Blocked Roads and SatNav
Posted: Mon 1 September, 2008 Filed under: Cynicism, Travel, Weirdness 6 Comments »Another day, another pig of a drive in to the office.
Today, two trucks had collided, with one spewing its load of 10T of steel all over the road. Luckily (in some perspectives) I knew about this one before leaving home, so I’d also brought the SatNav with me.
By the time I got to the A11/A14 junction, the police had completely closed off the A14, and were sending people down to the M11 to come back up the A505 – both of which were by now also completely rigid with traffic.
I set TomTom to know that there’d been a roadblock on the A14, and at first thought I’d let it take me where it wanted. Until it kept insisting I turn round and go back to the A14. Stupid piece-of-shit satnav. So in the end, I used my knowledge instead, and got through the middle of Cambridge instead, with TomTom repeatedly insisting “No, you need to go back to the A14, you need to go back.” and then eventually “Oh, hang on, yeah, you’re right, you can go this way, and you know what? It’ll take you right to the office.” The undertone of “I’m great, aren’t I? How would you have managed without TomTom” is probably just me disliking the poxy thing.
Actually, I’d have done pretty well even without TomTom. I was 90% sure of where I was going, and where I needed to be. I might have made one mistake, but that would’ve been it.
Also, I want to check this on the way home, but I’m sure it’s pointing right to go West on the compass setting. Any time I noticed it today, it was doing so. All told, that’s a bit of a worry…
I don’t understand how everyone except me seems to have problems with Tom Toms! We’ve got 2 – a 3 (or maybe 4?) year old one and an 8 month old one. Only once have I ever had a problem – soon after getting the original one, when I entered a place name (this was a pre-postcode model) and didn’t check the directions by viewing the route before starting, so ended up at a place with the same name 20 miles from where I wanted to be.
If you use the roadblock function to get you orund a problem, it sometimes thinks it’s before where it actualy is, due to the fact that one specifies distance ahead. The trick is to use the ‘avoid’ feature as one of the deeper down menus once you’ve calculated a route.
I don’t know what model you’ve got, but the newest ‘One’ has a feature that lets you display a menu of choices that will appear before each route plan screen – listing quickest/shortest/limited speed/walking etc. This is excellent in finding country lane back ways (and hence ways round accidents) rather than A- roads as a first choice.
We use the limited speed (and it lets you specify what) when out in Mi1dred, and I’ve discovered just how useful it is at other times.
I find TomTom to be very useful in general – but it most certainly does have its flaws.
Fair point regarding “roadblock” vs. “avoid” – I probably used the wrong one.
However, I know it’s deeply at fault when it comes to things like pointing me up the old sliproad (18 months after the new one opened) in order to get on to the A11 from home. We’ve noticed a significant number of directional bugs over the year or so that we’ve had the Tom Tom.
Oh, and it’s a 710 – not quite top-of-the-range, but not far off. The old software certainly let us have the various options, but the software “upgraded” a few months back, and lost the functionality. I’m sure it’s still in the menu system somewhere, I just haven’t found it yet.
Then again, I only use the thing on rare occasions – it’s used much more by Herself
Do you use the website user map correct errors function?
The what? (Which probably answers the question…)
On the TomTom website, there’s place where users can update map corrections. You can also make corrections as you find they need making, on your own device (and this can be shared when you update).
You did *read* the instruction manual and/or watch the video tutorial of the advanced features, didn’t you?
Call yourself a techie? Typical man 😉
I don’t think I’ve ever been on the Tom Tom website at all. As for instruction manual, I went with the “Just plug it in and go” instruction on the box.
Will rectify the website thing now – as for the rest of the manual, feh. Maybe one day. When I’m bored.