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You only get what you pay for!
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Do the various brands use different mapping systems ?
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last week I was walking the dogs when a bloke pulled up and asked me if he could get to Ripon using the route he was on. His sat nav was telling him he was ok, but I think he was getting nervous.
He was driving down a footpath.
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Are you serious ? I can believe it after my experience.
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Sounds like you couldnt be bothered to set it up properly.
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TourVanMan TM < Ex RF >
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TVM Why does it sound like that ? What should I have done differently ?
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you have lots of options for route prefrences. Fastest, shortest, walking etc. Those were not set up correctly.
Plus you should have bought a tomtom. The rest really dont compare.
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TourVanMan TM < Ex RF >
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I admit that at that point it was wide and had tarmac on it, but that stopped a 100 yards further on where it went down to mud. After another 500 yards it would be driving through fields.
He said that he had just bought the sat nav for £200. I dont know if he had followed its directions properly. But he had to reverse up and turn around in a field entrance.
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As a positive experience, my FiL drove from Calais to Stockholm last week without a map. Relying only on a tomtom.
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Well you shouldn't fiddle with it while driving.
Sounds like yours has something wrong with it to me. Did it have a decent GPS signal in your car I wonder? Maybe you've got one of those heat reflective windscreens.
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Ubi, Is it possible to set it to `prefer main roads`? This often takes a longer route but stops them trying to go down footpaths.
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My Tomtom, which is over 2 years old now (Tomtom Go500) is a superb bit of kit. I'm a complete 100% technophobe, yet can use that very easily. Even managed to download USA maps without too much weariness.
It has the odd moment, when it gets confused, then quickly rights itself..... and i've had the odd moment where i'm faced with a No Entry or something...but when you check, you notice the brand new road signs and realise the road layout has changed recently. It isn't a problem though as you drive up another road and it re-sets itself.
There's no need to keep fiddling with it, once you've set it....just follow the instructions.
If you get an aftermarket fitting, you can fit them to the dashboard (covers one of the air vents though), so that your screen vision isn't compromised and therefore not illegal.
Wouldn't be without it now...esp the speed cameras bit, (although 'er indoors has to do that as it's too complicated for me to understand).
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The buses only road it tried to send me up has had that restriction for ten years or more.
Anyway it's done and dusted now. Between my first post and this I've been to Costco and returned the item.
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I have an older Medion pocket PC type sat nav with Navteq software. Its great for getting through an unfamiliar city abroad and straight to the hotel, but is difficult to use and set up
I tend to find the hotels listed ( often up to 20) in the city i`m travelling to, in the `points of interest` in the navteq software,look them up on the internet and book, then straight to it.
Arriving after dark on a recent trip to Koblenz, it `pulled` me straight through the city and up the drive of Diels Hotel.
From this perspective, i think they are worth their weight in gold.
I only tend to use it on the final approach to any destination abroad as I find it frustrating to keep `pocketing` it on stops.
I have been looking at newer, simpler Sat navs, but they all seem to have the speed camera data bases included. Whats the point in that, when its illegal in France?
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I have been looking at newer simpler Sat navs but they all seem to have the speed camera data bases included. Whats the point in that when its illegal in France?
>>
It's not illegal in France. A radar detection would be, but existing sites, published for accident prevention reasons is not a problem.
Although you don't really need the French sites, unless you're stopped at the time, as speeding in a non French registered car isn't a problem, even if they wrote to you, which they won't, you'd ignore it and they'd go away.
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Thanks for that Westpig. I thought they frogmarched speeders to the nearest cashpoint though?
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Ah, sorry, I understand..
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It isn't just pressing little buttons, it's watching a small TV screen while driving. Of course there must be people who use the thing 'safely', but I'm damned if I can see how they do it.
A bunch of London Trinidadian costume makers - friends of mine - were grumbling at top volume the other day about satnav in minicabs. My wife doesn't mind me sternly telling cab drivers which way to go (although black cab drivers intent on bumping up the fare become very shirty sometimes, and depart untipped as a result), but I have noticed that most women don't like it, including the wives of my Trini pals. Anything for a quiet life.
The word is that people just off the container ship or just out from under the Eurostar are buying motors, setting up as minicabs and finding their way about with these devices, going all round the houses in the process. Just looking at the minicabs these days I can tell there's a lot of truth in this.
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I regularly see the same cars on my 10 mile commute to work with their sat-nav suckered onto the windscreen (surely a motorbike/cyclist could easily be hidden by this thing?) doing the same old journey.
Are they really incapable of doing the same journey without sat-nav?
I have just returned from a 1000 mile journey through France without using sat-nav - I just printed a route from the viamichelin webbie.
Got to four seperate destinations without a single error.
Sat-nav - a soluton looking for a problem.
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"I have just returned from a 1000 mile journey through France without using sat-nav"
Henry V did that as well, he had no sat nav or proper maps, mind you it took him a bit longer.
Old arguments - Sat Nav is useful in strange cities looking for a particular building, useful on the bike to provide a HUD for speeds (and a little "pose" value - "hey isn't that Ewan McGregor ?" :-) ) as TVM says TT got it cracked on more fronts than most other makers. My other SatNav is a Garmin, nowhere near as friendly as TT.
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Are they really incapable of doing the same journey without sat-nav?
they are probably using it to keep an eye on speed camera sites......(and/or using the estimated time of arrival bit as well)
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or ready to punch the "alt route" button when a jam occurs.
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TourVanMan TM < Ex RF >
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sat-nav suckered onto the windscreen (surely a motorbike/cyclist could easily be hidden by this thing?)>>
There is no need whatsoever to stick a sat-nav to your windscreen. My Tom-Tom works perfectly well Velcroed beside the heater controls.
This avoids the sucker marks on the screen that seems to tell the scrotes you have one in the car. I also find very little need to look at the screen, if one listens to the vocal instructions then it`s easy enough.
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www.brodit.com
Brackets that will jam into the air vent surround. Have used one for 2 years and apart from blocking that particular vent somewhat...perfect.
Bit dear though.
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>> Brackets that will jam into the air vent surround. Have used one for 2 yearsand apart from blocking that particular vent somewhat...perfect.
Except air vent mounted sat-nav systems were found to be complete failures in DEKRA crash tests.
"Portable satellite navigation systems also came under the safety testers' spotlight."
EDIT: They were originally testing DVD players velcroed on rear headrests
"They found that, while sucker cup holders for sat-navs passed the crash test, another variant - which fixes to the air vent - failed completely. The mounting flapped down on the vent and broke in two, smashing the cradle and sat-nav on the feet of the dummy in the driver's seat."
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>>>> There is no need whatsoever to stick a sat-nav to your windscreen. My Tom-Tom worksperfectly well Velcroed beside the heater controls.
Please forgive my ignorance, but doesn't the gps receiver thingy have to be in line of sight of the windscreen?
Or something?
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Please forgive my ignorance but doesn't the gps receiver thingy have to be in line of sight of the windscreen? Or something?
Actually no. My bluetooth GPS reciever works reasonably well in the centre armrest cubby.
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TourVanMan TM < Ex RF >
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My dad's sat nav has been fantastic, he goes all over the country on business and he just enters the postcode and it gets him to the doorstep every time. He's not had any problems with it in 4 years. Either you bought a rubbish unit or didn't set it up right.
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Never had a problem with a map book personally.
Buy a new one for £ 1.99 every year and its updated and it covers the areas I want to get to (uk and europe). If i need a more accurate map of a city etc I print 1 off before travelling. i find a bigger map to look at way better than a small screen especialy if taking a sudden alternative route.
Only times I think these are of use over posing are for delivery drivers doing different locations daily. Most lorry drivers I know that are supplied with them wont even use them and that tells me all I want to know about them !
Most of the people I know with them only use them to get to and from work!
Really cant understand all the fuss and "I want one of those" hype.
Daughter gets about the country with a map book (my last years cast off) better than her bf with his sat nav.
Every one to their own though.
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yb,
If you drive to anywhere built up that you're not familiar with...and use a map.....you either have to keep stopping to refresh your memory...or drive whilst looking at a map, which isn't to be recommended.
A Satnav is a lot easier and you don't have to change pages.. or indeed the whole map.
Then when you bung in speed camera databases, postcode searches etc, they are very useful. Of particular help is if you are aiming for a long road with numbers that can be great and you don't know what end of the road you need, the Satnav will take you to roughly where the premises is.
You can even use it to see sharp deviations of road ahead, albeit i wouldn't recommend staring at it that often.
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It's quite tricky to read a conventional map while driving and arguably dangerous; and modern roads make it difficult to stop when you need to check the route. Neither is a map any use if you don't know where you are, which is the killer feature of sat nav. The icing on the cake is route recalculation when you deviate from the path of righteousness.
I'm not trying to win the argument though - each to their own, as you say, and I think there is a downside to sat nav in that it's easy to become a slave to it, and doubt that you can pick a better route even when it's taking a long way round and you have a map that tells you there is a better route.
I'm a pretty firm convert myself; easy when I'm on my own, and saves arguments when I'm being supervised by Mrs M.
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Neither is a map any use if you don't know where you are which is the killer feature of sat nav.
LOL.
Not knowing where they are is evidently the killer feature of satnav addicts.
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Lud, you are so well named. I think your horse and cart needs attention.
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TourVanMan TM < Ex RF >
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your horse and cart needs attention.
They does does they televisionperson? What could you mean I wonder (but not with any great interest)?
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>Buy a new one for £ 1.99 every year and its updated
ah but is it!
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TourVanMan TM < Ex RF >
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A car has recently been turning up in the car park at work every day with two gigantic sucker mounts stuck to the windscreen. I haven't seen it arrive, just noticed it as I've walked past. So - he / she hasn't learnt the route in yet and is saving up for a third sat nav to get a majority vote? If so I think they're in for a shock! :-)
JH
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My TomTom has never sent me to the wrong place, could not imagine going back to paper maps.
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Westpig,
I understand your comments and if you feel comfy with 1 then np to me.
Personally i prefer a map book. I do a lot of miles, including in europe and have never yet found a problem getting to where I want to go.
If I travel to a new /confusing destination then I just print a route map off the pc, know where I want to be what roads etc get me there and relax and drive.
I prefer to be in charge of where I drive and not the other way round. I have been driven as a passenger in a car with 1 fitted and I asked to be allowed out or allow me to drive because of the blind faith/distraction it caused the driver ! I swore then that I would never allow myself to be driven by anybody using 1 again! And I might add that I do a lot of miles as a rally co-driver too so I am in no way a nervous passenger! i just prefer a driver to be looking at the roads/cars and warning signs.
But, each to their own.
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But each to their own.
aye
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I have had a Navman for about 2 years now and it has never tried to send me down a footpath/through a farmyard or anything else. The mapping is now a bit out of date but a bit of common sense ( sadly lacking in a lot of sat nav users) usually overcomes that.
I was following a friend who was being guided by a tomtom the other week. The tomtom sent us round in circles 3 times. In the end I switched on the Navman and took the lead - straight out first time
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Westpig.. Reference your earlier posting about France and speeding.
It doesn?t work like that in all Countries for motoring offences.. I was in Cyprus and leaving Limassol on my way back to the airport in a hire car.
I was following a few local cars who were in the centre of the road waiting to turn right and I followed them knowing roughly where I wanted to go.
A Policeman stopped us all (me not knowing what for but beginning to guess what it was ) and eventually worked his way through them issuing tickets until he got to our car.
Nothing to do with this story but he was the image of the Gendarme in the ?Allo Allo? series.
Anyway, he said I had turned down a ?no right turn? and was issuing me with a fixed penalty ticket for CY £12.00 which you go to the Police Station to pay.
I told him I was on my way to the airport and he gave me a kind of matey wink and said you have 14 days to pay anyway so I forgot about it.
Later in the year we went again to Cyprus. Booked flight separately and telephoned my usual apartment for accommodation.
Two days there and on Saturday night the telephone in my room rang at 10.00pm and it was the Reception Lady who said there was a man at Reception who wanted to see me.
Went down and it was a young chap who didn?t speak English which is very unusual in Cyprus. He handed me two pieces of paper both in Greek language.
The Receptionist read them and told me it was a subpoena to attend Limassol court on Monday morning for non-payment of a motoring offence. The lad wanted it signed.
Much discussion of how they had traced me and the consensus among my Cypriot friends was that the paper you fill on the aircraft where you are stopping must be checked against passport control for ?wanted? felons.
It was quite an experience.....Still not completed.
Wemyss.
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Possibly knew your whereabouts when you got to the hotel. We all know we hand in passports but the details are sent on and checked I believe - the whole point of the hotel asking for the passports.
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Lot to be said for a lastminute dot bomb and private rental !
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rtj70... We went into this possibility along with others. The owner of the apartments who is an old friend said there was no possibilty of this.
Whilst they do take your passport at the desk the computer is non accessible to outside and he has never known the Police coming in to check on guests.
In the end we assumed that it must have been the form you fill in on the plane.
It was quite a day actually as during the same night the apartment below us caught fire. My wife woke up with the smoke coming up from below and coming in through the patio windows. We went down and alerted the night man and we were all out in the street with the fire brigade in attendance.
Actually the last time we will be able to stop there as the owner in his eighties has sold up and it was being converted into luxury apartments sold off individually to rich Russians who are gradually buying Cyprus.
wemyss
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i wish i had sat/nav when i was a courier van driver--various drops cumbernauld
i will always remember that day
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Get a good road map.
Use google maps to zoom in on more complicated parts. You can see when a junction is not a juntion with the hybrid sattelite view.
Avis often give good maps (which I tend to collect..).
I am sure some sat navs can work well. And it is a big help if it eliminates the need to stop and look at the map. The problem is I don't have time to learn how to progam and use them. I had one giving directions in German I could not switch off (I later found there was separate CD for English). A colleague has i-Drive, which looks like something for confirmed masochists only.
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The problem is I don't have time to learn how to progam and use them. I had onegiving directions in German I could not switch off (I later found there was separate CD for English).
Ziggy,
I promise you NO ONE is more of a plank than i am with anything technical and even I can use it. I suspect the more expensive ones are easier to use and i personally can only speak for Tomtom, which is extremely simple.......Anyone could use it.
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I use TomTom One for work and for the personal journeys that I don't know where I'm going and I would never want to go back to paper maps. If you're travelling somewhere on your own you can't always stop safely and check where you're going (nor can you read your map on the move).
Case in point, went to Nottingham end of last year (a place I don't know at all) and huge accident on the road in and massive tailbacks. My Google map of A-Z directions really wasn't any good in that. I really could have done with TomTom then to redirect me.
I just find it takes the stress out of not really knowing where you're going (and the ETA feature is great too).
It's not 100%, but it's sooo much better than paper maps.
Chris
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As a colleague in work put it when he went to Manchester to a conference "one less thing to worry about" and he's quite right. If you're not sure whether they're for you or not your local BMW dealer will hire them out quite cheaply on a daily and weekly basis. Go try one.
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