Wednesday, January 16, 2008

People I don't understand

People who use Sat Nav in their cars.

Why don't they use a map?

But yesterday I have to admit I could have done with one myself.

I went to make a home visit in a dreadful place called Daventry. I set out complete with street map. Stopped on the outskirts of the dreadful place and consulted my street map, only the address I had was not in the street map. Hummm. I rang the woman I was visiting. She told me the name of the estate she lived on and the name of a pub I needed to turn left after. She then gave me the following instructions which I am able to repeat as I wrote them
down.

"The road kind of branches...go left there...kind of zig zag round then there is another road...its about the third one - no wait - must be the fourth - hang on - it's the fifth - I'm sure it's the fifth. Yes, go down there." Me - "Is it on the right or the left? And what is the road called I am looking for?" Her "Right I think. I can't think what it's called.Anyway, go down it and then zig zag again till you see a block of flats. And that's us." Me - "OK. See you in about five minutes."

Half an hour later after a really really annoying period of my life spent driving around a sodding housing estate where no one had ever heard of the road I was looking for a post man rescued me and I found her house. "Hee hee" titters the stupid woman. "I realised after I spoke to you that it is right where the road branches isn't it? and it was the third road after that you needed to go down wasn't it? But don't worry, you're not the first - everyone gets lost tryng to find me. Hee hee."

"I can't imagine why" I said through gritted teeth, my normal good humour having well and truly deserted me.

11 comments:

Polgara said...

Sat Nav may not have made a difference, whenever anyone comes to my house it always directs them to the parallel street lol

cookie monster said...

I work in the middle of a huge industrial sprawl which includes 2 power stations, an oil refinery, a shipping port and a gas plant. According to Sat Nav systems it doesn't exist! The amount of irate/stressed lorry drivers is a sight to see.......

J.J., you going to the game saturday?

J.J said...

GP and Cookie - yes, there do seem to be many stories about how useless they are - but people are still parting with good money for the silly things.

Can't make the match I am afraid Cookie :-(

JoeinVegas said...

Most of the new cars over here come with them. My son's car has one, and he loves it - he set his to a nice calm girls voice telling him 'coming up, next left'. With an alternate button the voice of Arnold S. would say 'you need to make a left, NOW'

Brom said...

I see them on the motorway every moring, the little rectangle glowing on the dashboard with one road shown straight down the middle. Can't help thinking that at that for most of their journeys they really don't need to be on

Gill said...

I went on holiday to a house way up in the fells which we all found easily by following the instructions given, except one friend who used her sat nav. 'What did you think of driving through that ford' she said, 'it was rather deep wasn't it?' yes -the sat nav had directed her through a river!

Fire Byrd said...

I do dislike the idea of Sat Nav, and when I had to drive round Derby looking for GP surgeries I always got there eventually, and I gave up caring that I was late.... Which doesn't sit easily with my OCD nature at all, but was better than Sat nav.
me stuck in my ideas.... no!!

The Fatalist said...

Sat Nav...luckily I don't drive, & have no interest in driving, but just what is the point?
Stupid lazy bastards who like their toys. It amazes me they haven't brought them in for bus drivers or cabbies. It would save them learning the roads & routes, and some of them are so fucking stupid they need all the help they can get...

J.J said...

Joe, here we are told that speaking on a hands free mobile phone is distracting for drivers. I wpuld find being told to "Take a left punk" by Arnie quite distracting too.

Brom, yes, difficult to know why they need to be told to proceed in a straight line when they are on the motorway.

Gill, yet again you have really made me laugh! Great story.

Pixie, Derby is a bugger for getting lost in....believe me I speak from bitter experience!

Fatalist -this could be the end of The Knowledge as we know it - I would miss the little mopeds with their clipboards on the windscreen.

Lisa Rullsenberg said...

Derby is notorious. I think it should come with driver health warnings...

And even as a non-driver, I prefer the thought of maps than satnavs. The latter just seems a stupid distraction not a lot better than phones.

J.J said...

Lisa it just seems another sign that we are getting thicker as a society, and can no longer be expected to learn how to use a map - poor dumb creatures that we are.

People who can not read a map - lazy and daft. (Nightmare memories of the day I entrusted my sister with the AA Roadfinder in the middle of Roundabout City aka Hemel Hempstead.)