Using sat nav - do you just follow it blindly?

[BlackAmericanoNoSugar]

I find that, even if people are given travel hints by people who have done the journey before, they don't pay attention and just follow the sat nav. Despite the fact that it's well known the sat nav blindly assumes that you can travel at the posted speed limit and therefore takes you off perfectly good main roads to travel down roads that are technically 80km limit but are barely a car wide and have grass going down the centre and you have to back up to a gateway if you meet a tractor.

So, for instance, my DH was picking DD up from a friend last summer. I specifically told him not to come off the motorway at junction 18 like the sat nav tells you to, but to go on to junction 19 where it was a nice, straight, two lane, main road to the destination. Did he listen? No, and then I had a long story about how twisty and narrow and difficult it was to pick her up. I know how difficult the route from junction 18 is because I made that mistake, which is why I warned him, so that he didn't have to make the same mistake.

I also went away with friends for the weekend to somewhere that I have been loads of times and gave the same advice, stay on the motorway to X junction, then stay on the main road until Y village and don't let the sat nav take you any other way. Did they read my message? Did they fuck! They just put the Eircode in and drove. It should have been a 2.5 hours trip, and one of them managed to make it the best part of 4 hours and mentioned passing a landmark that was in no way along the route they should have been taking.

I feel like Cassandra, warning people of pitfalls but I might as well not bother.

If I don’t know the road at all I will follow SN.

It infuriated me when I was actually a passenger in DSis car & told her to “ignore it taking us down this single lane track, go a bit further then it takes us out at X” and she insisted on following the SN, even though she was driving around where I live.

Hard to read directions message whilst driving though so maybe that’s why your friends followed SN directions?

Why get so involved in their journeys? They’re adults surely, they can find their way there.

Are you annoyed about the satnav use, annoyed about them complaining, or annoyed that they’ve ignored you?

You sound like you feel unappreciated? That’s not a satnav use issue, that’s a you issue!

A farmer who got fed up rescuing people!

They were travelling in two cars, each with a driver and a passenger. The directions were really simple, literally the motorway junction to exit and then to stay on the main road until a particular village. I had both sent the instructions to the WhatsApp group and verbally told them in advance that the sat nav route is not optimal in this particular area.

I always ignore the satnav! I usually know a better route, locally, and always check my road map in advance for anywhere new, so I know where to go at junctions.
I switched the satnav on when I first got a car that had one, but it was so useless I soon turned it off and now never bother with it.
It didn’t know about the new Queensferry Crossing, and assumed I was sailing about in the middle of the Firth of Forth and then driving through a field, when I was actually on the new motorway section. Then it tried to take me miles out of my way round the Edinburgh city bypass, when I knew a much shorter and faster route through the middle. It was irritating to have it continually whining at me to make a u turn, so I silenced it. Permanently…

First experience of using a sat nav got me lost, in the dark, trying to find a hotel in Shap, Cumbria. Ended up down a single track road, under a weird bridge with a blocked road and sheep staring at me. I now know better and look at google maps before I set off.

I'm slightly annoyed that we missed dinner because of the ones that did a massive detour. By the time we made it out the kitchen had closed for orders and we had to buy frozen pizzas instead. On the whole I'm mostly amused by it. I went full Sheldon from BBT and told them that I had informed them thusly when they complained about the sat nav taking them down a million, tiny, country roads which made everyone laugh. I also may have said something along the lines of 'I might as well have been talking to men' which may have crossed a line.

Also, we went out on the second evening to the pub that we should have had dinner at on the first night and they loved it and thought it was a shame we hadn't been able to eat there both nights. Which was an excellent opportunity for another full Sheldon moment.

Sat Navs and Google maps haven't picked up on the traffic prevention bollards on the estate I live on (basically it makes so you can only access any one road from one entrance, no through roads). It means the most logical route to our house doesn't work... you can get within 20m of it but not actually to our parking area.

We tell people this. Practically everyone has tried the other route.

So yes, I would listen if someone told me something. Otherwise I would follow the Sat Nav and call it names for its incompetence.

I wasn't massively involved tbh, it was a simple suggestion. I would have felt negligent if I hadn't mentioned it and they had much longer journeys than needed. (I would find it annoying if I turned up somewhere after a 4 hour journey and somebody told me after that fact that there is an easier and faster way to do it in 2.5 hours.) However, if we ever go away together again I'm putting trackers on their cars, possibly with a siren alarm if they come off the motorway before they should. I have told them this. They are prepared to indulge me (I think).

I’m an estate agent and often sell houses in a lovely, quiet village. It has one ‘main’ road (which is actually a C road) in and out and a whole load of little single track lanes leading to it which have no passing places, ditches on both sides and huge drops down hills. Technically they are shorter routes but you would not want to drive on them.

Every time i arrange a viewing for this place I tell people, do not use your satnav, get yourself to X town then follow the directions we have provided. I also warn them that the miles surrounding the village are a complete mobile black spot so if you get lost or stuck you will not be able to phone us for help.

At least 50% of viewers never make it to their appointments because they have used their satnav.