Geography

[Steve Maskery]

I have two friends, S lives in Bolsover, S44, J lives in Blidworth, NG21.

Tomorrow, S is going to J's house for the first time. SatNav does not exist. Directions from J:
"Go past B&Q, first left, second right."

Reply from S:
"OK, but I'll be fine, I have an A-Z of Chesterfield."

J made no comment, apparently.

For anyone not intimate with the local geography, Chesterfield is S41, 20 miles from Blidworth.

I hope that both ladies enjoy their get-together.

 

[Phil Pascoe]

My wife managed to find Saltash looking for Bodmin from Redruth.

 

[Steve Maskery]

I should not mock. I once set of from Nottingham on a business trip to Eastborne. Long before SatNav, it was an AA road atlas. Route all planned.
I was halfway there before I realised my customer was actually in Bournemouth...

Well at least they are both on the south coast.

 

[Richard_C]

ferry impressive (in reply to Philip P, otherwise it makes no sense)

 

[Phil Pascoe]

It's very impressive ......... especially when you have go past Bodmin. :?

 

[Nigel Burden]

Sounds like my daughter. Ended up going east out of Bournemouth when trying to get home to Corfe Mullen when she should have been heading west towards Poole. In all fairness signposting in parts of Bournemouth is appalling. What use is a main signpost signed Travel Interchange if there are no other directions on it. Clarkson once said," It's no wonder there's so many old people in Bournemouth. They went there when they were young and couldn't find their way out."

Nigel.

 

[Nigel Burden]

It's very impressive ......... especially when you have go past Bodmin. :?

She took the coastal route. :lol:

Nigel.

 

[Phil Pascoe]

Big struggle to find one.

 

[MikeG.]

In the old days when there were plenty of pubs, navigation was easy. Right at the Kings Head, 2 miles, left at the Red Cow, first right after the White Hart, 250 yards along on the left.

 

[novocaine]

I used to go to Angelsey about 3 times a year.

trouble was, we were normally heading for Abersoch and missed the turning on the A55.

 

[Rorschach]

Ahh life before Sat Navs.

Lucky for me they were just starting to become affordable when I got my first car.

As a child/teenager though I remember helping route plan using a road atlas and writing out a list of directions. All fine until you hit a diversion or missed a turn! I also remember my parents calling the local Tourist information to get them to post you leaflets and maps for the area you were visiting, no internet checking back then.

The old school route planning and following signs I find works perfectly well for getting you to the town/city you want to visit. The difficulty comes in finding the specific place within that town or city and that is where the Sat Nav really shines.
My current model also does traffic updates, saved us hours sat in traffic jams over the last couple of years.
Some people long for the good old days, not me! :lol:

 

[Distinterior]

Peoples ability or even willingness to read a Road Map these days, has seriously diminished...
Its very sad....

 

[Geoff_S]

Ahh life before Sat Navs.

Lucky for me they were just starting to become affordable when I got my first car.

As a child/teenager though I remember helping route plan using a road atlas and writing out a list of directions. All fine until you hit a diversion or missed a turn! I also remember my parents calling the local Tourist information to get them to post you leaflets and maps for the area you were visiting, no internet checking back then.

The old school route planning and following signs I find works perfectly well for getting you to the town/city you want to visit. The difficulty comes in finding the specific place within that town or city and that is where the Sat Nav really shines.
My current model also does traffic updates, saved us hours sat in traffic jams over the last couple of years.
Some people long for the good old days, not me! :lol:

Ah yes, the list of directions. I used to do that and pin it on my back so that my wife could shout them out to me. Happy days

 

[AndyT]

I have relatives who taught primary school children in Rochdale. A few years ago some of the pupils went on a coach trip to London.
As the evening wore on with no sign of the coach, eventually there was a confessional phone call from the driver with his coachload of ten year olds. He'd reached Chepstow and realised he really ought to turn north quite soon...

The kids were allowed to skip school the next day to sleep in.

 

[Rorschach]

Peoples ability or even willingness to read a Road Map these days, has seriously diminished...
Its very sad....

Yes that's probably true.

Even though when we travel there are at least 4 sat navs in the car (1 "sat nav" and 3 other devices capable of navigation) there are also a selection of road maps which are kept reasonably up to date. The sat nav is great but the missus follows along on a road map so we can make manual adjustments if needed and once or twice when going to rather obscure locations the sat nav has taken us in the wrong direction. It's also good for checking for service stations etc, our sat nav has that function built in but using it while driving is dangerous and it's not always that accurate.

 

[lurker]

Currently in Madeira.
The main roads are marvellous, never seen so much tunnelling in my life.
We did a short journey along the old routes took well over an hour, came on the rapido took ten minutes.

 

[RogerS]

LOML is a very competent map reader and navigator. Trouble is she needs to wear glasses to read the road signs, but take them off to read the map. So by the time we've gone through the glasses on/off/on rigmarole we've probably missed the turning.

So given a cross-country route to avoid the traffic on its way to the RNAS Yeovilton Air Show I hit on a cunning plan. At every strategic road junction where we needed to turn, I used Streetview and printed out a large full colour display of each junction. It worked a treat.

 

[Lons]

Peoples ability or even willingness to read a Road Map these days, has seriously diminished...
Its very sad....

My wife is 67 never could read a map, still can't. :roll:

 

[Lons]

At every strategic road junction where we needed to turn, I used Streetview and printed out a large full colour display of each junction. It worked a treat.

I do that every time we go away in the motorhome Roger, my wife is hopeless and the last thing I need driving a large vehicle towing a car is to end up down narrow streets. Happened on our last trip coming around Sheffield, luckily it was a Sunday but I wasn't amused.

 

[Student]

On the subject of coach drivers and satnavs, I remember reading the story some years' ago about a school trip to Hampton Court where the driver put Hampton Court into his satnav and nearly got to somewhere like Bournemouth before realising that something was wrong. By the time he realised, there wasn't time to go to the proper Hampton Court so they all went home again.