editor
hiraethified
Yes. Because he was stupid and not using his eyes or his common sense, so please clear up that conspiraloon mess you're starting to create.
Satnav idiot who nearly drove over a cliff convicted of careless driving
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If you agree with my previous comment, then you are agreeing he was mesmerised by the authority of the SatNav. He must have been using his eyes, or he wouldn't have followed the path at all. Whether he was an 'idiot' or not isn't the point. Even the least intelligent drivers know that one drives on roads, not mountain paths.
Here's a thought - why don't you just let people have their say? I have no intention of retracting my observation, nor with indulging your control-freakery any further on this thread.
editor
hiraethified
Here's a thought: why don't you just let people discuss things normally without trying to tar it with yet more of your increasingly bizarre conspiraloonery rants?
The thread is about the amusing tale of one bloke getting into a pickle after he was daft enough to pay too much attention to his GPS.
It is not about "how we are quite mesmerized into following authority" with all the attendant loonbobbin, Icke-driven garbage you are no doubt inferring.
Shippou-Sensei
4:1:2.5
i think the off topic spat vs original topic critical ratio has just been passed
London_Calling
Pleasant and unpatronising
Talking of Welsh cliffs - here's a good un:
Looks a big enough big drop for even Pie1 to see!
Whatever.
You're obviously happy to quote & use the Daily Mail's hyperbole when it suits you. Who am I to argue with that?
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newbie
undisambiguated
Unless there are roadsigns we've not been told about, he had a reasonable expectation that it was safe and legal for him to follow the directions he'd been given. If you're right about the location then his satnav either directed him along a red or yellow road or it sent him along a footpath.
Once he'd turned on to the path or road or whatever it was, even if it started to become clear that it wasn't up to much, he was imminently running out of petrol, and was being directed to the closest, so to decide to attempt to turn round or reverse out and go some other way would mean running out, so yeah, I understand why he'd press on, how on earth was he to know he was driving towards a cliff? He stopped when he realised.
I really don't see the guy did that much wrong. 6 points on his license and a huge fine/costs is well out of order.
Unless the Daily Hate has left out half the story, or course, which is obviously possible.
19sixtysix
Bring me sunshine
Can't see the point of the prosecution. No harm done except to embarrassed idiot's wallet which are both punishments enough I'd have thought.
I personally still use a map for navigation.
I personally still use a map for navigation.
mauvais
on reddit or something
Why? A satnav telling you to do something doesn't make it safe or legal. Where I live, the satnav says you can turn off the A road into my street. To do so you'd have to mount the kerb, drive across some grass, along a footpath and through a set of bollards. Is there a reasonable expectation that one can do so?
I don't see any indication that this is a public road or track admissible to traffic.
Where's this petrol business come from? (edit: spotted that now) In any case to my mind he should have been asking 'is this a sensible route to follow, and if not, will I be able to get back out?' before proceeding any further.
I don't know what the fine and points were specifically for, but it is driving without due care and attention, and to some extent it's probably a punishment based on 'pour encourager les autres'.
internetstalker
Get naked!
Nice
lols!
satnavs are for idiots IMO
what was ever wrong with a map!
I'm started my reverse courior job a week Monday, I'll be buying a map. but no satnav
Louis MacNeice
Autumn Journalist
I liked this coment on the story:
Cheers - Louis MacNeice
p.s. I don't own a sat nav but I can read a map.
Fair enough, but what about prosecuting the sat nav providers for aiding and abetting an offence by providing faulty software.
Cheers - Louis MacNeice
p.s. I don't own a sat nav but I can read a map.
London_Calling
Pleasant and unpatronising
I sometimes think they're one of those supremely cynical products; designed for the woman who doesn't know what to buy her man - that's a huge market for these. Then they can buy the upgrades next Christmas.
kyser_soze
Hawking's Angry Eyebrow
I used a twatnav for the first time when we were driving in France/Italy and while it was a real boon, especially in the cities, it was really easy to get lazy and use it to navigate rather than look for roadsigns and suchlike. All this article does is reinforce my basic feeling about them - they're a useful tool, but one that makes some people really lazy, and that can stop you thinking about your driving.
newbie
undisambiguated
Of course not, but in that case it's clear the satnav direction can't be followed for whatever reason, probably a recent change or maybe it was always wrongly programmed and has never been corrected.
I've been using TomTom for years and it's usually reliable, more so now than in earlier versions because the mistakes get reported and corrected. That doesn't mean I blindly drive down no entries or anything, but it does mean that I know from experience that when it suggests a route will will usually work. Maps are also capable of being wrong or ambiguous, of course.
tbh I can't quite see which bit of the map you're looking at (and I've got a 1:25000 OS map here) but it's not what you see that matters, it's what the driver saw at the time. If there is no roadsign to show that cars shouldn't use the route, and the satnav suggests they can, why would the driver not turn as directed?
of course he should, and he probably did, but on the balance of probabilities a mature satnav system like TomTom is very unlikely to direct him along somewhere that is unsuitable, let alone unsafe, for cars to drive along.
I think that's grounds for appeal in itself.
newbie
undisambiguated
this sort of sexist twaddle, and all the other stuff being spouted by people who don't use the technology, reminds me of when mobile phones were only used by yuppies and dope dealers, with a huge raft of people smugly proclaiming about how they couldn't see any use for such a thing...
London_Calling
Pleasant and unpatronising
right on, bro. SatNav's and mobile phones - perfect comparison. What about microwaves and the Internet?
newbie
undisambiguated
I'll shut up in a sec, but I'd suggest that having a calm voice giving clear directions in advance helps the driver deal with traffic and not have to frantically try to read every sign and get stressed about navigation. In a strange environment I'd much rather have satnav than a passenger give directions from a map/signs or have to try to do it all myself.
Perhaps that's why the vast majority of professional drivers seem to have them in their cabs.
newbie
undisambiguated
the comparison is the attitude to technology of those who don't (yet) use it
internetstalker
Get naked!
TBF I think it'd be a pretty good thing to use if you were driving abroad
kyser_soze
Hawking's Angry Eyebrow
Personally I found the spoken directions to be misleading and in some cases dangerous - this may be a 'feature' of using a US SatNav (Garmin), but on roads where one had to bear right while following the road, it repeatedly said 'Take the next right'; it also classified some types of juntion in Europe as roundabouts when they weren't, and some roundabouts as crossroads etc. Now I realise this is as much down to the map info the thing had - but it was a brand new unit with the most up-to-date Euro maps loaded, and it was still making mistakes on roundabouts that had clearly been around for a while.
Like I said - it was a great boon in some ways, and having it made initial navigation of places like Florence and Aix-en-Provence easier, but the voice was annoying, and far from making it a more relaxing experience, in many cases it was easier to use the thing as an advice guide, rather than rely on it.
Personal thing - I like to find my own way around places, and I also think they are lazy-making tools. The compairson with mobiles is specious BTW - the mobile as a tool doesn't de-skill you in the way a sat nav does (poeple who can't read/use maps will now never even attempt to learn to do so), and it's so reliant on a massive tech infrastructure...and I say this as someone who's a big fan of gadgets and tech...
newbie
undisambiguated
It certainly took me a good while to learn to use the satnav and I wouldn't ever recommend someone to use it for the first time either abroad or in an unfamiliar city. Get used to it near home on roads and routes you're comfortable with because it's inevitably going to be a bit of a distraction from driving as you try to figure out some of it's little ways. One of the key tricks, of course, is to not worry if you miss the turn it wants you to take, because it will recalculate for you... but that's pretty counterintuitive and can be stressful. Once you're used to it though it's a lot less stressful than missing a turn and having to pull over to look at a map, especially if, like me, you have to put glasses on for the map and take them off again to drive.
Satnav is good but it's far from perfect. My preferred method involves both satnav and a GPS plot on a proper map running on a netbook, either used by a passenger or on the seat beside me. Best of both worlds, and a lot, lot better than paper maps.
Satnav is good but it's far from perfect. My preferred method involves both satnav and a GPS plot on a proper map running on a netbook, either used by a passenger or on the seat beside me. Best of both worlds, and a lot, lot better than paper maps.
kyser_soze
Hawking's Angry Eyebrow
Sorry, but from my own POV I disagree with this completely.
newbie
undisambiguated
yeah? have you tried what I suggested? I've spend many years using paper maps to navigate. Pull over, look around to figure exactly where you are, glasses on, try to find place on map, sort out and memorise what has to happen next, glasses off, drive... doesn't look quite right, pull over, glasses on, search map to find place again, try to understand and memorise, glasses off, drive.....
even worse at night when there's not enough light to see the map properly.
no ta.
even worse at night when there's not enough light to see the map properly.
no ta.
kyser_soze
Hawking's Angry Eyebrow
Why would I go to the expense and hassle of buying a satnav and netbook, set them up in a car when I can spend £5.99 on a map and get by reading that and using my brain? Plus, I wear my glasses all the time I also never did what you're talking about - I'm lucky to have a pretty decent sense of space and would usually be able to remember directions til it gets 'tactical' (last mile when the address details become important for example) which is when I'd refer to a map...but like I said, this is my POV on this, I'm not slating you or satnavs generally, I just think that that deskill people and should be used sparingly as a tool.
I also never did what you're talking about - I'm lucky to have a pretty decent sense of space and would usually be able to remember directions til it gets 'tactical' (last mile when the address details become important for example) which is when I'd refer to a map...but like I said, this is my POV on this, I'm not slating you or satnavs generally, I just think that that deskill people and should be used sparingly as a tool.
newbie
undisambiguated
You've never, ever had to search for somewhere safe to pull over and trace your finger around trying to figure out where you are on a map?
I don't think I'd have bought all the technology just for the one use, but the satnav is on my phone, the netbook has many other uses and the gps to go with the netbook is a hangover from a previous generation of bits (and yup, I'm a gadget freek). The software is mostly being evaluated, iykwim. But having got it all I'd be very, very reluctant to go back to using paper maps, and I say that as a longterm fan, there's about 3 shelf-feet of maps downstairs.
This notion of deskilling has little merit, imo. I'm not sure I have the skills to boil sheets with a bluebag then use a mangle and then heat a flatiron on the range. Have I been deskilled? possibly but so what, I could learn how to do it if I ever needed to. Time moves on, so do the skills required and so do the frustrations and perils of misusing the skillset. I predict that you and all the other naysayers will be routinely using the tech within the next two or three years, whatever y'all may think now, simply because it makes sense to do so. Let's revisit this thread in 2012 and see, shall we
I don't think I'd have bought all the technology just for the one use, but the satnav is on my phone, the netbook has many other uses and the gps to go with the netbook is a hangover from a previous generation of bits (and yup, I'm a gadget freek). The software is mostly being evaluated, iykwim. But having got it all I'd be very, very reluctant to go back to using paper maps, and I say that as a longterm fan, there's about 3 shelf-feet of maps downstairs.
This notion of deskilling has little merit, imo. I'm not sure I have the skills to boil sheets with a bluebag then use a mangle and then heat a flatiron on the range. Have I been deskilled? possibly but so what, I could learn how to do it if I ever needed to. Time moves on, so do the skills required and so do the frustrations and perils of misusing the skillset. I predict that you and all the other naysayers will be routinely using the tech within the next two or three years, whatever y'all may think now, simply because it makes sense to do so. Let's revisit this thread in 2012 and see, shall we
kyser_soze
Hawking's Angry Eyebrow
Well I won't be because I don't have a car, and can't see myself needing one in the next couple of years...
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