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As a follow on from my comments on the other thread re. taking me down a forest track and being directed to leave the roundabout at the 6th exit when here was only 5,have any of you any experiences to share with the rest of us.
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They are reliable, so long as they can see enough satellites to get a lock. The problem is the accuracy of the mapping info, which bought in byt the makers SFAIK. Reliable - Yes. Accurate - like a computer - Garbage in = Garbage out!
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It's the mapping that's the problem, not the sat-navs or the route finder.
As a caravanner, road width is important to me - there's a place in Scotland where the selected route uses a private, but tarmac, road through a shooting estate - at one point the road crosses a river on a 6' wide bridge without parapets - now I'd hate to get stuck with my caravan wheels straddling each side of the roadway! I only know because the same bridge is part of a concessionary path and I've walked it!
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Yes, but how many alternatives (i.e. road atlases) would tell you the bridge is only 6' wide??
I think some people expect too much from sat navs. No, they are not perfect, but when I'm driving to new places on my own (often during my work as a surveyor) they are a lot safer than driving with one hand on the wheel and one hand one the atlas, as the other hand tries to er, change gear?
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In Stratford-Upon-Avon my TomTom kept telling me to "keep right" around a roundabout. If I didn't realise she meant "left" I could still be going around and around and around....
On the whole they are good but I find I look at the screen to confirm the route rather than obey the verbal instructions 100%
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Basically Tomtom One is fine when it's working (I would agree with the above mentioned provisos) - but there are at least 2 of us on here who believe that Tomtom customer support is a joke.
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I use Tom Tom on a pretty much daily basis, more for the speed cameras more than anything else, they are great in a strange location and even better in the centre of Birmingham trying to find an industrial estate.
I remember 2 years back we went to a wedding in kent that was at a rare bird centre or the like and i asked my dad to get the post code, wanting to show off the sat nav we went on our way, 3 hours later we arrivd and were told to turn left, and we were about 0.4 miles away, it looked like we were in the middle of nowhere, My old man was a little concerned so we went down this track which really wsnt suitable for a 407 then it said turn right to reach you destination as we did this we realised we were in the play area, it had taken us throguh the oldback gate to the once farm and we were diriving round a kids grassed play area with people starring in amazement, as you can imaging the olds were not impressed, we turned round and made good round the front, when i got home i checked thier website to see if dad had it wrong and it said "if using sat nav DO NOT USE POSTODE use the street" maybe tomtom was not to blame but quite funny after!!
Jon
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>>Yes, but how many alternatives (i.e. road atlases) would tell you the bridge is only 6' wide??
Atlases don't include private roads! unlike sat-nav mapping.
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Like every other bit of technology you have to use common sense. My TomTom is set to "fastest route" but still tries to send me down single track roads etc. Agree the problem is mapping.
Having said that,I find mine a godsend in Manchester and Liverpool. It`s very easy to end up lost and flusterd without one and end up bashing someone`s car or driving down a one way street. I would not recommend getting lost in Moss Side!
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RT - if a road in truly 'private' it is no use to you in your car whether you get there by sat nav or paper map, or am I missing something, again?
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Atlases don't include private roads! unlike sat-nav mapping.
Err wrong, road maps show John Nike Way in Bracknell which is a private road but TT although showing it doesn't regard it as a route.
As for Customer services Yup TT don't know how to spell it.
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there are at least 2 of us on here who believe that Tomtom customer support is a joke.
Oh - I didn't realise TomTom had a Customer Suport department.
Funniest one that I had was going north on M6 just past B'ham and wanted somewhere in north Wales. Was sent on a 2500 mile journey via Portugal (TT700)
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There is a turning close to where I live where the SN says to turn right, when in fact it is a left turn. The quirk is that the left turn is at the start of a right hand bend and the initial movement is very slightly right.
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Recent instruction from TomTom...."at the next junction carry straight on......and then turn around when safe to do so".
Can't think of any situation when this might be a valid, coherent instruction - re-routing in a one way system maybe. But this happened in open country.
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I always dread hearing my Garmin girl say "recalculate"....."Recalculate"
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You can fix the Garmin "recalculate" with a hack on some units. Another hack, as I have done on mine, is to make it say the street names instead of just "turn left", which I find useful.
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AS - some sat-nav mapping systems include the odd private road, I've never come across a paper map that did. The particular road I referred to, through part of the Coulin Estate in NW Scotland, doesn't have "private" notices so sat-nav users just do as they're told and drive through.
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My sat nav is much more reliable than my old map reader ever was..
(I hope she aint reading this)
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TourVanMan TM < Ex RF >
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TVM,
don't you miss your satnav saying "slow down, how can i possibly read the route at this speed"
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Ah yes but its compensated by the fact I can shout this one very loudly, in very coarse and colourful language, and there is no repercussions.
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TourVanMan TM < Ex RF >
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I think you'll find that in an effort to rehumanise the driving experience, the latest Ford units have new software that detects the tone of your voice. If you berate it too loudly the satnav gets out at the next roundabout and goes home to its mother.
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ordon't you miss your satnav saying "
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This looks familiar, we passed that xxx just now ;-))
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I recently stood back and laughed as I watched a young guy blocking a busy car park access, with traffic backed up all around him and his female front seat passenger shouting at him while he prodded furiously at the screen of his sat-nav.
Presumably it had let him down but he was so attached to the confounded thing he couldn't bring himself to move the car again until it told him to.
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Sat nav's are programmed with the idea thats someone will ignore them. Millions of lines of code and millions of dollars are spent to write the "re calculate" sub routine.
SO if you dont like a turn, dont do it, invoke the recalculate function.
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TourVanMan TM < Ex RF >
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I've never played with one, but have seen a West End limo driver playing the fool with one...
I must say they sound an awful nuisance, and probably more dangerous than hand-held mobiles at high speed.
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I must say they sound an awful nuisance and probably more dangerous than hand-held mobiles at high speed.
Its that age thing again Lud.
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TourVanMan TM < Ex RF >
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It's just as bad as watching TV while driving TVM. Worse, because you have to decipher a map on the thing. Juggling with your reading glasses. Peering closely for street names and one-way systems.
Totally lethal. Much worse than watching a cowboy movie out of the corner of your eye. And don't try to kid me that you whippersnappers can all do four things at once while riding a unicycle on a tightrope across Niagara falls. Most of you can't speak and walk upstairs simultaneously.
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Brilliant gadgets if you accept their limitations. I'd like a 'No, I'm not going that way!' button. Obviously they'll recalculate the route if you disobey them, but I find mine is initially too keen get me back onto the original route that it calculated.
One annoying example: 'please turn right' (approaching a no right turn sign), followed by 'please do a U-turn' (approaching a no U-turns sign) and finally 'please turn left' (to get me back onto the original road in order to start the whole sequence again).
Also, mine (a Mio that uses Navignon software) is often wrong about speed limits. I can accept that some will have changed since the maps were produced but some are downright eccentric: 30 mph in what is a 70 mph limit and vice versa. I soon turned off the speed warning function in favour of adding camera data using a program called POI Warner.
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