Thread: GPS directions take driver off-road

Thats the Susie Maroney version

come on it is only 3462 miles! in 29 days 7 hours!


zwitter

I actually find it quite useful. Not only does it speed up some of my inspections, but it saves endless arguments when in Perth.

The LR nav is the opposite of the one mentioned earlier. It prefers major roads and doesn't like being told to take minor ones, often attempting to re-direct us onto a major road.

I would suggest that anyone who blindly follows the satnav without watching where they are really going, is likely to take the wrong roads if using paper maps anyway.

When we were in Granada in Spain, we were trying to get to our hotel and the map showed a road crossing the river right in front. Lucky we didn't try for that as it turned out to be a four foot wide stone footbridge.

Originally Posted by dm_td5

Do they make SatNav's for female drivers?

You know the ones that they can turn the screen to match the way they are going like they do with maps

Wheres Mrs Pedro when I want her.

on second thoughts

Originally Posted by Jamo

I would suggest that anyone who blindly follows the satnav without watching where they are really going, is likely to take the wrong roads if using paper maps anyway.

In a perfect world , eh, Jamo...

On a separate thought, if a car is fitted with a tv, the driver can't watch it while driving, so far as I understand the law.

So why are satnavs (which is basically the same thing) not covered by this?

Or are they?


GQ

That is absolutely hillarious, some programmer has done that for the really stupid people, after it is the us site.

Interesting the comments on toys in cars,
there was a mention of the so called ****** lights, the fog lights that are clear that everyone has on,( illegal but who polices it) very annoying as they almost blind you( around here there are a lot of hills) so there is an upsurge in the use of them.
I have noticed the same for the satnavs, the gps thingys and the like. They seem to be on a lot more windscreens these days. Not that I any problem with technology, but what happened to reading a map, I got to wabbits the other day then up to another suburb by reading a map and making notes, not relying on some piece of equipment to guide me.

I have used a gps in the past during jobs and on particular one, three were being used, each had a different reading. So i don;'t trust them.
a topographical map and a compass are easier.
My mate Vince from Camden only armed with my address got to my street a few years ago by entering the details in his satnav. Only one problem, he had to ring me got lost, because on his map it took him 2km from where I actually was.
It depends on how the satellites are aligned and when they are moved.


john

Anyone using Whereis.com to find me is going to end up on a very rough road, about 30km away, in the middle of the bush with no phone coverage (and now very black). I understand that a number of the GPS systems use the same map database.............

I have told Sensis of the problem at least four times in the last three years, but nothing has happened to fix it, presumably because they have no control over it - it is third party map data.

The major problem with GPS systems is the same as with paper maps - they are often incomplete, out of date, or just plain wrong. I remember when my son first looked at a job in Canberra I found the speedo distance between Booroowa and Yass was way out compared to the map - looking at four different maps gave four different distances, with a variation of around 20km, not bad for a distance of about 50km! There is no inherent reason why the map data in a GPS system should be any better than in printed maps, and I have seen nothing to suggest that it is. But people often seem to think that it is gospel.

John

You're right there John, The LR one uses Sensis. I get country roads on it but most roads have no address info - only townsites and major roads.

In towns it's fantastic. Outside towns it's just beige! That's when we go over to the OziExplorer.

Quiggers, the way I understand the law is that you can't have a VDU on and in direct display of the driver. I think that's why the oe satnav screen is in the middle of the dash - open to interpretation but obviously enought to satisfy ADR's. I would hazard a guess that pda/computer screens directly facing the driver are illegal, but not worth enforcing (like those foglights!)

Funnily enough, I was giving a bloke his vehicle night nav assessment once. He had to get to a certain point at night, no lights. We only used topo maps. He chose to drive down a track rather than cross country. The total distance was about 4km.

After driving down the track for about 10 km I stopped him, asked him where he was and where we were going. He turned to me and said that we hadn't come to the turn yet. I said 'What turn?' He then showed me the map and said that we had to pass three tracks before we turned. The 'tracks' we had to pass were grid lines on the map - Fail!

I've said it before and I'll say it again - the Sat/Nav devices are only as good as the maps supplied to them.

I use and LOVE my portable Sat/Nav, I don't care that people say "I'm lazy" or "stoopid" or whatever because I use it. When I'm in a unknown area it saves a bucket load of fights because my wife can't read maps and how many times have you seen people driving along with a Refedex / UBD on their lap? How safe is that compared to glancing occasionally at a screen directly underneath (at least, that is where I put it) your rear-vision mirror which you check regularly anyway so you glance at it in the same instant - the only other time you might look at it is when it speaks to you, you may glance over to see which crossing or turn-off it is referring to when there are multiple turn-offs ahead.

Oh I hear you say "but I'm losing visibility" - visibility almost directly in front?? Have you driven with a Sat/Nav and checked out the lost visibility? Most of it is on my bonnet! To be honest, I don't really care for losing visibility of my bonnet, I don't see that as a major issue. I lose more visibility when I stick my spare tyre on my bonnet...

They are good. They are new tech so there are always people suspicious of them and more than willing to point out their faults. Of the billions (and by now it probably is) of people using them there are a few reported issues with bad maps and people are jumping up and shouting "ooh I would never use one of those devilish things!". If you want a similar comparison to something close to home - look at what people said / are saying about the Discovery 3.

P.S. There are at max 2 companies that map Australia. We are just too big with too small a population base to make it feasible. Most companies use UBD/whereis (same data source) data for their maps. In Europe and the Americas there are half a dozen companies each that do mapping..