Is there such a thing yet as a satnav where you can tell it not to go that way? For example it takes you on a road you know is closed at a certain point. Mine only lets me say "there's a road block in 1 mile, 2 miles, 3 miles etc, it's not easy to just say "don't take that road". If it was a human you'd just say "avoid the A68" etc.
On my TomTom App for the smart phone I can set the destination and let it select a route of its own.
Then go back into the menu, select "current route", then "Avoid part of the route". I'm presented with the complete route where I could find, by scrolling through the list, the A68 and tell it to avoid.
This cannot be done safely whilst driving so it has to be performed before you start or you must pull-over whilst travelling.
On Sat, 07 Oct 2017 23:37:23 +0100, alan_m wrot= e:
I hate Tomtom, they charge =A360 to update the map!
That sounds good.
Although what really annoys me about mine is I can only select "fastest"= or "shortest" route. Fastest often takes me on a motorway which gains = me about 1 minute in time, but adds 20 miles to the journey, costing pet= rol. Shortest takes me on silly little farm roads which are much slower= than it thinks (it assumes 60mph limit so 60mph average speed), or even= gated off! What I usually end up doing is telling it to give me the "f= astest" route, having a quick glance at the map of the whole route, and = if it's stupidly long, I just drive straight across the bendy part until= it realises I should take another route.
Unless you're one of the 99% of people who can multitask.
-- =
Mary had a little sheep She took it to her bed to sleep Mary found it was a ram Mary had a little lamb.
Be happy you're not in the US. There have been several incidents where the GPS 'shortcut' was an unmaintained seasonal road that headed off into an area with no services, no people, and no cellular service.
Kim was apparently using maps and not a GPS but it's often the same sort of situation. I've been across that stretch from Grants Pass to Gold Beach. In the summer. With plenty of gas. The Rogue River is a popular rafting river which makes the route even more deceiving. It's a good, paved road up to the launch area. Then it all turns to shit with a maze of mostly unmarked dirt roads that are good for about 20 mph. Trust me, even you would be doing 20 and it has nothing to do with a posted speed limit since there isn't one.
I sometimes play along with the GPS just for fun. The last time I passed through Las Vegas it routed me on surface streets for a while. The route was shorter than the interstate but it also was a tour of the part of LV where you don't want to be. There were 222 homicides in 2016 and 2017 has been keeping pace, and that's discounting the recent mass murders.
otoh, it has gotten me to places where it wasn't readily apparent how to get there.
Ah, Top Gear doesn't exaggerate then. They make fun of America quite a = lot.
You'd think the satnav makers would take account of these things.
-- =
If you own a =A33,000 machine gun and a =A35,000 rocket launcher, but yo= u can't afford shoes, you may be a Muslim.
GIGO. The data is usually decent for urban areas but it's often years behind in rural areas. There is a bridge a little downstream from me. It was closed for vehicular traffic around thirty years ago and washed out completely perhaps twenty years ago. It took a while for the information to trickle down. A new bridge was built about the sametime the old one was closed and that took a while to make it to the maps, either digital or paper.
For better or worse Google has spent billions on their map products, as had ESRI and other players. There is also the OpenStreetMap project that started in Britain and uses the Wikipedia model of the data being provided by volunteers. Unlike Wiki, there is little falsification or editing based on an agenda.
There is big money in GIS these days.
As far as some of the shortest routes, the problem with digitized data is the seasonal factors are hard to quantify. right now the snow level here is around 5000'. An unmaintained road that goes over a 6000' pass may or may not be useable. User discretion is required but that can be in short supply.
In Wales they are called main roads :)
Your motorway journey with the extra 20 miles probably costs you a LOT less in petrol than a stop/start country road journey taking the same amount of time, especially if you get stuck behind someone who cannot read the road ahead of them.
New Scientist this week suggests the real meaning of AI is Artificial Ignorance. Sounds about right to me. Brian
Mine listens to the traffic broadcasts and adapts the route on the fly to avoid any closures or long delays.
I had a similar one earlier this year. Long journey in unfamiliar territory, to a funeral. Left plenty of time. OK until a tree fell across the road two vehicles in front of me. I turned round, and the satnav repeatedly directed me down side roads, in order to turn me round again (didn't suggest a U turn). I ended up circumnavigating Longleat (almost) until I ended up at a locked gate.
At that point I got the map out and worked out a way of getting far enough off the recommended route to convince the satnav to give me another one.
I doubt it. Consider these two routes:
To err is human, to really f*ck things up requires a computer.
Yes mine does that too, but sometimes you just want to avoid a road for some other reason.
Do you live in the valeees?
That sort of thing is avoidable on mine. I can press "road block in" and select a rough distance. So it knows never to go past that tree.
if you've stopped anyway just as a "via" point to the route and recalculate
tim
What I'd like is the ability to add two avoidance points. At the start and end of the road you don't like. Don't go inbetween these two points. Or perhaps even just draw a circle around an area to avoid.
That was exactly how the software I described upthread worked. Hauliers would pay to have maps which excluded certain roads (with bridges with weight limits), tunnels, height limits, roads unsuitable for very long loads.
The nub of the matter being that this labour *costs*.
When the stories of lorries following sat navs into tiny villages started appearing, I knew it was because a lot of hauliers had gone "we can save £10,000 by just using a car sat nav". Presumably we'll have to wait until an explosion in a tunnel to have a review of the law around commercial use of domestic sat navs.
A law for the use of a satnav, how anal is that?
Modern satnavs have more options, like routes suitable for car, bicycle,= etc. And the most fuel efficient route. A lorry route should be easy = enough.
-- =
An old black-and-white photograph of a man milking a cow was sent to a p= hoto-finishing company. The man was sitting behind the cow, and all that was visible of him were= his legs and feet. A note accompanying the order read: "This is the only picture I have of = my great grandfather. Please move the cow so I can see what he looked l= ike."
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