"Think of it as evolution in action"

I've wondered if Italian urban designers don't plan their traffic
signage just to **** with SatNavs.
<italian accent>
"Let's screw with their silly system. We put in a few No Right Turn
signs, and a few Right Turn Only signs, and bingo, you can't get there
from here!"
<\italian accent>

 

Is that it?

"And a tram line. And a one-way street on the wrong side of the road.
But only half way, we'll chance sides after that. And some bus lanes.
Reckon we could squeeze in a cable car?"

Or is that just Turin?

I walked everywhere. Safer than getting in a cab.

 

"Done. Oh sod it, there's still room to get through. Emilio, just park
your Lancia there, would you? Sorted!"

 

Only if you're spacially-challenged. I find it much easier with a
North-oriented map. Although I think either way is probably an
acquired preference; in my case from learning marine navigation - it's
a bit difficult to pick up a full-sized nautical chart.

 

I learnt it from land navigation in hills/mountains. I find it much
easier to figure out which lumpy bit is which if the maps is oriented
the same way.

Obviously this assumes you have a compass as well.

 

That's a bit harsh, couldn't you just show him how to position the chair
so it's not in the way?

 

You are a gurl, clearly. Seriously though, much of the navigation I
learned, and still use when sailing, is based on identifying landmarks
when passing the coastline and taking bearings from them. And with
only a little practice I'm sure anyone could learn to imagine their
orientation on the map rather than having to turn the map to their own
direction of travel.

Well yes. Whereas doing it the right way doesn't always need that.

 

Because some people have to visit up to 12 different addresses in
unfamilar towns and villages every day of their working life. Using a
map would take too long to work out a route and trying to read one
whilst diving is too difficult and sometimes dangerous, so a satnav
makes perfect sense

--
Lozzo
Versys 650 Inter-Continental Hyperbolistic Missile , CBR600F-W racebike
in the making, TS250C, RD400F (somewhere)
BMW E46 318iSE (it's a car, not one of those 2-wheeled pieces of shite
they churn out)

 

Someone parked on my driveway once, so a mate towed his car into the
middle of the road for me and dumped it there blocking the road. A
quick call to the police from a neighbour and they had it towed away

--
Lozzo
Versys 650 Inter-Continental Hyperbolistic Missile , CBR600F-W racebike
in the making, TS250C, RD400F (somewhere)
BMW E46 318iSE (it's a car, not one of those 2-wheeled pieces of shite
they churn out)

 

You'd probably want a waterproof one for that.

 

Cheeky bugger.

Paul.

 

My reason is a lot more straightforward. My navigator puts the map away
between junctions and refuses to look at it until I ask "which way this
time" at which point she'll open and try and find the right country. She
also falls asleep a lot.

Purchasing satnav meant that we could go on journeys without me having
to work out where - on the closed map in the glovebox - I'm going to
dispose of her body.

On the bike, it means that I can concentrate on looking at the scenery
rather than spending ages concerned that I'll go off the route that's in
the tank bag.

Always though, the sat nav is an aid to keep life simple rather than
something that must be slavishly followed

 

Having done a bit of high-speed mapreading, from the hot seat in
various[a] rally cars, I'd like to make a point or two.

1. Rotating a map is the sign of a rank amateur.

2. Rotating the map would make calling left and right junctions
accurately much easier.

3. For the majority of drivers I navved for, it made little difference
whether I called left or right as they operated on a completely random
reflex jerk in response to instructions of any kind[c].

4. Rotating a map folded to no less than quarter-sheet, tacked to a
piece of cardboard[c] when travelling at (average) 60mph and reading
the squiggly bastard through an illuminated magnifier in the dark,
calling any bend tighter than 30 degrees and counting junctions down
from 200 yards would require not only prestidigitatorous dexterity but
advanced juggling ability and a pivot, centrally placed and heavily
greased, for fear of outbreak of fire from friction. Especially in
Devon, down the lanes, particularly South Devon and case in pointedly
Landranger Sheet 202, which despite depicting a considerable area of
sea, has more miles of road on it than any other outside Central London
- so I'm given to understand.


a. Yeah, I got sacked a few times - generally due to [2]. Sacked a
few drivers, too - generally for hitting bridges - or memorably a grass
bank on my side, trapping my left arm between seat and door/cage,
breaking it in two places and wondering why I grumbled about it, then
stealing my sandwiches when I wasn't feeling hungry just at that moment
- and even more memorably, ignoring the call "Don't Cut!" on a downhill
hairpin, which took us across the grassed apex (narrowly missing a
bunch of spectators) and crashing down ten feet into a sunken lane, up
the far bank and launching us into space beyond. And then blaming me
for the ensuing multi-roll writeoff which we were damned lucky to
stagger away from.

b. I know this, I was one. The only professional thing I managed to
achieve on a regular basis was not rotating the bloody map. That, and
the excuses. Always rehearse your ad-libs, you never know when you'll
need a quick one:

Driver: "This can't be the route, there's fifty cars in front of us and
there's spiderwebs between the hedges!"
Navigator: (Quickasyoulike) "Fast spiders round here!"

Driver: "This can't be the route, there's spectator's cars parked on
both sides!"
Navigator "They're trying to keep you on the road for once!"

Driver: "You called a right bend and that was a left - are we wrong
again?"
Navigator: "Road not as map"

Navigator "Driver sees! Driver sees!"
Driver: "You're puking again, aren't you? You'll fucking well wash it
this time, greasy burger boy!"

Driver: "This can't be the route, there's a tractor in front of us"
Navigator: "I knew you were slow ... "


c. The only way to slow most of 'em down was to call "BRIDGE!" as they
had experience of how far a parapet doeasn't move when rammed by a car
- alternatively "Hairpin [random direction] as they'd have to slow
while combing their hair/adjusting baseball cap/removing spectacles -
as there was a strong possibility of the presence of a photographer,
see. Pics of me in that situation do exist, but just as a blob of
wild, rusty hair bent over a map board, occasionally a wild eye may be
visible through the foam-flecked Perspex. Pics of the rear of the cars
also exist, as he's ripped the handbrake up, turned 180 degrees the
WRONG LEFT and felled spectators, trees or five-bar gates.

c. You don't want anything harder than cardboard (aligned with the
ridges going /across/ not up and down) between your abdomen and the
incoming dashboard/rollcage/windscreen when your fuckwit ignores the
bridge parapet/arch/five-bar gate and it all stops a bit quickly -
again.

 

If one is properly absorbed in the route, one should be able to clearly
visualise the features that should be in view, in the correct
orientation.

 

In communiqué <-september.org>, SIRPip
<> cast forth these pearls of wisdom

TBF my oppo had warned me that this was the scenario before the great
Alfa 75 signpost interface incident, and had stopped attempting to call
the bends.



--
+-------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Pete Fisher at Home: |
| Aprilia Shiver Yamaha WR250Z/Supermoto "Old Gimmer's Hillclimber" |
| Gilera GFR * 2 Moto Morini 2C/375 |
+-------------------------------------------------------------------+

 

Remarkaby so. He seemed to think this was perfectly reasonable.

I did almost point out that I'd never seen him use his front door, but I
was unlikely to park outside it.


--
Catman MIB#14 SKoGA#6 TEAR#4 BOTAFOF#38 Apostle#21 COSOC#3
Tyger, Tyger Burning Bright (Remove rust to reply)
116 Giulietta 3.0l Sprint 1.7 GTV TS GT 3.2 V6
Triumph Sprint ST 1050: It's blue, see.
#www.cuore-sportivo.co.uk

 

On 06/02/2011 10:36, SIRPip wrote:

?

<snip>

TIA


--
Catman MIB#14 SKoGA#6 TEAR#4 BOTAFOF#38 Apostle#21 COSOC#3
Tyger, Tyger Burning Bright (Remove rust to reply)
116 Giulietta 3.0l Sprint 1.7 GTV TS GT 3.2 V6
Triumph Sprint ST 1050: It's blue, see.
#www.cuore-sportivo.co.uk

 

Ah. Technical shorthand. For the occasions when the navigator can't
call corners for a time, such as turning the map over ( I used to draw
little extensions on the map board, the flip it at junctions) or
getting the checksheet out ready for signing at a passage control.

Highly developed with one particular driver/car combination in my case,
as there was a monstrous flat spot that appeared just as the engine was
coming on cam - this caused the car to slow abruptly as it stuttered,
then accelerate hard as it got fuel. This threw me back and forth
quite violently, no matter how I braced for it. Combined with looking
at the map through a magnifier, this caused many heaves and several
pukes. When I felt it inevitable, I'd check there wasn't a junction
coming up, take a grip of death on my maps and paperwork, shout the
warning, slap the window down and get my head outside.

Came in handy the night that a helpful scrutineer poked the fuel
breather tube into the car through a convenient hole, which then filled
up the rear of the car with liquid petrol and the whole cabin with
dense fumes. I lost my dinner several times then, and we both nearly
shat when we saw the fuel and thought about the fagends we'd lobbed
about the place over the past couple of hours.

 

It was a reasonably common occurrence, when engaged in night rallies,
as organisers liked to present difficulties: a crossroad on the map
showing four or five lanes would actually have five or six: a couple of
these would be (surfaced) whites that didn't go anywhere so the
mapmakers probably omitted them to be more clear showing the roads with
destinations. The slack bastards.

Coming across something like this when on an impossibly tight schedule
at 3:30AM, having been subjected to the wiles of the routers for three
hours already was a little testing. All the more so when they'd placed
"blackspots", or areas that must not be entered lest penalties be
applied, along the lanes that were not to be used. You'd just know
there'd be some officious, grinning **** with a torch and a bad
attitude lurking behind a hedge on the edge of the blackspot, just
waiting for you to fall into the trap.

It was quite common on little roads in Devon and Wiltshire, where there
was a lot of detail to be shown - trees, watercourses, bridges and the
like - so the actual wiggles weren't actually accurate. They got all
the crucial stuff pretty much right - I never called a 90 the wrong
way, but the kinks were variable.

 

Heh. Maniac.

--
Catman MIB#14 SKoGA#6 TEAR#4 BOTAFOF#38 Apostle#21 COSOC#3
Tyger, Tyger Burning Bright (Remove rust to reply)
116 Giulietta 3.0l Sprint 1.7 GTV TS GT 3.2 V6
Triumph Sprint ST 1050: It's blue, see.
#www.cuore-sportivo.co.uk