Are Sat navs dangerous or are people just stupid?

[mikesaa309]

You'll be glad to know this will be my last post for awhile.

Anyway, I was going down a road in town and was coming up to a right hand turn which I needed, it was one with a filter lane. So did my mirror checks, life saver etc and moved over then all of a sudden the car in the left hand lane decided that she needed to turn right too and without signals or looking she just flicked the car into the right turn filter lane. Luckily I wasn't sitting right next to her.

I then noticed whilst behind her down the street we turned into, she was using her sat nav. Not sure whether the sat nav wasn't really that clear or whether she failed to realize the clearly obvious right hand filter lane when the sat nav said "turn right". If the sat nav said it last minute or something surely it's common sense to carry on and take the next right turn to safely turn around and head back or see if the sat nav finds an alternative root, not just cut across who ever is in the right hand turn lane and risk causing a crash?

Even if I was in a car and she had done the same, with how quickly she flicked it into the lane she could have easily forced a car out of the lane into on coming traffic.

[dydey90]

In answer to your question, it's a mixture of both.

It was a bad manoeuvre regardless of the circumstances, so that can't be blamed on the satnav.

HOWEVER, my satnav is quite old (2008 model I think) and therefore doesn't bother to tell you which lane you need to be in. Not a problem if it's an area you know, but sometimes you get 'left turn only' in the first lane when you need to go straight, or sometimes the road bisects without warning and you find yourself going in the wrong direction. I don't know if newer satnavs furnish you with minor details like this or not, but it would be a lot of help.
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Past: CBR125,ER6f NINJA 650, ZZR600 Current: VFR750

[lihp]

The above post is the issue with drivers today.

Lots of people managed with maps, road signs and road markings.

There are plenty of road markings and often signs for lane direction, especially if they're not as expected.

New drivers now are reliant on the Sat Nav telling them what to do, instead of looking for themselves.

I remember printing directions from AA Route Planner was a luxury.

[dydey90]

There are road marking telling you which lane to take. They're about 20 yards away from the junction/roundabout/split/lights etc. This means they're useless in anything but the lightest of traffic.

Generally, you can make a close enough guess but sometimes you're just in the wrong lane and it's a choice between missing a turning or making a dangerous merger. For the record, I generally stick with my lane and find my way around.
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This post is probably not serious and shouldn't be taken literally.
Past: CBR125,ER6f NINJA 650, ZZR600 Current: VFR750

[Rogerborg]

[Rogue_Shadow]

Sat Navs are ok
People in general are ok

However it seems an increasing amount of people when using a Sat Nav, use it as a subsidy/replacement for common sense.
A Sat Nav is a navigational aid that a driver or rider should use in conjunction with his/her other driving skills and general awareness.

It's NOT auto pilot

[stinkwheel]

What I find scary is the number of people who use it to see what the road ahead is doing. They will also argue that this is somehow appropriate and make them safer "because I know if there's a corner coming up.". My reply is usually along the lines of "Does it show the broken down car in the middle of the road too?".

Caught my Dad doing it the other day. Despite me being sat in the car next to him and us going somewhere I know the way to.

He started going on about there being something wrong with his GPS because it had gone totally green down one half and totally grey down the other half.

I pointed out that we were driving down a roman road which is perfectly straight for several miles with no junctions so what he was seeing was in fact correct. But why was he looking at it at all?
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[dydey90]

Using a satnav to pre-empt corners is just daft. Many times I've seen barely a kink in the on-screen road while there's an incredibly sharp bend on the physical road. Judging by the screen you'd be prepared to fly into it and discover how some laws of physics work.
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This post is probably not serious and shouldn't be taken literally.
Past: CBR125,ER6f NINJA 650, ZZR600 Current: VFR750

[spnorm]

I had a friend from the VFR Club/Bikers Snug who was killed a couple of years ago by an elderly driver performing a U-turn without looking because he was blindly following his sat nav

He was a great guy and only 42 years old , leaving behind a wife and three young kids

Thankfully most people use theirs more sensibly, myself included

[Teflon-Mike]

It's Garmin Jane's Dominatrix Tone... she's just SO seductive you HAVE to do what she tells you!

Gets 'em all! You can see her subs, at night in the middle lane of the motorway; no traffic around, the windscreen lit up by Garmin Jane casting shaddows as the driver bobs thier head around looking nervouse and worried, prodding buttons, in utter apopolexy, completely bereft and unsure what to do, as she hasn't given them a command since Junction ten!

You just cant HELP imagining her in tight PVC cat-suit and high heels, lying on a sofa, sipping a martini, waiting for you, when you arrive where she's telling you to go.

It is rather bizzare; my Auntie is a Charity Rep; has been for a couple of decades; darts about the country hither and dither, cranking up 150K miles or more a year, in a county 70 miles accross, in the car five hours or more a day. She knows the roads of Warwickshire like the back of her hand, probably better.

You'd be in the car with her, and she'd spot a road works up ahead or something and instinctively 'detour' and take you on a convoluted winding route around the hold up via obscure back-streets or hidden country lanes, seemingly for miles, popping out back on route a hundred yards from where you needed to be, no maps, no route guides, just knowing ALL the roads around and about.

For YEARS, she knew where she was, and where she was going, and never got lost.

Then her office gave her a new car with a Sat-Nav!

That Christmas, I got a phone call... "You in? Good. I have all the kids Christmas presents from thier nan to drop off. If your not going anywhere, I'll see you in twenty minutes"

Three hours later....... VERY stressed, she turned up on my door-step. I thought she'd been delayed by another urgent Christmas task or, something....

"I got lost and stuck in traffic"

"But Jay-Jay, you have been here fifty times, you know the roads like the back of your hand! Its fifteen miles!

"Yes, I know! I KNOW!... But, But! It was THAT WOMAN!" she said.

Hilarious; BUT, even knowledgeable, rational people, get sucked in by that Pavlov-dog effect of just learning to respond to what Dominatrix Garmin Jane tells them!

Thing had told her to turn onto the Motorway, instead of onto the country road that came almost straight to my house, .. and she had crisis of faith, wondering IF the sat-nav might know better than she did, and so just did what it told her!

DAFT thing? Her fuel expenses on the new car went up 30% in the six months after she got it, and she got audited, head office thinking that she had been doing extra personal miles or moonlighting as a taxi driver or something, for her miles to jump that much... so they pulled the Sat-Nav history to verify against what work miles she had been supposed to do.... which resulted in pertinent suggestion that PRIOR to getting her Slave-Car... she cant have been doing her job, and must have been wagging off, because she CANT POSSIBLY have been doing all her work if she didn't cover the miles the route-planner said she needed to!

What you have to do... is remember pre-Sat-Nav white Van-Man with dog-eared copy of the Birmingham (Or other regional version) A-Z street directory on the steering wheel.

They did much the same sort of erratic driving, but with a book in front of their face, steering with thier knees, turning pages!

Idiots be idiots, and whenever they make something more idiot proof, they build a better idiot, and we have to consider what is the lesser of evils.

It ent the Sat-Nav's fault dolt cant drive properly.
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[lihp]

Yes but insurance was cheap enough to do so then

[krarkol]

I remember on the news a couple of years back where people had driven into the sea, rivers etc

I understand the sat nav may have led them down the wrong road, but to be following it to the point you aren't actually looking in front of you? How can you not notice the sea? Or a river?
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Bandit 600 - deaded

[Teflon-Mike]

[Shinigami]

sat navs are not dangerous, if you're dangerous with one then you were most likely dangerous before you had one
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"Once you realize what a joke everything is, being the Comedian is the only thing that makes sense.

[Wonko The Sane]

My pet hate with sat-navs is the people who stick them in the middle of the fucking windscreen!

makes me want to cut them up and brake except I can't be arsed as I just want to get home.

Tomorrow, I have to drive to a field in cheshire somewhere, no post-code
I could happily navigate there for someone if my dad wasn't the only one who could drive since he doesn't do well with directions, even if you're pointing for him...
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[Motorhate]

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[Shinigami]

I have my sat nav in the middle of my screen, however mines on a bike and I don't look through the screen

infact I made a new mounting point to keep it out of the way of the dash
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Current: Honda City Fly CLR125 2003 Honda CB600F Hornet 2008 Yamaha FZ6 S2 + 1991 Kawasaki GPZ500
"Once you realize what a joke everything is, being the Comedian is the only thing that makes sense.

[woo]

my sat nav is studying the map route via google maps and using street view on the route so that landmarks signal where i am.

my girl is so wired to the sat nav its unbelieveable but she has got better.
the other day she needed to get to the M1 from south east london and i told do not listen to the sat nav but listen to my instructions and get to hyde park corner follow the big round about and turn onto the A5 and stay on the A5 until you get to the big round about that is has junction 1 of the M1!
Did she listen NO she followed her sat nav and got lost in west end for 30 mins!

I would use a sat nav but i would always plan my journey via google maps and street view first
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Elen sila lummen omentielvo!

[lihp]

This is my Sat Nav for when I am on the bike

https://fbcdn-sphotos-d-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-prn1/t1.0-9/386279_10150963109105324_1551489732_n.jpg

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[Teflon-Mike]

[krarkol]

I've got a pretty good memory so remember the route, street names and landmarks (pubs are really good for this) quite well.

I'll usually take a google maps print out just in case and if I really have got lost or I've followed people on a random ride out and need to find my way home, I'll use the maps on my phone and work out a route.

Can't stand sat navs, the voices irritate me
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Bandit 600 - deaded

[NooBish-AbbZ]

went from manchester to angelsey, then angelysey to camp site in snowdonia, Then today from the campsite back home, without using sat nav. Simply remembered directions :p

But, in summary, IMO, people are stupid
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