Technology has its place

Technology has it's place but it can also be pants, and like pants, we can sometimes become a bit too dependent on it.

Yesterday morning, having packed up from camping, it was time to fire up my phone, get sat nav on to guide us to our next intended destination. Approx 30 minutes drive from the campsite I knew from my planning before we set off.

Oh but no. All the map data is online. As is the code that takes my plain English instructions and turns it into commands for the software. All great and high tech and brilliant. Unless your in the middle of rural north Yorkshire with no hint of a signal.

Because in recent years I've become too reliant on technology, I don't even own a road atlas or compass. So all I could do was set off and guess and hope that either the signal would come back, or I'd chance upon signage directing me to the town is knew our destination was near.

We did get there eventually. The phone briefly found a signal for just long enough for wife to ask directions and start navigation, but the signal didn't last long enough to cache the route so it was useless. We found our destination in the end by chancing upon appropriate signage.

Next time I go away, I'm buying myself a road atlas and a compass to keep in the car.

 

Don't have Sat Nav or even a smart phone, I still use a road atlas and road signs (unseen by some I imagine). I prefer self reliance and not gadget dependence, but millions don't.

 

Don't matter where i'm going with my satnav, it sends me round the M25

 

Sat nav does have some major advantages. For example it can automatically reroute to avoid major traffic jams.

I tend to have a good knowledge of the major routes, so typically use sat nav to supplement that knowledge to direct me the last few miles.

Another advantage is if you have planned your route in advance, but you make a mistake or a junction is closed, it can put you back on track.

But you're right, too much reliance is a bad thing.

 

Back in the days of just using a road atlas Mrs Scrungee would insist on holding it facing the direction of travel, so traveling south would cause big problems with navigation as all the place names would be upside down.

As my driving glasses are also unsuitable for reading a phone screen, she keeps me informed of forthcoming turns in advance of voice directions, but she has this unfortunate habit of accidentally changing from driving to walking mid-route, infuriating me when I get voice instructions to take a footbridge or pedestrian underpass.

 

I totally agree with Strongy`. It is my opinion, that listening/looking at a satnav is just as bad and dangerous as using a mobile while driving.

 

I've got mixed feelings about GPS. Here, it has a tendency to either work well, or be totally inaccurate. Its not possible to punch in some addresses, beacause some houses dont have numbers, or even streets. Co-ordinates dont work either if you dont know them anyway.. So one just gets lost...its bad enough having someone you know saying you are lost, but a completely different thing when a computer tells you and they dont listen when you answer back...

 

It's no more dangerous than having a passenger sat next to you giving directions. In fact I'd say it's safer. Sat nav usually doesn't wait til it's almost too late before blurting out that here comes our junction. It never confuses left and right, and if it does get something wrong it doesn't blame it on you, shout at you, then bring up some unrelated misdemeanour from two decades ago while you're trying to concentrate on small matters like, for example, maintaining control of the two tonne metal box you're travelling in at 70mph.

The standard Google one talks calmly and gives several clear verbal instructions for ever step. It's usually pretty good.

 

My satnav creates confusion.takes me one way and returns me another

 

I recently had 5 passengers all with different ideas of how to navigate to a dairy. We never got there. And I was very annoyed though I tried very hard not to show it. Now I know why the bus driver sits alone

 

Ha ha that reminds me of when a group of school children picked on a new bus driver the poor Chinese guy took there word and took the top off the bus..mind you some of the pensioners wouldn't get on the bus if he was the driver because he kept taking the wrong route

 

What's a sat nav I use a road atlas and comman sense

Anyway, i live in the middle of nowhere and all the people with satnavs get to our place then they bleeding knock on the our door and ask "do you know where Mr or Mrs XXXXX is please isn't technology good, NO, not when you can have 5/6 people a week knocking on your door