sat navs

[wild rover]

Hello, just wondered what you think of Sat Navs. Are they useful in country areas, or just for towns? My partner has developed a bit of a phobia about getting lost down narrow country lanes and not being able to turn the MH. So, sadly, going anywhere unknown is beginning to become a rather stressful experience! Any advice would be appreciated. Thanks!

[Brian Kirby]

Sorry if this may sound a bit unsympathetic, but getting lost down narrow country lanes has more to do with possession of appropriate maps, and one's ability to read same. 

Satellite navigation systems will not prevent you going down narrow country lanes, and will not help with turning round!  :-)  All they do is calculate routes from A to B, and then give guidance on how to follow them.  This they do very well, but none have an "avoid narrow lanes" switch.  Some have the ability to take account of vehicle size when calculating routes, so will not direct you along routes that contain actual restrictions on width, height, or weight, but there are thousands of miles of narrow country lanes all across Europe and UK than have no such restrictions, along which the average, and even the "truck" variety, sat nav will happily direct you.  To avoid these situations, you need to look at maps, pre-plan your routes and, even if using a sat nav, monitor your progress to be sure where you are going. 

Setting the sat nav to use the fastest route will generally result in major roads and motorways being selected, but the last mile to a destination may still involve using a narrow lane, if that is a quicker route than, for example, exiting a motorway 5 miles earlier and using a main road.  These are just dumb machines, and if route "A" with the narrow lane is two nanoseconds quicker that route "B" with the main road, it will select it.  You said "quickest route", after all!

The key to your dilemma, in my opinion, therefore, is good, up to date, maps, not sat navs.  Have a sat nav by all means, it makes most of the navigation process easy and stress free, but do not imagine it safe to abandon the process to the sat nav unaided, it must be monitored, and at times ignored, in favour of the sensible route!

[Brock]

We use maps. Our rule is 'no white roads' unless we are sure they are capable of taking a motorhome or we can see bus stops on them. Only ever got stuck once in about 100k of motorhoming and that was because of parked cars.

 

Having borrowed my son's sat nav, I was staggered that it tried to send me down two restricted roads and through a farm yard. All because I wanted to go a slightly different route. The cars at work have satnavs that seem intent on taking us into Liverpool from Birkenhead no matter where we are going - I guess that they don't recognise the River Mersey because there is a tunnel. We can programme them to avoid tolls such as the tunnel but then they ignore the M6 toll route.

 

However, my son swears by his for doing deliveries on his own in his Transit. It saves time, money and fuel.

 

I find the best maps are those with geographic detail to give you a feeling of the terrain. Maps also make the journey more interesting for the map reader who can spot things of interest.

 

A satnav is a useful bit of kit for many reasons but it will not stop you going down narrow roads. Your basic observations as a driver and the signs on the road should stop you. Try having a few rules as to what roads you will not go down eg 'white roads', roads unsuitable for heavy vehicles, width restrictions, steep gradients with tortuous bends. Help your partner understand road signs, particularly spotting the ones that identify inappropriate roads.

 

 

 

 

 

[rupert123]

I would not be without a satnav but agree with Brian about the need to still use maps for planning. Satnavs are especially good in big towns where a map is nearly useless.

[wild rover]

Thanks everyone for your help! Brian, don't worry, I don't think you are being unsympathetic at all. I know that Sat Navs won't tell you if a road is narrow, or suitable for MHs. I was just asking if they are in any way useful on country roads. My partner's biggest fear is to take the wrong turning by mistake, so if a Sat Nav gives precise instructions this risk could be avoided, at least in theory. I thought I'd read somewhere that Sat Navs were only useful in towns and cities, so I just thought I'd ask.

 

As mentioned in my first posting my partner has developed some kind of phobia about getting stuck in a narrow lane, etc. This has actually never happened to us I think it's a little bit irrational, but if we can't solve the problem then we'll have to get rid of our MH which would be a real shame.

[LordThornber]

I wouldn't say irrational at all. Many moons ago, there we were trundling down this very narrow lane to a site in France.

 

On arrival we were initially disappointed to find the site permanently closed. But then...

 

The real disappointment was where the ****** hell could we turn round?

 

We managed eventually of course and we could possibly have avoided it completely had we phoned in advance but we'd never done that before, or since for that matter so maybe we learned nowt.

 

I've probably now added to your other halfs fears :D

 

Martyn

[wild rover]

Don't worry, Martyn, he doesn't know I'm on this forum! :-D

[Brian Kirby]

OK, my last "downer" on sat navs.  :-) (We have one, and regularly use it, or else how could I possibly know all this rubbish?)  Don't trust them in towns, as there is another thing of which they know nothing.  That something, is parked cars.  How could any sat nav ever know that parked cars could make a tight urban road totally un-passable for a motorhome?  It'll find you an address, and navigate you to it, but not necessarily down roads any sane car driver would use, leave alone a motorhome driver!

We have had some "fun" in towns with ours, and learnt to ignore anything that looks the least bit dodgy.  One road it proposed in a French town would just about have taken a quad bike, but even a car would have been defeated.  The biggest problem is those streets that have a nice generous turn-in, but immediately narrow down.  In you go, before you can see properly what you're getting into, and then out you have to go, backwards!  Just make sure, if it's France, that it's also lunch time, because no-one sensible (except us) drives anywhere in rural France at lunch time, so reversing into the main road is much easier at that time!  Mind, ten minutes earlier, and you'll be dead meat.  :-D

[spospe]

We find our TomTom very useful for finding Aires (which often have very sketchy address information). There have been quite a few instances where we would not have found the Aire without the help of our little friend. ;-)

[djchapple]

We rely very much on our tomtom but only at certain times.

 

If we get lost or have deviation then it will help us recover our route and it will eventually get you to some place that is very hard to find.

 

For most of the route we use our maps.

 

Another advantage with some of the newer types of sat nav is that they can inform you of difficulties up ahead and give you the opportunity of finding an alternative before it is too late.

 

They can also warn you of speed limits, speed cameras (though far from infallible) and POIs can be installed for anything from shops to palaces. Very good with campsites and Aires etc.

[Keith T]

yes, they have their uses, but 'gut feeling' often takes priority in our case.....

We have been along roads to nowhere a couple of times, but always realised this before we got to 'nowhere' and managed 3-point (or 13 point ) turns, but many a time have decided against taking some roads in the first place.

We always use them in conjunction with 'proper'maps, and very often check on Autoroute as well...this does give some indication of the type of road.

The other benefit is without doubt the spped/speed limits shown, although even these - although updated regularly on teh computer - are not always accurate or correct!

[Keith T]

yes, they have their uses, but 'gut feeling' often takes priority in our case.....

We have been along roads to nowhere a couple of times, but always realised this before we got to 'nowhere' and managed 3-point (or 13 point ) turns, but many a time have decided against taking some roads in the first place.

We always use them in conjunction with 'proper'maps, and very often check on Autoroute as well...this does give some indication of the type of road.

The other benefit is without doubt the spped/speed limits shown, although even these - although updated regularly on teh computer - are not always accurate or correct!

[tonyishuk]

Sat Navs are just another tool on the bag !!

 

We plan with one, (it very quickly gives a calculation of length and time of route, We use a max speed of 50MPH to calculate time)

 

Look on the map to see if the route is viable, and if not use waypoints on the Sat Nav to circumnavigate areas we do not want to use.

 

However we still use a map and rally "tulip" signs to plot major turns and stops as plan B

 

Why have one ? basically it knows the way after we have told it, and tells me where the speed cameras might be.

 

Rgds

 

 

[trigrem]

I have used Tom Tom since it first came out on a PDA, since then things have improved, the most important as far as I am concerned it the feature to write your own itinerary.This allows you to plan your route from a good map, enter it into Tom Tom and then go.

It means you can tell the navigation system to take you the way you want to go, not the way it wanted to take you.

Incidentally it is possible to plan a route using MS Autoroute and then transfer it to an itinerary in Tom Tom

You must always remember you are the driver, not the navigation system.

The advantage being you can tell it it shut up without getting a clip round the ear.

Doug

[RogP]

Where people go wrong with Sat Navs is thinking they are infallable , as a driver you still have to look and think ahead , reading the road signs and taking the appropriate actions based on the info you see and the local conditions.

 

Afterall a sat nav is just an electronic version of a map and a synthetic voice giving you those instructions.

 

If a passenger is sat there giving you directions either directly from a map or pre printed directions do you trust that implicitly without regards for the info as a driver you get from road signs , local issues (such as Brian mentioned of impassable side roads due to parking) and looking ahead.

 

Having view of the map on a Sat Nav with up coming instructions helps me to look ahead at whats in front to see if there are issues I have to take into acount.

 

use them as an aid not a 'given' and you shouldn't go too wrong.

 

Having said all that I did once go down a very tight , dead end lane by not trusting the sat nav and using local signage for guidence. The signs had actually been moved by some little mischeivious imp!!! (you know in cartoons when they turn a sign around to point a different direction!!!)

[Archiesgrandad]

I sometimes wonder if this forum isn't an outlet for the Luddite Persuasion.

Have a thought for a moment, if there is a road, then it will go somewhere. It may lead to a town or village, it may lead to a farm or industrial site, it may lead to a housing developement, but it will lead to something.

That something will need to have materials of one sort or another taken to it or collected from it. The vehicles used to transport those materials will vary in size, but you can bet your boots that at some time those vehicles will be 7.5 tonnes or larger, and they are able to get in and out of those places without too much trauma. If they can manage, then so can we, and before anyones starts banging on about how expensive our vans are, and how precious they are to us, think about how much a 48 tonne artic reefer costs.

Satnavs are fine, use them sensibly, program them carefully, you don't NEED a library of large scale maps, but it is sensible to have the appropriate country road atlas , and always check that the St Ives the you clicked is in the county you wish to go to. (How many are there?)

If you are not the swashbuckling, chuck it in and sort it out on the other side type, then always be cautious when you drive your van. You are entitled to be, stop if you don't like the look of things, you can completely ignore the idiots who toot their hooters at you or shout at you, they are commiting the offence not you. Have a thought to taking some extra driving tuition, fit any manouvering aids you can, try to learn to relax and enjoy driving.

Some people love looking at maps, some people love spending their time plotting and planning their journeys and adventures, some people just love to go over their old maps re-living their adventures. Good luck to them. All over the world proffesionals in transport use the appropriate form of GPS navigation system as a matter of course, why would we be different.

AGD

[Brian Kirby]

Dunno what provoked that, Bill.  Have any of us said different?  :-)

[tonyg3nwl]

Hi, We have 2 sat navs called Maggie and Dennis. Maggie is a Garmin Quest unit with female voice. Routing can be preplanned on the Computer and then transferred to the satnav for guidance on the journey. Waypoints can be entered also on the computer as grid references, or "find addresses" etc. The garmin has a limited memory capacity so care has to be taken to limit the data (ie journey distance etc) or it will run out of memory . This is my preferred unit for guidance into unknown territory, based on the initial on screen map display on the pc. All the usual route choices, speed choices etc can be selected, and a log of route used together with speed at any location on the route is saved for later analysis. This could be useful if stopped for an alleged speeding offence but of course it depends who accesses the data, police or myself.

 

The other satnav, Denis, (a male voice device by MIO), came "free" with the van. Disadvantage is that I cant plot routes on computer for transfer to device, rather the plan has to be entered direct either by means of coordinates , or waypoints lists can be saved as files on a plugin memory card direct in the device.

 

One problem with it is that its internal battery has a relatively short life, and it need to be plugged in to car charger for power on a long journey.

Also , having planned the route, and typed it all in, there isnt a specific "save" function, and if you depower it to save battery, it loses the route and I have to start all over. It does interconnect via bluetooth to the mobile phone, offering hands free phone use, and it can also store music or pictures if required.

 

One useful feature is that it is possible to download speed camera locations from the website which give audible warnings as approaching the point. This is not legal in some countries, so should be turned off., a stupid ruling !!!

 

Both devices are useful as "suggested routes" but neither outweighs common sense and decent maps. There have been occasions when we have obeyed the directions and found ourselves following the "scenic route"

 

tonyg3nwl