General Chat

Navigating any vehicle along a road is an exercise in linear navigation whereas the sport of orienteering is about finding you way over a wide area. The two should not be confused.

A good part of the problem in map reading a road route using an area map lies in this. In fact whether you are going north south east or west is unimportant. What matters is that you are going towards the goal.

The best kind of map for road travel is a linear route map. These were widely published in the C18 and C19 with routes shown as a linear road annotated with places en route, inns and so on. Before the advent of satnav quite a lot of people used to make such a linear map themselves and possibly still do. Programs such as Autoroute will generate a text version of such a map.

It works fine unless one loses the way.

In France the government has changed the road numbers for the French equivalents of the grand trunk roads so that the old N10 Paris-Bordeaux now has a dozen road numbers on its route. Tomtom and others are not allowed to use these roads for calculating routes except for 1st/last few kilometres. All they have done is to make the SatNav even more popular as the road tolls tend to cost more than the fuel for a journey. That especially applies to heavy trucks.

fwiw it is also illegal in France to have any device (including satnavs) giving warning of speed cameras. The government is bankrupt and will tax/fine anything that moves, tourists being seen as ripe target. It is mandatory to have in the car a warning triangle, a highvis vest for EACH person which MUST be kept inside the car not the trunk, a cheap breath tester device for each adult. The douane can and will check for this stuff and levy a steep fine for non compliance.

Ronald, Correct me if I'm wrong but you say "Cant understand the need for turning map in a particular direction we read it as we would a book. 2 g'sons same"

That may work for the more experienced map readers but when you learnt Map reading in the army you will have been taught to orientate your map,

By orientating your map it helps novices in two ways, first it allows them to look along the map line and id a specific point in the distance and so relate that to the map and second it is the only way to find your exact location in relation to the map
When you don't no where you are by selecting a minimum of two points ideally 90 degree's apart on the ground take a bearing to both, then draw a line on the map using the bearings to the point where they meet, The point where they meet is your location (taking into account magnetic variation)

Roy

I cant drive without glasses, I cant read without reading glasses


the two are quite different. I would have to stop....read a roadsign, change glasses, read the map, change glasses to drive..........


I let Tom work it all out and Yoda gives me the instructions....

...........alll the way around the roundabout you must go.........etc.


the next exit, you must take.........



my mate has his built in set so he is driving in the correct direction.......ie if south, then south is at the top of the screen


whereas Tom shows the direction he is travelling in at the top....

Wife and self no probs map reading - both ex army. I drive every time we go out as she doesn't like a manual gear shift. Cant understand the need for turning map in a particular direction we read it as we would a book. 2 g'sons same. I quite often travel on my own so I devise a route and key it in on PC but in size 20 print at least then easy to reference (quick glance) whilst on the move, tho I have a very good memory for routes. Have the 2 and half mile to inch road atlas on the passenger seat open at relevant page I dont necessarily stick to main roads for all the journey. If off to B'mouth or Weymouth from here in Yorks I'll use the M1 then A38 south til get to A5 then after a few miles down the A5 I'm off on the Fosse Way - old Roman road. Lovely route that then thro the Cotswolds etc. If we go Scotland t'other side of Forth Bridge it takes all day as we meander once we reach Scotch Corner. We turn a long journey into a day out - much nicer. Tis only very occasionally that we get lost. Map reading should be taught at school

My brother can get lost in his home town, one day he was driving us somewhere and I said 'we need to continue to drive north' (notice the word continue in the sentence) to which he replied 'which way is North?'

I usually only need a map for the initial trip to somewhere I haven't been before, after that I can usually manage just with my memory of the route to get to my destination

Michelle

Yup - it was christened that by the locals and after a couple of years I think they put the name plate on the central roundabout.

Do not know about work of art. Must have been after he left.

the magic roundabout in Swindon is not so-called because of that "work of art" though, it is because of the five roundabouts I think - is that right?

OMG I know the Magic Roundabout, son lived in Swindon for a time. I mentally used to close my eyes and go!

Biggest surprise OH ever had was when he was in Hamburg and a german asked if he knew the Magic Roundabout.

Rollo, if you like OH to drive you home when you have had a drink, do NOT repeat my OH's error some years ago. He never did it again.

We were going to friends for dinner about a 40 mile drive, I backed car out of garage whilst OH locked up. He came to driver's door and told me to move over, I said I would drive, he replied that he did not like my driving.

I moved over.

I remained quiet on the journey - you would think he would have known I was hatching something up. When we arrived and before he got out of car, I said 'as you do not like my driving, I shall not be driving home, I mean it'. He and the husband used to get very very merry. Host greeted OH with large whiskey - I reminded other half - our hostess agreed with me. I did say that if he drank he could sleep on their settee as I would NOT be driving him home.

He had a half glass of wine with dinner and he drove home.

We laugh about it now and have told our adult gchildren who think it is hilarious.

interestingly it now works but when you first pointed it, it was pointing to a file entitled leech.jpx

nope - I know about how to read filenames but that link does not take me to the magic roundabout

read the file reference - it is the Magic Roundabout in Cardiff
time for bed said Zebedee

boing

What is the link Rollo?

You can never get lost in the United Kingdom... just be temporarily unsure of your exact whereabouts :-D

Indeed Erroll

http://www.freeimageslive.co.uk/files/images008/cardiff_roundabout.jpg

If you use google maps when planning your journey you can use street view to print out images of things to look out for at junctions etc.

Never start trying to read your map whilst driving,

When planning a route it's important to familiarise yourself with the route then note down critical points, you can place the note of tape it where you can easily see it without taking your eyes off the road, just as you should locate any sat nav taking care not to have it in your field of view, you don't need to put every junction or roundabout down just the ones where you have a change of direction or a change of road number

Simple but requires a little planning before your journey

Done it all my life and never got lost yet,

Keep the map in the back seat and only use it if you require an alternative route due to road closures and only whilst parked up in a safe place

Roy

Rollo - we're just about to change our cars and SatNav is still an extra, although one of them has the screen as standard, and you control the bluetooth, radio etc. from it. But you pay extra if you want the SatNav.

Back in the 1990's I was taking a friend and a couple of kids from Surrey down to Plymouth

No problem says he as he knew the route well. Got down there no problem.

Started home and I thought this route is wrong. Kept asking questions and was told to keep driving.

Well eventually I realised we were heading for South Wales. Pulled off the road and got a map out. Yes you have guessed it we were going in completely the wrong direction.

So much for a man knowing best. It was my map reading skills that got us heading in the right direction and back home.


Would never use a route planner from a well known website either. A bit bored one day so thought I would play around with playing a route. Well within 100 yards of leaving my house I was told to take a right turn. Big problem as it was a no through road - well can hardly be described as a road - you might just about get a Volvo through the bottom of it.

Always used a map. Used to do a list of roads that I needed on a piece of paper and put that on a clip board.

The CPS believe that reading a map can lead to a dangerous driving charge:

"driving whilst avoidably and dangerously distracted such as whilst reading a newspaper/map, talking to and looking at a passenger, selecting and lighting a cigarette or by adjusting the controls of electronic equipment such as a radio, hands-free mobile phone or satellite navigation equipment; " .....

About 10% of accidents are attributed to the driver being lost as the root cause.

One of my mates was a divorce lawyer (now he is a judge). He reckons that map reading runs affairs and money a close third.

As somebody with formal training in man/machine interfaces I am not surprised that maps are a problem. They are highly stylised and except at scales which are useless for driving do not really represent the real world you are driving in.

Holding the map upside down when going south is not really very smart unless you are good at upside down reading. Another problem is that stuff like hills, road widths and complex junctions are poorly represented on typical scales. OS maps are better but even more people have trouble with them ...

The real dangerous cruncher though is the lack of any time dimension which is of course taken fully into account with Garmin, TomTom and GoogleMaps as the robot gives out directions in real time. The 3D presentations and junction diagrams are also good.

Directional signing all over the western world is woeful and is especially useless for the people who need it most, strangers to a locality. Long before it is fixed I expect satnav will have made it redundant.

Here is a typical French example at a roundabout (tranlated)
Business Park
Station
Town Hall
Rubbish disposal
Dead end
Other directions
... any mention of any real place never given. Yes, the local teenagers enjoy switching the signs around. In le Havre the left exit to the ferry terminal is a small green sign at the last moment on a busy expressway, good for larfs I suppose.

Or in England ( whizzing down a 5 lane carriageway approaching a city centre )
white arrows marked on the highway
left offramp no information
straight ahead city, station
middle lane M6 North & South
right lane oglethorpe little glenn
speed limit marked down to 30mph ( lots of accidents, what a surprise ) but drivers wrestling with maps not showing oglethorpe miss that and the GATSO is flashing like mad ... rupture of marital bliss

Men generally have better 3d and spatial skills then women which is why they like to brag about things like map reading and buildings by women architects tend to be either somewhat limp or very spectacular.

Unfortunately men are also very bad at assessing risk which is why they have most of the real crunch accidents. The EU insurance ruling is very unfair.

So there you go, like him or not Major TomTom is the safer future, leave your atlas behind.

I love being driven around by women. Little risk of a bang, no getting lost 'cos she knows a better way, SatNav properly set up for the trip ... no problem if I have a drink. Yep, the weaker (?) sex has a much firmer grasp on logic and does not see themselves as TRON when driving.

Our last 2 cars have come with a satnav built in. I see from TV ads that most of the new wheels even run arounds seem to have satnav as standard. Is that correct ?