Nuvi 350 - Loves the back roads!

[PaulJSmith]

I agree, they are an AID but not a very good one if you want to follow "normal prescribed" routes and avoid potentailly dangerous country lanes.

I could understand it if the ETA was different but less than an minute on a 30 mile journey to avoid tractors and potholes is not rocket science. It is also not rocket science to know that you can hardly ever drive 60mph down such lanes in any kind of safety therefore they will hardly ever give you the "quickest" journey when compared to a quiet country B road with two way traffic, warning signs for bends etc.

I don't understand why such roads are not classified differently as they are on the OS maps and other sites such as multimap. These use the (in the case of multimap) yellow minor roads and not the white back lanes.

How come they can get it about right on their "free" routing (as can MS Autoroute and the AA Routemaster) and Garmin/Navteq cannot on a £300 unit that is meant to have the most comprehensive mapping there is?

In my view the "Avoid unclassified roads" is not working properly. My "quickest" route takes me down white (what most people would consider to be) unclassified roads.

If the more "truck/caravan" oriented units can handle this (as Garmin tell us to buy these) then the data must be in the maps somewhere so my opinion is that it is the algorithms from Garmin that are not up to scratch or the Nuvi uses a cut down version of the maps. It could be fixed if Garmin wanted to fix it, I am sure of that. The only way this will happen is for more people to complain.

To this end a man at Garmin, who denies any complaints for this issue, would like to be e-mailed by everyone who feels the same way. Maybe when his mailbox gets filled up he will stat to take notice.

eMail Address Removed

Lets see if we can get a positive reaction from him by clearly demonstrating that there is a problem and a significant number of perople are fed up with it.

Cheers,

Paul



Cheers,
Paul

[Mearns]

Thanks for that, Paul - email sent to Tim Piercy!
_________________
Tony
nuvi 2460LT plus Brodit mount

[swing]

Although I agree with most of your comments...

[PaulJSmith]

Agreed Swing,

Maybe the simple answer is that Garmin need to change it to "Unclassified" from "Unpaved" roads. It should be possible if the "more advanced" systems can do it as surely they all use the same map data from Navteq???

Lets see: If RoadName = (M* or A* or B*) AND Journeytime < 5% greater than route with roads that are not M* or A* or B* then RouteTakesPreference=1. Garmin can't say the road name information is not there as the unit displays the A43 or the B4094 on the blasted map it draws.

I just don't see why they say they can't do it. Would I mind if it took an extra 10 seconds to calculate a half sensible route A: No. Do I mind that the route is not desirable but it calculates it really quickly A: Yes

Is it a lack of willingness from Garmin or a lack of understanding of the bad feeling that a lot of people have due to this - or...... do they just not care about their valued customers (likely to be ex-customers at upgrade time).

Cheers,
Paul

[Skippy]

[philpugh]

[Rick-uk]

And Garmin might just have lost a sale.

I am looking to buy a basic satnav for my wife's car and it does not need to be full of bells and whistles.

She will cheerfully admit that her map reading skills are not the greatest so I was looking at either the Nuvi 350 or Tomtom One. I was leaning towards Nuvi because of its mp3 capabilities but if it proves to be less "reliable" with its primary purpose then tomtom it will be.

[Mearns]

I heard back very quickly from Tim Piercy at Garmin. As well as including a paragraph identical to that provided by philpugh above, Mr Piercy said the following:

[Lester_Burnham]

[Rick-uk]

[Darren]

They just prove that some idiots should never be allowed to drive. Far too complicated for twits like them, they should stick to simple stuff like walking although they'd probably end up walking in the road
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Darren Griffin

[swing]

"I came to this crossing at Ffynongain and there was like a metal gate, which looked like just a normal farmers' gate with a red circle on it"

"I thought it was a dead end at first and then there was a little sign saying, if the light is green, open the gates and drive through."

"So I opened the gate, drove forward, closed the gate behind me and then went to go and open the gate in front of me."

"Then I heard this train and I noticed train tracks. It was only then that I did realise I was on a train crossing."

So, exactly which bit of the accident was caused by the SatNav...

I'll note the sign says "open the gates", yet she opened them one by one.
_________________
Please don't be offended if I do not reply to a PM - please ask questions via the forums.

[swing]

As for the Pevensey one, it's been said by locals who know the junction that they cannot understand how she managed to end up on the railway line...
_________________
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[Lester_Burnham]

In complete and utter fairness, though, these cases are extreme examples - and are true evidence of the logic fallacy - of the occluded middle.

I don't think anybody in this thread is arguing that following the directions of a sat nav, and ending up on train tracks, or in a river, or on a railway platform or a filght of stairs, are any more than driver incompetence.

However, there is a middle area. People tend to use sat navs because they don't know the route, or the area, or both. And it's a repeated situation, where people are directed onto roads that as the journey progresses - or in hindsight - prove to be quite unsatisfactory.

And for such circumstances, there's no easy way to know up front, and the unsuitability may not be apparent initially.

The only counter for that proposition, being that sat nav is a guide, and you can always ignore the instructions and force recalculation - or plan the route using a normal map. Which is just an unthinking defence, because:-

a) if you're going to have to plan a route using a map, it's hard to justify the value-add that is a gps

b) the unsuitability of some roads isn't always apparent as soon as you turn onto them - they can degenerate, or become narrower, or more twisty over distance.

At the end of the day many - perhaps the majority of people buy into the concept of a sat nav as a trusted device that will get them from a to b better than old "technology" (ie maps, printed routes, and observation of sign posts). And when sat navs don't live up to their advertised hype, people quite rightly complain. Instead of the vendors, their advocates and their apologists trotting out trite, superior, or condescending soundbites about alternatives, these vendors should knuckle down, listen to the complaints of their CUSTOMERS, and make their sat navs better at routing and avoidance of unsavoury routes, rather than the posturing face-saving that seems to be de rigeur.

[Rick-uk]

I am a professional driver and only use maps when navigating about the UK. I like the advantage of just being able to glance at a map and seeing what the layout is.

However...

I do have TT on my Sony Ericsson phone to allow me to easily locate new places and addresses and I did use it recently to drive around the Lake District. On one ocassion I chose the shortest route to Windemere and I was led down single track roads with few passing places.

I agree that there is no substitute for common sense but as stated previously, sometimes you don't realise the state of the road until it has narrowed to the point of no return.

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