended up with giving me a route of something like 60 km North to the middle of nowhere. Satnav got it right however, and I knew I had to go East to start with.

It sounds like you gave Google the wrong information (or it wasn't sure where the place you wanted was). The thing I like about Google Maps is you can very easily redirect the route it gives you, simply by dragging it to the roads you want.

When I first drove from home to Dundee I looked at the map once looking for big towns and prominent road numbers and just went but that's just me I guess. I know somebody that can't drive anywhere without SatNav, idiots.

That kind of driving is pretty easy without a sat nav or similar, especially if you have a head for remembering road numbers. My first long-distance drive after passing my test (driving from North Wales to St Andrews) involved me writing down the road and junction numbers I needed, and just going for it - as, indeed, did the majority of my drives from then on.

[Gord]

I have to admit that I find Satnavs a horrible distraction. I just can't use them. I use the old fashioned way of reading road signs. But that's my preference.

I do worry that an increase of bad driving is down to over-use of Satnavs. A bit of a general sweeping statement I know.

I remember driving a colleague back from a course in Nottingham a few years ago. As we set off for home, she was trying to set her Satnav up in my car. She couldn't get the thing working and meanwhile, I just serenely followed the signs for 'M1 South'. As we went down the slip road onto the motorway she said, "How on earth did you manage to get us here without getting lost?". She still insisted on setting the thing up even though I knew it was a straight run down the A42/M42 from there. I found it really annoying and off-putting.

Like I say though...that's just my preference. I know I'm in the minority.

[JamieLei]

Driving around LA for a week, I found SatNavs both necessary and distracting. I'm probably one of the people in the world who most hates SatNavs, although the signage in LA is so poor that for a first timer to the city you truly need them otherwise you'll overshoot every exit or end up on the wrong freeway.

Even with the satnav I found myself overshooting so many junctions since often the right 4 lanes would just disappear off to join another freeway, while at other times, you'd join a freeway only to find that to continue straight you'd have to manoeuvre 5 lanes left in the space of 400m.

And then what it completely didn't take into account was the fact that carpool lanes often have their own interchanges which feed directly into other carpool lanes! It got really confused as I took the 91 to the I-5, telling me that I was driving suddenly around a local road since it didn't recognise the carpool slip-road and then having amend itself the moment it realised we were actually on I-5.

In the end, I found the most useful use of the SatNav to be just telling you how far you have to go before an exit, which is necessary when using carpool lanes since you can only enter and exit them every few miles. I think at least once, I've been whizzing at 70 in the inside lane (inside of 6 or 7!) when the exit shoots by, far over to the right, because I didn't get out in time!

[Transportman]

I once did that for a trip of 15 km to the East, Google Maps ended up with giving me a route of something like 60 km North to the middle of nowhere. Satnav got it right however, and I knew I had to go East to start with.

It sounds like you gave Google the wrong information (or it wasn't sure where the place you wanted was). The thing I like about Google Maps is you can very easily redirect the route it gives you, simply by dragging it to the roads you want.

I can't reproduce it now, so it might be that I was very sleepy and didn't notice the error in the information I provided...

[Kevo00]

I find Sat Nav pretty much indispensable for finding places at the end of journeys that I don't know. For motorway driving itself, there is relatively little need for them in the UK - we only have a few main motorways - that you will use as the spine for most journeys. But they certainly save time when driving to specific addresses in Norwich, Derby or Cardiff, for instance. Reading a streetmap while driving is surely going to be far more distracting!

[Jacko]

I wonder if this Tim Vine joke applies here...

'People say that reading in the car makes you queasy,
I find that long before that, you crash'

Still I 100% agree, Satnav only really needs to be used for the end bit in the town/city/village/whatever
r

[audigex]

I use my satnav a lot - it's built into the car so I don't have to spend time unplugging it, hiding it, putting it back on the windscreen etc - 20 seconds to enter the address and away I go. Normally the main use is for that "last 2 miles" I'd call it, coming off the A-Road or Motorway into the town you're visiting and finding the destination. Looking at a map before is all well and good, but it's hard to translate that to the buildings in front of you.

I find that a lot of the time I end up not using it, but it makes life easier when I know that I can concentrate on driving the car and will be reminded a couple of miles before my junction. I also find that the early warning of which exit to take off a roundabout means I can get into lane earlier, the traffic warnings and detours can be invaluable when travelling up the M6 on a Friday evening.

Similarly it works well as a confirmation that I'm going the right way or where I've chosen a lane ahead of a gantry - a couple of times it's alerted me to a mistake I was about to make: it's not that I follow it blindly, but it gives me that "wait, why is the satnav disagreeing with me" check at which point I've been known to change my mind or to over-rule the satnav and choose my own route. Other features like being able to see the next service station are nice, as is the ability to find things in the local area. Finally, it's sometimes nice to have an accurate ETA when a family member phones en-route... I know Manchester is "About an hour" from Birmingham, but that can leave a lot of room to under/overestimate.

A lot of accidents or incidents may be caused by SatNavs, but I'm willing to bet it's cut down a lot of people diving across lanes before roundabouts or junctions when seeing a sign at the last second.