Rural Britain wants to put itself off the GPS map

[seriousstan]

Source: iht.com

WEDMORE, England: This little village would seem to be an obviously poor place through which to drive your average large truck. It is in an obscure rural location. Its streets were built in the days of horses and carts. There is no room to pass and no room to maneuver.

But trucks and tractor-trailers come here all the time, as they do in similarly inappropriate spots across Britain, directed by GPS navigation devices, which fail to appreciate that the shortest route is not always the best route.

"They have no idea where they are," said Wayne Hahn, a local store owner who watches a daily parade of vehicles come to grief - hitting fences, shearing mirrors from cars and becoming stuck at the bottom of Wedmore's lone hill. Once, he saw an enormous tractor-trailer speeding by, unaware that in its wake it was dragging a passenger car, complete with distraught passenger.

With villagers at their wits' end, John Sanderson, chairman of the parish council, has proposed a seemingly simple remedy: getting the route through Wedmore removed from the GPS navigation systems used by large vehicles.

"We'd like them to have appropriate systems that would show some routes weren't suitable for HGVs," Sanderson said, using shorthand for heavy goods vehicle.



Read more: http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/12/03/europe/gps.php#end_main

[Scooter24]

1. !!!!

"Once, he saw an enormous tractor-trailer speeding by, unaware that in its wake it was dragging a passenger car, complete with distraught passenger."

omg!

:spray:

:rofl:

[Odin2005]

2. LOL, and I though our truck drivers were stupid...

:wow:

[northshore]

4. Really?

I guess they are almost as stupid as your short sighted, ignorant reply.

Funny how you all want consumer goods for next to nothing, then you are shocked, SHOCKED (!), that Wal Mart, Vons, et al., didn't hire brain surgeons and rocket scientists to drive the delivery trucks.

[DRoseDARs]

10. I love how you're trying to defend incompetence and change the subject...

GPS systems don't drive vehicles, drivers do. This is an issue of personal accountability and these drivers lacking any.

[Odin2005]

11. Doh, I wasn't meaning to insult all truck drivers.

:spank:

I just get ticked off at the bad driving many truck drivers

[brentspeak]

18. The vast majority of truck drivers are good drivers

It's just that when a single truck accident occurs, the results can be devastating, and are visible for everyone to see. Hence, truck drivers in general get unfairly labeled as "bad drivers" because of the occasional truck accident.

[DRoseDARs]

21. But from what we're being told, these drivers are trusting the GPS over their own driving skills.

THAT makes these individuals "bad drivers". A GPS device can't tell the driver their vehicle won't fit etc. This is just yet another instance of people shirking off personal responsibility because it's easier to blame an inanimate object for one's own incompetence.

[Occulus]

25. Tonight, in SW MI, while driving home on I-94,

TWO full size big rigs blew past me and my roommate. The conditions warranted us, in our car, driving at 45MPH on a 70MPH zone; it had been lightly snowing that fine, slippery crap for a couple hours, and the roads hadn't been touched and were thus a mess.

It was, given the conditions of the road, a stunningly dangerous speed at which to travel, but both of them blasted past us and were out of sight in moments. Each of them had to be driving at least 60MPH.

It's incidents like this that make me nervous around big trucks.

[DRoseDARs]

27. And if they'd gotten into an accident in those conditions and tried to blame faulty weather reports?

About how many decibels do you think the judge's laugh will get upon hearing THAT defense? It holds just as much validity as a defense as blaming GPS systems for these accidents.

[DRoseDARs]

3. Has it occured to anyone over there to teach the drivers, you know, how to drive?

Blaming GPS is pretty fucking assinine. :eyes:

[northshore]

5. Uh Huh.

Don't do anything helpful like put up a sign.

[enlightenment]

6. Have you driven around rural Britain?

The GPS system doesn't differentiate between the types of roads - if you lived in a village where the widest road is scarcely wider than a single car, you might also want to find ways to keep monster trucks from winding up there.

Maybe they should just pave over the town to make it easier for the trucks? Anything for progress, right?

It's not unreasonable for them to want to be removed from a system that is causing problems for their entire village.

[DRoseDARs]

7. There's this thing called "Using your eyes." Being aware of the size and weight of your vehicle...

...helps to. In this country, drivers have to go through weeks of specialized training in order to properly operate heavy trucks. GPS operation and reliance is no where as important as personal competence and driver safety.

Be very careful what words you put into someone else's mouth before you shove your foot to far into yours.

[Pab Sungenis]

12. Better yet....

The village council can vote a law banning HGV from most roads in the village, and attach a £5,000 fine to any HGV found on those roads.

It could be a goldmine, and eventually the trucks would stop using those roads.

[Paulie]

14. The money aspect may do it

There is a road near my house which hugs a forest preserve. The road makes a 90 degree turn from a two lane onto what is basically a 1.5 car wide road. It's the 90 degree turn that is the problem for big rigs. Anyways, there are signs posted saying no truck, no heavy loads, trucks turn right at this street half a mile before this sharp right turn. And weekly there is a truck which is stuck half turned on that road or in the ditch or backing up a half a mile on the hilly road back to where they can actually turn the truck.

All the maps claim the road that does the 90 degree turn doesn't turn and goes right through to the next major road. It doesn't and I don't think it ever did unless the old forest re-grew 80 to 100 ft oak trees recently. :)

[Pab Sungenis]

15. The only way to get big business to change

is to hit them in the pocketbook.

Large fines and fees for unwanted behavior can and will change the way things are done.

[Demeter]

13. Or Put Up Signage That Prohibits Trucks Over a Certain Size

a very common feature on the American roadways, by the way...

[T_i_B]

8. We have this issue in the village where I work

Drivers use the SatNav and end up in the small roads that can't take such big loads, regardless of any other advice.

Hopefully they can get a SatNav programme for HGV's that show them the most appropriate route for a heavy load sooner rather then later.

[Cessna Invesco Palin]

9. I've had this problem as well...

Not because of the size of my vehicle, but because there are areas in Britain where the difference between a B-road and a goat path is negligible. On the other hand, I got to see a lot of beautiful countryside that I wouldn't have otherwise seen.

[Indy Lurker]

16. streets look plenty wide....on goole maps

http://maps.google.com/maps?q=Wedmore,+United+Kingdom&output=html&zoom=2

[Hekate]

26. After two bad experiences with MapQuest I don't trust them any more

The first was not too bad: we simply drove for an hour or two on a frontage road in Virginia that paralleled the freeway we really needed to be on.

The second time we semi-trusted their estimate of 3 hours to get from our home to my uncle's funeral this summer. We tacked on an extra hour because you never know about going through Los Angeles.

Funny thing was, we actually had to pass through Anaheim, home of Disneyland... The trip took us 6 hours, and the funeral was long over by the time we got there.

Next time I plan to use the Thomas Guide or similar trustworthy printed map. We would have seen our route's proximity to Disneyland, black hole of traffic.

The whiz-bang up-to-the-minute technology isn't all it's cracked up to be. I don't entirely blame the truckers, but it seems they need some local help in the form of signage and fines.

Hekate

[brentspeak]

17. Part of the problem is that GPS maps don't get updated often

The manufacturer of my GPS unit, Mio, is taking their sweet time to do an update: one whole year from now. In the meantime, all of us Mio owners have no choice but to put up with the all-too-often wrong direction.

[Kemet]

19. true but

Your statement is accurate but even if gps assistance has become very popular over the last 5 years, we should remember that it's a fairly new technology (not gps per se but consumer gps assisted driving). With popularity comes low prices and many would be angered if the cost of a bi-yearly (or more frequent) updated mapping was passed onto them. It's a huge work to have accurate maps with basic road informations, so regular updates of maps are expensive. Right now there are only two companies that do maps for gps navigation softwares (that i know of) teleatlas and navteq.
All the mio, garmin, tomtom users should remember that these are just "guidance help" not the voice of god. A good paper map can still be handy, good jugdment is still an option as is looking at the roadsigns. I often choose to ignore the gps when what i see in front of me doesn't make sense.
Those truck drivers just went with the "lazy" option (or are plainly uninformed because many gps softs give the users several options to choose a route from, and the shortest is seldom the fastest).
Unless we had an orientation issue, we did very well without those guidance softwares so maybe we should use those to help our judgment and not just to replace it.

instade of getting off the map those villagers could well complain and wait for an update ;)

[brentspeak]

20. I wouldn't be mad if accurate updates cost me a few extra dollars

A small price to pay to avoid getting misdirected off my route by several miles. I agree, though, that having a physical map present is always a good idea.

[donco]

22. As a dumb truck driver that

travels 150000 thousand miles plus a year, would help if they would put a load limit sign on the roads that their bitching about.

[Nihil]

30. Unlikely that this would make a difference ...

... seeing as if they only post the limit at the entrance to their
village, the truck drivers just ignore it (as they consider it too
tricky to turn around and go back to the main road).

They are unlikely to be able to put the limit where it should be
(i.e., on "the exit" from the major road) as there are typically
many small roads (and even other villages) between the main route
and the stretch that they want controlled. Besides, the powers of
one village are pretty puny so I'd guess there would need to be
county level committees and such crap before anything could get
done (and even this assumes that the access point from the main
road is in the same county as the village!).

Finally, one of the major problems with trucks in the UK at the
moment is that large numbers are driven by foreign drivers.
We have had French, Spanish and Italian drivers for ages (all with
their own set of problems) but there are a lot of Eastern European
ones these days and the latter group are notoriously bad drivers
("bad" as in "who cares about any of the driving laws here?").

So, even if the village, the county and the good truck drivers
all did the right thing, the bad drivers will still tear-arse down
inappropriate country lanes as that's what their GPS says is the
shortest route.

:shrug:

(FWIW, my brother was a truck driver so I have seen both sides of
this argument.)
:hi:

[donco]

32. Well we feel your pain, I have driven

in Canada, not Mexico yet, if Bushco gets their way we will be probably be driving down to the Guatemalan border, their sure trying to get it where the Mexican drivers can drive any place in the country. I have nothing against the Mexican drivers, as long as they sign a Teamster contract, and abide by the Teamster work rules, and receive Teamster pay and benefits as they do in Canada.

[dave420]

31. wow!

150,000,000 miles a year is quite impressive. :)

[Nevernose]

23. God forbid they learn how to read a MAP.

Even on a GPS computer-generated map, one should be able to determine if going on a road with fifteen curves in three miles, through a town called "Pissantville," is the most expedient of decisions.

Or maybe the truck drivers HAVE decided where the best routes are, they happen to be through Pissantville, and the residents are not thrilled to be on any map at all anways, GPS or otherwise? There is a big push in the last few years to keep rural Britain rural, is there not?

[Xithras]

24. I hate to admit it, but this happened to me once.

I was travelling to a town by the name of Foresthill California (between Sacramento and Tahoe), and the nav unit told me to take Highway 50 to "Yankee Hill" road or something like that. I took that route and quickly found myself on a deeply rutted single-lane dirt road high above a canyon. About halfway through the 25 mile dirt drive, it started raining. Joy. Did I mention the single lane suspension bridge that was bucking and swaying in the wind, high above the roaring American river? Joy redux.

When I finally reached my destination, the people I went there to visit were rolling in laughter. They looked at me and said, "Why didn't you take the highway up?".

As it turned out, the GPS decided that this one lane muddy cliff hugging road was SHORTER than the nice wide paved highway that ran right into town. It took two hours to drive from Auburn to Foresthill taking highway 50 and Yankee Hill (including the 20 odd minutes I spent debating whether to drive across that bridge). It took me 15 minutes down the highway on the return trip.

At least we survived it. None of us should forget the poor Kim family, stuck on that snowy Oregon road last year for DAYS. They weren't so lucky.

[Kemet]

28. happened to me too

and well... i took the blame (i still hear about it sometimes). Of course travelers getting lost with or without gps units is a constant source of: discovery, annoyance, encounters, stories to tell the kids and as you mentionned, dramas.
I don't think it's the issue in this story though. Big rig drivers are not just "travelers", they are supposed to have routes and i know time is money but maybe they could just check the route before leaving (like i do now, and used to before buying a gps). Surprises, good and bad can be expected if you just fire up the unit, put in your destination and take the wheel. I just thought truckers didn't like surprises.
I'm sure the technology will improve; tomtom is already implementing a map correction database for users to share (i don't know how well it works though), and the accuracy will get better.
For the UK village, they can contact Teleatlas and navteq and explain their troubles, make sure clear roadsigns and restrictions are placed before a junction leading into town and... for those that don't respect the signs, a fine.
Another idea; they could put up a small wooden frame (like before low bridges and tunnels) that would restrict the height of incoming vehicles.
I'm sure they'll find a solution but The media coverage of their "ordeal" will maybe help gps users remember to check their routes beforehand.

[pokercat999]

29. We have similar problems in the US.

check http://www.tailofthedragon.com its a road on the southern border of the Great Smokey Mountains NP. With one 11 mile section having 318 curves it's not suitable for trucks larger than a pickup but unknowing truck drivers sometimes try to use it as a shortcut.