How to avoid stationary traffic on Motorway?

[nigelp]

Hi,

Was driving from London to Yorkshire this weekend, just coming to Ease Midlands airport and the traffic after the junction 24 was stationary., signs had been warning it was for miles.

Pressed FIND ALTERNATIVE, Avoid Roadblock 3 MILES. It still sent me up the M1 !!

So I took matters into my own hands and came off the motorway, could only head towards Nottingham, otherway was Airport.

What I wanted to do was tell TomTom to ignore a couple of junctions on the Motorway, then take me back on at say junction 26.

I tried adding a VIA to junction 26, but it sent me up the motorway, I couldnt avoid the whole M1 as it would calculate a route and not take me back to the motorway, so I ended up driving towards Nottingham, with TomTom telling to turn around when possible, finally, after many miles, it recalculated and took me on at Junction 26.

I thought the while point of the Avoid Roadblock was to force it to pick another road?????

Can anyone suggest a way I could do this easier in future?

I suppose I could have browsed the map and added a VIA somewhere towards Nottingham,but that seems to miss the point really. I want TomTom to do it for me !

Nige.

[Andyd32]

Which version of TomTom are you using?

[nigelp]

Version 5, sorry, I didnt say .....

[Andyd32]

Whilst navigating a route, go into 'Find Alternative', then select 'Avoid part of route'. This shows your route on a junction by junction basis. select the junction you want to avoid and the route will recalculate. Repeat with any further junctions.

By using this method you can avoid specific sections of a planned route, even if you do not know the distance between junctions.
_________________
Regards, Andrew
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[jweaver]

I thought that it work like this, but when I tried this for myself a few days ago, I found that it works in fairly large 'chunks'.. So, you can't avoid a small part of a motorway.

For example if I do a route from Newport to Ipswitch and then select 'Avoid Part Of Route', the I can see large sections of the M4 listed:

Newport-Chippenham
Chippenam - Swindon
Swindon - M25

So for a length of Motorway which is more than 100 miles, I can only avoid 1/3s of it.. So, say there was an accident at 'Reading', I would have to avoid the entire section between Swindon and the M25 to use this feature!

I may be misunderstanding this somewhat, but thats how I see it

Jon


Jon

[Andyd32]

No, you are right, it only shows junctions where you get direction, so if there is a give way or a roundabout you can do this, but if you are on a motorway, from the junction you join to the junction you leave will all be shown as one section.
_________________
Regards, Andrew
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[nigelp]

[nigelp]

did something similar again today, was on the M62, roadblock ahead, I knew the way on other roads to next junction, tried with tt5 avoid roadblock feature and it still sent me on the motorway, even though I was 1.2miles from the junction I needed to come off at.

This `feature` doesnt seem to work well at all.

[GMT]

[nigelp]

now that has me thinking, you may be right, I always thought it was to tell tomtom how much of the journey to avoid, not how far ahead the roadworks were. I`ll try the shortest distance and see what happens.

[gmoorc]

Just looked at the manual on the CD and it seems to imply that it is the length of the route that you want to avoid.
If you select 2 km I assume it will bring you back on to your route 2 km after your current position.

[nigelp]

hmmm, thats what I thought, which is what I did on the motorway, saw a roadblock, avoided for 3 miles, but it ignored that and stayed on the motorway.

Guess the feature is broken.

Nige.

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