Sat Nav

[Timothy Murphy]

Slightly OT, but do people really drive off cliffs because they are following their SatNav, or is that just an urban myth?

[Ed]

[Andy Hall]

Actually not.

I see people buying from people because they like them virtually every day. This does not mean, as I think you are trying to suggest, that this is because they are gullible. Something like 95% of the population has bought a Lottery ticket - that's what I call gullible.

Keep in mind also that "selling" does not just mean the activity of somebody who makes their living from arranging and progressing commercial transactions related to goods and services.

In one way or another, we all sell. It can be ourselves - meaning what we have to offer and our ideas. Our customers are the people with whom we interact in one way or another. That can be in the work, social and home environments.

All of these interactions, including the commercial and non-commercial ones have a factual and a non-factual component. I tend to think of the factual part as being "digital" - what is being proposed can be documented, described and measured in quantifiable terms with all parties involved being able to make the same determinations. The non-factual part I think of as being "analogue" - this is the part where the opinion of the person buying (in the broadest sense) is involved.

There are some transactions (continuing in the broadest sense) that are mainly digital. Thinking of a related example - let's say I want to buy a cheap router to connect me to "broadband". There are about

6-10 well-known brands to choose from. I know what I am looking for and can research the capabilities I want and whether the product does them, perhaps how well it does them. I don't need the item today, but in the next day or so. I do want the best price and delivery. Most likely, I will look on the internet for that and make an on-line purchase. One decision making criterion may very well be whether the supplier has provided a timely delivery in the past. There is not much analogue content in this transaction and so little need for human interaction. Even if I had decided to buy over the phone, it would tend to be a price and availability discussion. On the other side, the supplier is making a small amount of margin contribution on the sale and there is nothing to fund anything more than this.

However, the largest purchases (still continuing in the broadest sense), tend to have much more of an analogue content - for example houses, cars, holidays, home improvements, education, to name but a few..... Usually there is more at stake either financially or in other ways. Although many aspects of these can be described and presented in digital terms, the difference in terms of whether or not a transaction takes place comes from the buying criteria of the customer. These may be only from choices made among those that the supplier is presenting, in which case each customer may have wildly different scorings on each. However, much more frequently, the customer has issues that may not directly relate to what is being offered, either because the supplier hasn't considered them, or because they really are outside the immediate scope of the offering. Then there are the issues that are not initially mentioned by the customer or may never be, but which nonetheless make an important difference in decision making. Politics in all that that means, be it in a company, some other organisation or even a family can make a huge difference to outcome.

As a minimum, the person doing the selling (and I am still in the broadest sense) needs to find out what the purchasing criteria of the person buying are. If these are entirely or almost entirely from a "digital" laundry list, that can be done over the phone or by email. However, even that has to be done carefully. The direct and obvious way would be to interrogate the customer to find out what the issues are and hence make sure that they are covered properly. Call centre type selling does this in a slightly packaged way, but most of us don't like it, because it's scripted and little or no opportunity to cover issues that are not part of the script.

Now consider the situation where much more is involved, and/or there is much more analogue content in the transaction. It's then much more difficult to identify the issues that actually are important because the person may not be saying. That can be because they don't want to say, that the purchase involves more than just them, that they have additional agendas and dozens of other reasons. It's virtually impossible to find out about these things other than through a face to face meeting. Once one gets past the "digital" parts, for which there is no point in going unless they are satisfied, the rest is "analogue". Quite often, the important parts of those are only found out about in the context of some kind of relationship developing between buyer and seller. For example, the buyer may want the transaction to take place but is worried about the consequences of something not working out. Again, there can be loads of issues and loads of people involved. Some of these people will say that they are important, but are not; others will say little or nothing but really are the important ones.

In among all of that lot is the degree to which the buyer(s) like the seller(s). This is the short way of describing all of the analogue content of the transaction ranging from the simple one of does the buyer trust the seller sufficiently to giver him information that he may be embarrassed about or which used in the wrong way or in the wrong hands could put him at risk - either actually or just in his own mind. In terms of an outcome to buy a product, service, idea or anything else, any of these can facilitate or block what happens.

[Andy Hall]

Driving the wrong way up one way streets is a common one because the maps may not be up to date.

At one point, one of the map vendors had an address of Einbahnstrasse in Munich as a navigable destination. In reality, it was another street name, but it was one way. The map maker had made a mistake.

[Lurch]

On Sun, 12 Aug 2007 11:23:00 +0100, Timothy Murphy mused:

Nope, people do do things like that. These people are the people who shouldn't really be allowed to drive anyway, with or without sat nav. They don't replace your existing driving skills, you still need to actually look at road signs.

[Lurch]

On Sun, 12 Aug 2007 07:14:28 GMT, "Brian Sharrock" mused:

Erm...

Umm....

Riiiiight. That's all clear then.

[Huge]

Not necessarily. £1 is worth the entertainment value, even though I understand the statistics. It is, after all, somewhat less than the value of the toilet paper I wipe my arse with each week.

Anyone who spends more than "noise" money on it is an idiot, I agree.

[Steven Campbell]

It is Plusnet I use. Have you changed the server to news.plus.net as they recently changed which might explain your problem. Or try unsubscribing and re-subscribing.

Steven.

[Brian Sharrock]

To be fair so will the Navman - but that requires buggering about with the 'Preferences'. But as I said, the devices fundamentally give a minimum detour /delay . When stopped on say the M25 , it doesn't have an 'instant overview strategic re-routing facility, unless one plugs in waypoint (via) for 'the Little Chef at Scotney' .. or ... avoid roadblock for 150 miles.

Your "TomTom could have done that" .. doesn't quite address the 'problem' .... and of course, neither device knows whether Sw**py will throw another 'party' at Newbury.

[Stuart Noble]

I don't think I'm quite following this. I have never bought a house, car, or a holiday because I liked the seller. It's all "digital" to me

[Tim Lamb]

Plugging in the address of a certain golf course brings some very nice looking cars to an overgrown, narrow and eventually gated by-way. Nothing wrong with the O.S. data as this is a by-way open to all traffic, it is just that they have not bothered to check the geography.

The unsuitable for motors and no through road signs at the junction are not able to override the voice in the car:-)

regards

[Brian Sharrock]

FWIW: I watched a 'How do they Do That?' style programme on TV about in car GPS systems. The map data is , fundamentally derive from the OS, the software companies purchase this. However they verify the 'map' data by having vehicles traversing the roads and taking notes. In the programmers the software company had divided the country into sections each the responsibility of a team of engineers. The vehicles were equipped with accurate odometers connected to lap-tops. As the vehicle traversed the roads an observer noted the road types, even driving up and down cul-de-sacs and even making recommendation as to the suitability of turns - one observation was that a 'legal' right turn was too sharp and it was preferable , more safe' to turn right at the next junction and back track. The teams returned to the office and amended their routing algorithms to cater for their observations .As far as I could tell the software companies go to considerable trouble to make their systems idiot -proof .... but each time, iteration,... along comes another type of idiot.

[Dave Plowman (News)]

Talking to a mate who lives in Hampstead today and he says there was a stuck 4x4 in the middle of the Heath. Just a private vehicle, he reckoned. And had no idea how it could possibly have got there. And he's quite used to strange goings on round there. ;-)

[Roger]

The message from Lurch contains these words:

I have never heard of anyone driving off a cliff under instruction from a sat-nav but there is at least one recorded instance of a German driving down a ferry ramp under (apparently) the mistaken impression it was a ford and routing onto unpaved byways is relatively common.

I have a Garmin Nuvi 310 which I am rather disappointed with. I initially bought it because it was the only in-car sat-nav I could find that would take grid references.

I have long since lost count of the number of junctions that have been wrongly coded so that I am advised to bear left or whatever when that is the route of the major road I am already on. I have also come across a substantial number of junctions where there is no advice and on occasion no alternative routes shown on the display but my biggest disappointment has been with its unjustified preference for single track roads that are unsafe at 20 mph, let alone the 55 or 60 mph the gps thinks is appropriate.

[Brian Sharrock]

In pure anecdote mode ..... On first acquiring a SatNav system I used it to drive along routes that I was familiar with ... to gauge how good it was (compared to moi .... ). Anyway the device's routing suggestion is also sensitive to the preferences for Motorway/ Trunk Roads/ ... unpaved roads.

Not too far away from me is a new-ish junction that is a major tee-junction with Traffic Light controls. The 'old' road is the 'across' part of the Tee ; while the off-part leads to a by-pass. I wanted to continue on the old road - and traffic was stationary due to Red Lights. As I joined the tail of the stopped queue the Sat Nav said 'Turn Left' ...( I thought perhaps it'll take me along the by-pass, and I wasn't in a hurry ) so followed the instructions ... 'In one hundred yards, at the roundabout ; take the THIRD exit' ... one,two, three ... 'I'm going back! ... "In one hundred yards; turn LEFT!' ..... I'd jumped twenty-odd cars at the traffic lights! ....

In my rear view mirror I could see drivers mouthing 'who is that flash git!"

I wound back my preference settings for Motorways!

[Lurch]

On Mon, 13 Aug 2007 14:26:26 GMT, "Brian Sharrock" mused:

Eh?

The sat nav got you 20 cars ahead in a queue and you decided that wasn't very good and turned it off?

[Roger]

The message from "Brian Sharrock" contains these words:

My Nuvi 310 has only 3 preferences, faster time, shorter distance and off road. I haven't dared use it on shorter distance. I have a hand held Garmin Vista C for off road which has a rudimentary road map and a diabolically useless road direction system. Heading North up the M6 towards Scotland I was directed off into the Lake District and once I got to Scotland all I got was a direction back to the A74 once I left it.

[djc]

I have a Garmin map60, probably the same base map. In France it suggested a 7km drive to the nearest autoroute and then a long loop of

100km rather than go 12km straight down a perfectly good D road not in its database. Following its 'route' to Littlehampton the other weekend I seemed to be following a version of the A24 unknown to the highways agency. I have learnt to turn off the auto recalculate route option, the manic alarms as it attempts to send me through the centre of Milan rather than the tangetale was just too distracting.

[Brian Sharrock]

As an exercise; please indicate just where precisely I used the words ' turned it off'? If you need to re-sharpen your crayon, hold your hand up and an invigilator will assist.

Reading comprehension not your strong point?

Are you the poster child for noo-labor manifestos?

[Lurch]

On Tue, 14 Aug 2007 05:03:10 GMT, "Brian Sharrock" mused:

Doesn't matter.

Settle down old fella, writing comprehensibly not your strong point?