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Then we hit a road-works closure with no signed diversion…..
The electronics could not cope with it, demanding regaining the closed road. “She” was lost, I was lost, the overcast sky gave no general guidance from the Sun. Eventually, between the virtual lady, the road-atlas and I we arrived, having crossed a marsh by a very curious, narrow, switch-back causeway near Swarkestone village.
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My sympathies! I don’t enjoy driving unless the roads are clear. Driving at night, in the rain, queuing and unexpected diversions give me the pip, and I tire rather easily. causing poor situational awareness. Not that I have accidents, but journeys become more tangled due to missing turnings, and not spotting I’m off route until I realise that Swindon shouldn’t have a sea-front!
Not long ago the police stopped an elderly gent on the M25, which circles London, after the cameras noticed he was endlessly going round and round. Turned out he was trying to get to Leicester, hadn’t twigged he had to take the ‘M1 North’ exit, and was orbiting London looking for signage pointing at some Northern town name he recognised. This sort of mistake is surprisingly easy, and is a common cause of air crashes, where highly trained pilots forget everything and lose the plot after some minor mishap. When it happens to pilots, they often prefer to believe their own highly fallible senses rather than the plane’s instrumentation, despite being repeatedly told that they are usually the problem.
Provided SatNavs get a decent signal and have a reasonably up-to-date map, they don’t get lost! The map is a network, analysed before setting off to find the shortest or fastest route between start and destination, junction by junction. If a driver fails to follow the planned route, maybe due to missing a turn or a diversion, then the computer will first attempt to put the driver back on track by doing a U-turn, but if the driver simply keeps going in the wrong direction, the computer eventually recalculates a different route; if the new orders are followed order is restored.
The trick is to keep obeying the Sat-Nav. Directions may be strange at first as it disentangles the knot, but sooner or later it will get itself back on track. The worst tactic is for the driver to muddle the poor thing by overriding the route whilst it’s recalculating, and the result is likely to be a confused driver and confused Sat-Nav getting into a fight.
Calling the equipment a “Sat-Nag” suggests an attitude problem; may be Nigel doesn’t like taking orders, or perhaps doesn’t trust technology. This may cause him to override the machine far too quickly. I suggest renaming it “She Who Must be Obeyed”, and when the route breaks on the road, simply keep going until SWMBO finds a better way.
Do keep the map up-to-date though – if a town centre’s one-way system has been remodelled, an out-of-date SatNav may not be able to calculate a valid route. In that case the driver has to take over.
Dave