Sat nag

[Nicholas FarrParticipant @nicholasfarr14254]

Hi, Apple and Google maps won’t get you to my address, they will take you to a pair of locked gates that have nothing to do with my address, and you won’t even find my place or the locked gates on Google street view. The Sat-Nav however, will bring you to my address.

Regards Nick.

[Nigel Graham 2Participant @nigelgraham2]

Sat-Nags are not infallible, and nor is Google Maps.

My attempt to find Doncaster Raceourse for the ME exhibition there nearly ended with me just giving up. The venue is not sign-posted and the sat-naive (a Tom-Tom) could not plot my position rapidly enough to cope with heavy stop / go-fast traffic in a complete tangle of roads with difficult junctions very close together. At one point I found I was in the queue not for traffic-lights, but the road/rail goods terminal! I vowed I would never go again.

On another trip it made me turn off to the right into a housing-estate, needlessly, and back to the same busy main road but now with a right-turn onto it only fifty yards from a blind bend.

Most recently, it failed me on rural roads due to road-works closing the road. I continued to the next village with a name-board then used the proper map to continue far enough from the detour for the sat-nag not to try to send me back to the obstruction.

….

One can still go wrong with proper maps though, as when a short-cut through a lane in South Wales, brought us to the brink of a very deep cutting carrying the Heads of the Valleys road we had wanted. The OS map had been published some years previously to the road being considerably modified.

….

There is a further, deeper problem with all these electronic aids, in that they might not tell you where you are; only how to proceed from there. When I had to use it on a major, late-night detour from an A-road route I knew well, it sent me along miles of very obscure rural roads. Had I broken down I would have been unable to call for assistance because I knew only I was on a minor road somewhere between Keynsham and Yeovil, on a dark, moonless night hiding any landmarks that might have helped me find my location in the road-atlas.

This apect is becoming a headache for the mountain-rescue services, all volunteers, because too many would-be hill-walkers attempt their trips with no real maps and compass – and likely no idea how to use them anyway. They try to rely on maps on ‘phones (risking no signal or a flat battery) but this is no good unless it shows you the intervening obstacles or ground conditions. This might be worsened by the TikTok types among whom it is a fashion to visit remote or difficult spots not for its own enjoyment but to collect me-too “selfies” and antisocial-media “likes”.

Also it seems many people now have a very poor sense of direction and of “instinctive” navigation by landmarks, sun direction, appreciation of geography, own memory etc., perhaps because they think they would never need such abilities.

[Nicholas Farr]

On Nicholas Farr Said:

Hi, Apple and Google maps won’t get you to my address, they will take you to a pair of locked gates that have nothing to do with my address, and you won’t even find my place or the locked gates on Google street view. The Sat-Nav however, will bring you to my address.

Regards Nick.

Go to Google maps on your computer and type your address into the search bar.  It will then show on the screen where it thinks your address is.  Below the search bar you should see an option for; Suggest an edit on “your address”. Follow that link and you can easily correct Google Maps data  for your address.

Don’t know about Apple Maps though but I would expect something similar.

Russell

 

[VicParticipant @vic]

I was driving somewhere on Friday so I checked Apple Maps for the route the day before. I was pleased with the first suggestion and planned to use it. On starting the application in the car on Friday that option had disappeared? We set off and I planned to use the route I’d seen the day before. When we reached the turn off we wanted to take it became very clear why Apple Maps hadn’t offered it on the day – the traffic was almost stationary.

[noel shelleyParticipant @noelshelley55608]

There are only 2 things any competent motorist needs ! A SATNAV and a copy of Phillips Navigator map (in the UK ). Of choice I would use an old NAVMAN I have found this to be simple and intuitive to use. It will tell me where I am and If I know where I am I can find my way to anywhere. Its maps are like a huge OS map, marking even small farm tracks. The Navigator map is an inch thick and costs about £20 but is invaluable to the traveller.  Added to these 2 items a basic awareness of nature eg the sun rises in the east and sets in the west, going round by the South and knowing how to find the North star all help to confirm  your direction of travel.  Lat long can be a useful aid if one knows how to use it too. Having navigated all over Europe form the age of 9 using cheap or free maps from the various petrol companies I have a heads start on some. 5 years ago I had to find an industrial works in Belgium, my 2 colleagues spent 3 hours with their sat navs to try and get us there, whilst I used an old map and got us within 400 yards of our destination. Ah well progress ? Noel.

[Nicholas FarrParticipant @nicholasfarr14254]

Hi, I had a Navman several years ago, but it gave up the ghost one day when I was going somewhere during my day job I had at the time, this was my favourite choice, but no one in the UK was selling them, so I got a Garmin one instead, only ever used a Tom Tom one once, which was lent to me by my supervisor at the time, which I found utter rubbish, and I’ve been a passenger with others with them, and have never been impressed by any of them. The Garmin I have at the moment is very good though.

Nigel Graham 2, I never had any problems finding the Harrogate ME shows when they were there, with my Sat-Nav.

Regards Nick.

[Russell Eberhardt]

On Russell Eberhardt Said:

[…] Follow that link and you can easily correct Google Maps data  for your address. […]

I wish it were true, Russell

I have tried repeatedly, but nothing gets changed.

MichaelG.

[Michael Gilligan]

On Michael Gilligan Said:

On Russell Eberhardt Said:

[…] Follow that link and you can easily correct Google Maps data  for your address. […]

I wish it were true, Russell

I have tried repeatedly, but nothing gets changed.

MichaelG.

Well, it worked for me.

A couple of weeks ago I visited some friends in a small village in the centre of France.  Google maps took me to the entrance of a business about 150 m away.  I edited the address on Google maps so that it showed the correct position.  I’ve just checked and it is still correct.

After editing it on your computer you have to submit the edit to Google.  You should get an email more or less imediately to tell you they are considering it and a day or two later another email to tell you that they have accepted the edit.

Russell

[Michael GilliganParticipant @michaelgilligan61133]

Thanks, Russell

I will try again

Thus far I have never received even an acknowledgement.

MichaelG.

[SillyOldDufferModerator @sillyoldduffer]

Map problems often relate to update cycles, which depend on surveys, money, contracts, and database management.

In the UK, I believe all maps depend on the Ordnance Survey.  They survey new roads and features some time after construction, and then the master map is amended.  Used to be engraved on a Copper Plate, long since digital, but changes still take time. I moved into a major construction project that was OS surveyed a year after it opened, and then the result took a few years to appear on internet maps.  Oddly, the changes included a couple of new close together off-site roundabouts; one appeared on maps almost immediately, the other took years.

Apple, RAC, Google, SatNav and other map providers cough up periodically for upgrades.  How often depends on cost, profit, and practicalities.  A contract might have to be renegotiated, and it’s often cheaper to apply one big upgrade rather than lots of little ones.   So might appear that one map is more accurate than the others, because they are updates pending.  Changes   when updates are applied, and the previous leader becomes gradually out-of-date!  Don’t bet the farm on one provider always being better than the others!

I drive in Bristol city centre occasionally and the roads change every time I visit.  They demolish time-honoured landmarks too!  My daughter’s smart phone is much better because it’s more up-to-date.   Outside Bristol, the roads don’t change much and my SatNav works well.  Ho hum, what’s a poor old grandad to do?  My lifestyle doesn’t justify a smart-phone, there’s no signal in my home, and I hate spending money…

Dave

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