UK.gov holds summit to stop satnav-driven smash-ups

The UK's Department of Transport is holding a summit today to try to figure out how to get satnav maps bang up-to-date so drivers don't blithely follow them into disaster. The problem is particularly bad in rural areas, where no end of massive lorries seem to ignore the narrowing of the road they're on in deference to the …

[Steve Evans]

...

"However, the main reasons the satnavs cause problems is because it can take months for map updates from local councils to make their way onto the gadgets."

And the rest... What about those who bought the satnav, and then don't sign up (with ££) for a subscription which provides updates?

Anyone that follows a satnav into a river, over a cliff, or down a footpath should be hit with an "Undue care and attention" conviction. A few of those and it's bye bye licence, so they'll either learn to look where they a bl**dy well going, or be removed from our roads. The latter would seem to be for the common good.

[OffBeatMammal]

Re: "subscription which provides updates"

sadly the outcome there is either more expensive units initially or "technical difficulties" that will stop any unit older than 3 months being updated.

these guys are not providing a public service, they're selling a product and pleasing their shareholders. Can't see Ford providing free fuel to keep their car running instead of letting the garages rip us off ;)

[SYNTAX__ERROR]

Doesn't matter. The updates are imaginary.

I live on a housing estate in a primarily residential area. There are three adequate, completely unique ways to get to my street. There are several hundred houses on the estate.

Yet, anyone trying to navigate to my street will be taken down an unsurfaced dead-end road.

I have tried to kindly advise those who produce the maps to correct the issue. I sent e-mails containing a polite and thorough explanation to every relevant address I could find - this was at least six years ago. Not one even bothered to respond. Today all the maps still contain this error.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Doesn't matter. The updates are imaginary.

1. Use TeleAtlas' MapInsight to report it: http://mapinsight.teleatlas.com/

TeleAtlas tend to correct it in 3-6 months.

2. If you use TomTom for iPhone, you can correct this with a map correction that you can submit. Or, post it here and we can all pile in and report it.

[JimmyPage]

Re: "subscription which provides updates"

I agree about the commercial side of things - free would be silly.

However, I could have bought a brand new paper road atlas every year for the past 6 years, and still have change from one single Garmin map update. There seems to be a pendulum effect, or perverse outcome. The more manufaturers try to gouge customers, the less customers want to pay.

[Annihilator]

@JimmyPage

"However, I could have bought a brand new paper road atlas every year for the past 6 years, and still have change from one single Garmin map update."

In their defence, the road atlases you bought probably wouldn't give you the detailed change that the Garmin map update did. The equivalent analogy would be to buy every town's A-Z every year for the past 6 years. If they start spinning it like that, it might seem more of a bearable pill to swallow.

None of this is relevant though, as a) I agree its too expensive and b) the idea that "satnavs had caused more than £203m worth of damage to drivers on UK roads in the last year" is utter bollox - bad drivers caused it.

[davemcwish]

Re: "subscription which provides updates"

Re Free Fuel - They might but then that would add ~£32k to the upfront cost of the car.....

[Anonymous Coward]

BLAME EVERYONE ELSE BUT YOUSELF...

You are still the driver, you still need to read road signs so if you ignore the signs, ignore the road, ignore what you see with your eyes then maybe you should pay.

A satnav is an aid to navigation just like a paper map.

If you are too stupid to realise this then maybe stop driving.

If the satnav said 'drive over that pedestrian' would you do it?

No don't answer that, some people would.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: ... (@Steve Evans)

TomTom has reported a distinct drop in their business for TomTom navigation *HARDWARE*, but their software business, like the iPhone apps, is increasing. And the nice thing about the TomTom app is that you get the following:

1. Free map update every 3 months. Requires new version download.

2. Access to MapShare on the app, where you can submit corrections, and importantly, receive them too! Switch MapShare on in the Advanced settings. Always very useful.

3. Access to MapShare online, where you can submit corrections (requires you to sign up to a MyTomTom account).

TomTom also owns TeleAtlas, and you can use TeleAtlas MapInsight to report corrections as well. No biggie. Seriously.

And I'm with you on the "anyone that (sic) follows a satnav into a river, over a cliff, or down a footpath should be hit with an 'undue care and attention' conviction" opinion. It is still you the driver who is responsible for accidents, not the satnav.

[Intractable Potsherd]

Re: It is nothing to do with satnav

People used to drive into difficulties before satnav was invented, but it rarely got reported. I know of people that drove into over-deep fords, onto hilltops, and down roads that they were never going to get out of, because they thought they were on a different road on the map, or they didn't have a map and followed a roadsign that "accidentally" pointed the wrong way. I also have a friend who, prior to getting a satnav, was perfectly capable of driving from Blackpool to the Scottish borders whilst trying to get to Birmingham (true story). It would be good to see an estimate of how much money satnav has saved to balance up these "ooohh, technology is bad!" stories.

By the way, with the reduced accuracy of OS maps, they can easily lead you into difficulties too, but no-one mentions that.

It has become popular to blame satnav and the "stupid" drivers that use them, but the "stupid" drivers have been there all the time. An example - for over forty years I used to live in a particular town, in which there is a road with a clearly marked height-limit because of two railway bridges. For as long as I can remember, at least once a month an HGV driver managed to get his lorry stuck under one or other of the bridges ... and that goes back to long before satnav was available.

[John A Blackley]

Spend more taxpayers' money

It beats expecting the fool in the cab to look where he or she is going.

[Oliver Mayes]

The easiest way is to simply class any accident caused by mindlessly following a satnav as dangerous driving.

Once they can't just use "Oh the woman in the dashboard told me to drive into the river" as an excuse for their idiocy either the number of accidents will fall or the stupidest 1% of drivers will have their licenses revoked.

[jai]

a quicker and simpler alternative might be to insist that there's a minimum IQ required in order to pass the driving test and hold a license.

In fact, that would probably solve a lot of motoring problems, traffic incidents, reduce congestion and generally make the world a nicer place.

Plus, there'd be less idiots on the road in front of me so I can enjoy driving around instead of fearing for my life the whole time.

[Geoff May]

IQ is not an indication of driving ability

I've known some people who had a low IQ but were very good drivers.

[Miek]

Re: IQ is not an indication of driving ability

Indeed, I usually find it's the drivers who are not paying attention to driving and would rather read a magazine or do their make-up in the rear-view mirror that tend to be the most dangerous on the roads.

[MJI]

Seen clever stupid people

Highly clever people who would drive into the river.

[Anonymous Coward]

in germany..

They have the idioten schule, if you can't pass your test after three goes you have to attend special lessons and be assessed as to whether there is something wrong with you!

Maybe this should apply.

[Pete 2]

Old problem - old solution

ISTR there's (at least one) a small road leading from Cheddar Gorge with a small, old sign warning potential drivers: Not Suitable for Charabancs. It's been nigh-on 30 years since I frequented the area but the problem does seem to pre-date the Satnav era and the solution seems to be simple to implement.

Why not just put up a few more signs?

[Mint Sauce]

Once again, they're fixing the wrong problem.

"how can we get the maps up to date"?

No, how can you punish the fucktards who follow the idiot box on the dashboard. I reckon if you released a satnav voice that occasionally said 'at the roundabout, punch yourself repeatedly in the face" it would at least provide some entertainment for other road users...

"However, the main reasons the satnavs cause problems is because....."

<deep breath> and relax...

Hey, I've got a 1988 road map of the UK, presumably if I drive the wrong way down a road that wasn't there when the map was printed, it's the maps fault? I demand that my map is updated on a monthly basis for free!

Hmm, perhaps the admiralty should take over all mapping from the ordnance survey... ;-)

[welshie]

Foreign lorries

So, a foreign trucker is driving his load to a destination in the back of beyond. He has no local knowledge, and relies on eyesight and sat-nav. Sees a road sign showing maximum width, height or length marked only in feet and inches. Doesn't mentally compute that 6'8" is narrower than his lorry, which he only knows in metres, and is only recorded in metres on the dimensions plate in the cab.

There's a lot to be said for having metric measurements on such road signs. Maximum weight was metricated on UK road signs decades ago, but they left the height/width/length ones as imperial only for far too long. Make them dual units to cater for the luddites who still don't know what a metre is after over four decades.

Do that, and make the signed vehicle restictions (speed,length,width,height etc) freely available in a standard data format for anyone to implement in satnavs, and you've got a simple win.

[Vic]

Re: Foreign lorries

> Doesn't mentally compute that 6'8" is narrower than his lorry, which he only knows in metres

So if I drive to the Continent, they'll put all their signs in feet and inches, will they? Because I only know the dimensions of my van in imperial units.

It is a driver's responsibility to ensure he can interpret such signs. When I started driving in France, I saw many signs that said "priorite a droite". I also saw white diamonds with a yellow border. Did the French molly-coddle me? Of course they didn't. It was *my* responsibility to work out what those signs meant.

Vic.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Foreign lorries

"So if I drive to the Continent, they'll put all their signs in feet and inches, will they? Because I only know the dimensions of my van in imperial units."

Oh for fuck sake...Dr Whos gone and kidnapped me and left me in 1971 again...

[Matthew 3]

Re: Foreign lorries

I kind of see your point. But the problem is that we haven't yet stopped thinking in imperial for quite a few types of measurement.

For example: can you honestly say you already know your own height in metric units?

[Michael H.F. Wilkinson]

Re: Foreign lorries @Matthew 3

1.80m

But then I do not live in Blighty

[jonathanb]

Re: Foreign lorries

Yes I do, and I know my weight in kg. However, I seem to be pretty much along among the natives here in that respect.

[jonathanb]

Re: Foreign lorries

But how many countries in the world still use imperial units for road signs? There's the UK, the USA, and that's about it. Ireland switched to metric a few years back.

[Christoph]

Re: Foreign lorries

If he can't see that the road is physically unsuitable for his lorry, he's not likely to see the signs either.

I don't recall any of the metric countries putting feet and inches on their signs for the benefit of UK lorry drivers.

Maybe some of the villages affected by this could have large signs in eastern european languages saying "GO AWAY" - or words to that effect.

[vagabondo]

Re: Re: Foreign lorries

By the time the vehicle has reached the point where the road is too narrow it is too late. Advice is needed before entering the road, maybe several km before the restriction is apparent.

As to the continued use of imperial units on UK roads; that is just perverse. The UK agreed to go metric in 1973. Since then all engineering etc. ha been metric. Maps are metric, houses, kitchen appliances, and the temperature are specified in metric units. The continuation of dual systems should be relegated to history, there is no rationality in making life arbitrarily difficult.

But why the French changed from driving on the left to the right can only be put down to perfidy!

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Foreign lorries

And villages have! That's one of the reasons for this summit... to allow local councils, including parish councils and town councils, to have less red tape when putting up signs to stop drivers from going through those villages.

At the moment it's a bloody drama (because the district council, the county council, the Highways Agency, and every person with interest need to have their say about it), and it then needs to be propagated.

I've seen several signs on my routes before saying "NOT SUITABLE FOR HGV" or "LOCAL ACCESS ONLY", or "NO HGV SATNAV ACCESS" in rather large letters.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Foreign lorries

If they are capable of understanding speed limits in MPH then they are capable of knowing what the width of their own vehicle is in feet and inches. It's a single figure and not going to be difficult to remember and easy to compare.

Why should a penny more be spent catering for drivers that don't know basic details about their own vehicle and that should not be on the road to start with? If you're going to drive on the road then being expected to know how to use them safely should not be unreasonable, regardless of where you're from.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Foreign lorries

New signs that are put up ARE in meters, or have both imperial or metric measurements.

The issue occurs when the lorry gets towards the smaller towns with the less well maintained roads that still have the old signs in feet and inches only...They've been reading signs from the port in meters so why would they assume the next one is any different?

[LarsG]

Re: Foreign lorries

No just idiot truckers.

[AHMB]

"Last month, Confused.com said that satnavs had caused more than £203m worth of damage to drivers on UK roads in the last year, with 83 per cent of 2,000 survey respondents admitting to the site that they'd been misled by their soothingly voiced machines."

No, drivers blindly following their satnavs rather than using their eyes caused more than £203m worth of damage.

Why is it that drivers are never blamed when something goes wrong? The driver operates the vehicle, and is therefore the responsible party.

[Voland's right hand]

Kind'a

I would usually agree with you. Usually...

However, in this particular case the satnav manufacturers are guilty as charged.

I had an entertaining dialogue with the manufacturer of my SatNav software for Android 3 months ago. I pointed to them that their routing algorithm is suboptimal because it _ALWAYS_ assigns any route which is not clearly marked as 60mph and does not differentiate between un-classified road, B-road and A-road. So if you are navigating around the periphery of a town it regularly gives you instructions to drive out of town, turn on a country lane, use it to drive around and go back in town again.

I was told to that they are not changing their algo and not offering any means to tune it. By the way - the same guys write the integrated truck handling + SatNav for some of the biggest Eu logistics companies.

This leads to an interesting conclusion. It does not matter how many times would the council reclassify their roads. THAT WILL BE IGNORED. It is presently not a customer requirement and the SatNav companies do not give a damn.

In fact, based on tests with the trial versions and one commercial version most SatNav software for Android fails on this one - including Google's own.

[JimmyPage]

Remember the Blackadder gag about fitting wheels to a tomato ?

"Time consuming and totally pointless"

My satnav is perfectly functional, albeit 4 years old. Along with it's maps, which I will not pay £70 to update. I suspect a vast majority of drivers are in a similar position. This pow wow could cure cancer, and find Lord Lucan riding Shergar, but if people don't update their maps, then they are wasting their time.

How come, I could by a new printed road atlas for (say) £10, yet the same information as a download is £70 ?

[Paul Uszak]

Re: Remember the Blackadder gag about fitting wheels to a tomato ?

Reason you pay £70 for a download is that you're (as a group) happy to pay that. It's a luxury item and thus the price is totally unrelated to the cost. Marketing 101. Sorry.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Remember the Blackadder gag about fitting wheels to a tomato ?

"How come, I could by a new printed road atlas for (say) £10, yet the same information as a download is £70 ?"

Perhaps because a £10 printed road atlas will not have street-level map coverage for every city, town, and village in the UK - let alone continental Europe.

[Dr. Mouse]

Minor correction...

"Last month, Confused.com said that satnavs had caused more than £203m worth of damage to drivers on UK roads in the last year, with 83 per cent of 2,000 survey respondents admitting to the site that they'd been misled by their soothingly voiced machines."

Should read:

"Last month, Confused.com said that stupid drivers had caused more than £203m worth of damage on UK roads in the last year, with 83 per cent of 2,000 survey respondents admitting to the site that they were too stupid to apply any common sense to the instructions from their soothingly voiced machines."

I use a sat nav all the time. It is a guide only, and I look up directions first to make sure I have a rought idea of where I am going. If it tells me to go the wrong way down a one way road (or similar) I ignore it. If the instructions don't match what I remember from looking it up myself, I pull over and make sure. A little common sense goes a long way. I am often told I have no common sense, but I have more than these numpties!

[Pete the not so great]

In exchange for personal data

I get updates, thanks GOOG

[Anonymous Coward]

Not too long now...

... and we'll see signs and traffic updates and such broadcast to the boxes. That, or the things get fitted with cameras and smarts to recognise roadsigns. Wonder which'll happen first.

[Anonymous Coward]

Simple Solution....

Don't let women drive :)

See here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=39qdhbkTko4

[Dr. G. Freeman]

So who in the ministry has shares in Satnav companies?

I expect some legislation that you have to buy the updates in the near future..

/cynical.

[ByeLaw101]

"Last month, Confused.com said that satnavs had caused more than £203m worth of damage to drivers on UK roads in the last year"

The SatNavs did THAT! So it wasn't idiot drivers who replaced their common sense with a small LCD screen that may shout out directions in various comical voices?

[Anonymous Coward]

Well

I dont know about you, but i'm certainly not going to argue with Brian Blessed!

[ahfakopsdfi]

"However, the main reasons the satnavs cause problems is because it can take months for map updates from local councils to make their way onto the gadgets."

And yet I'm still using a 2001 AA road atlas and haven't once driven over a cliff or down a footpath, or across the grassed-over former route of a now diverted road.

Updating the mapping data doesn't seem to be the main problem: it's getting people to use some common sense rather than blindly rely on technology.

[Intractable Potsherd]

There are a lot of people that cannot read maps ...

... so it doesn't matter what atlas, or how up-to-date it is, they will still get into difficulties in the same way they always did. Unless, of course, people who can't read maps are more likely to drive off their usual routes. I know several people who only used to drive two or three routes (home > work/shop/relative), but who now go for trips out relying on the satnav to get them there and back.

[Jasper UK]

SatNav's

Anybody that would ignore, road signs aka the real world over the SatNav directions. Should be banned for life from driving!

[trigpoint]

Re: SatNav's

Sometimes the satnav is right, councils sometimes use 'unsuitable for motor vehicle' signs for political reasons and not road traffic reasons.

[Lloyd]

Surely

A program of mandatory IQ testing and sterilisation would be a far more effective way to go?

[s. pam]

OMFG -- think of the children for one second won't you!

Fixing this will mean Mummy and Daddy won't be fighting in the front seat over "where did that stpuid Bitch-in-a-Box" just tell us where to drive to.

My God -- this means the passenger in the front will have to read again, for one fecking second won't you THINK OF THE CHILDREN!

[trigpoint]

Declassifying A roads doesn't help

Councils don't help when they declassify roads. What they achive is giving a single track road the same routing priority as the former A road a truck should be directed along to reach its destination.

[SkippyBing]

All excellent points

However, it's very unlikely that politicians are going to enact rules that punish stupidity as that will directly affect the kind of person who'd otherwise unthinkingly vote for them. And I'm not even sure I'm joking...

[Anonymous Coward]

Reclassifying

This idea just won't work. The signposts for one town near me already try to steer the traffic around a lengthy bypass while satnavs sends you straight through the middle - because it's a lot shorter and doesn't take any longer.

And I've, er, heard that, apparently, some of these expensive map updates are available on those torrent websites. If I knew how to get them I'd have downloaded current free maps for the whole of Europe. But I don't know how to find them, officer, so I can't.

[FunkyEric]

Maybe it would be better if...

The government wrote a law forcing satnav companies to use better algorithms which took into account factors such as vehicle type and road type to stop sat navs sending people down unsuitable roads.

[trigpoint]

Re: Maybe it would be better if...

If only truck drivers used specialised satnavs, and not those intended for cars.

[GT]

New Atlas £15. Updated SatNav maps £50-£100

and then you don't know when your satnav will die. I'd happily update my satnav annually for a more reasonable price (ie the same as a paper atlas) but at present the prices are stupid.

[JP19]

powers to categorise their roads

They mean more powers to lie so Satnavs guide drivers where the council wants them to go rather than where the drivers want to go.

I bet roads where those councillors live will some of the first to be misclassified as 'not suitable for vehicles'.

[Pink Duck]

Root cause

1. Map updates aren't free

2. Updates aren't available to older kit

3. Map reports take years to get fixed

Solution? Something that's free to use, quick to fix and non-proprietary. OpenStreetMap comes to mind, but there's still a few years to go before it has complete UK road network coverage.

[David 66]

funny thing happened on the way home

I had to drive home on my familiar route 2hrs in the dark, and just to be different, I put my smartphone's satnav on just to keep me entertained.

I missed my junction.

[Anonymous Coward]

What's the most dangerous part of any vehicle?

The nut behind the steering wheel.*

* - Still as true today as it was when this joke was created in 1894.

[Colonel Mad]

Garmin & Navteq

I have what purports to be a top of the range Garmin unit, its worse that my old and much lamented BM6300, however it does use the same mapping agency, I notified them of a error 10 years ago, this, like the correspondent above, has not been corrected, despite receiving an acknowledgement.

It fails to zoom in at slow speed (despite having auto enabled), the Navteq maps have junction errors too numerous to mention, for goodness sake, they could use Streetview to sort that out, I wish I had put the money towards a better and larger smartphone and use that instead.

[Anonymous Coward]

203 Million Pounds?

I call bullshit!

This is like 1000 drivers writing off a top-end Bentley or Ferrari; or maybe a couple crashing into a Eurofighter.

Seriously , 0.75 million pounds per day just because of sat-nav mis-direction? Or did they include the Costa Concordia in the statistics?

[Anonymous Coward]

The solution

Build a BIG round-a-bout - think CERN here. Have no exit, or have an exit with a big "DO NOT EXIT" sign and a LOT of cops stationed there.

Put a road going to it. Allow for several places to pull out and turn around. Put signs up: "No outlet - last chance to exit - your satnav is wrong!"

Tell the sat-nav folks to randomly route people to that round-a-bout.

The smart ones will see the signs and turn around. The dumb ones get trapped on the round-a-bout. If you were nice and provided exits, then you bust them for exiting and take their license away. If you were NOT nice and provided no exits - after a while the problem sorts itself out, and you can hose the cars out and sell them again.

[WonkoTheSane]

Satnav blindness is everywhere.

One end of the road where I work is closed for a couple of weeks whilst the roundabout there is enlarged as part of improving access onto the industrial estate.

Sat-tards are driving past ALL SIX "Road closed ahead" signs and not turning round until they've found the big hole in the road at the very end.

citation:- http://www.leaderlive.co.uk/news/110836/wrexham-drivers-risking-lives-by-ignoring-diversion.aspx

[trigpoint]

Re: Satnav blindness is everywhere.

Probably nothing to do with Satnav, just people who have been stung before by over-zealous road closed signs and know road closed signs to have been used where there is no reason, and don't believe they are needed until they have seen it.

The boy who cried wolf and all that.

A lot of the time road closed signs are used where they aren't needed with no thought for the effect they will have on local businesses or the seriously long diversion Give no information as to where the closure is, and are often so far from the works that they catch drivers who would never have gone near the works in the first place.

[edge_e]

64 comments and

not one of you, not even Dr Mouse, have taken issue with the amount of damage caused to DRIVERS

"Last month, Confused.com said that satnavs had caused more than £203m worth of damage to drivers"

Is it possible to put a monetary value on damage to something that was clearly faulty anyway?

[Will Godfrey]

"satnavs had caused more than £203m worth of damage"

Wow! Anyone got a youtube vid of a satnav leaping out of the car and trashing the side of a house?

[Anonymous Coward]

I know of at least one place where the satnav tells you one thing, and the road signs another. It's tricky trying to work out which is correct at 70mph; particularly when you know there's a reasonable chance that you won't be able to turn around for a while and you have cranky people on board™.

In case anyone's interested it's the M3/M27 south/west bound to Bournemouth - Garmin. Apologies to the person I nearly carved up whilst trying to solve the conundrum!

When I mentioned the problem to my cousin he said: "Aah, you've got a Garmin. Sorry about that!"

Then there's the Tesco Mersey mystery - we asked to find the nearest Tesco from Birkenhead (i.e. cheap petrol), and the satnav told us to drive out to sea for a few miles... Clearly thinks I have a Gibbs Aquada; sadly not! Needless to say I didn't follow that suggestion; and before anyone asks, there's no (publically known) tunnel in that area. Maybe there's a regional seat of power there, which has their own outpost ;)

[Vic]

> In case anyone's interested it's the M3/M27 south/west bound to Bournemouth

That's a pretty well-posted junction; you get into lane 1 like the signs tell you...

What's the difficulty?

Vic.

[James 125]

RTFM.

Read the F******g Map.

[Intractable Potsherd]

Re: RTFM.

As I keep saying - not everyone can read a map. It isn't a pure skill - there is a cognitive element that some people just don't seem to have. For these people, satnav has brought freedom to go where they want, safely and efficiently.

[JohnG]

Sat Navs cause no damage

"... satnavs had caused more than £203m worth of damage to drivers on UK roads in the last year.."

No they didn't - the drivers are the ones with the driving licenses, not the sat navs. Drivers are responsible for ensuring that they are driving in accordance with the law - observing road signs, that their vehicle is in roadworthy condition, etc. Inanimate driving aids have no responsibility for anything.

Lorry drivers should be using sat navs designed for their type of vehcle i.e. taking width and height restrictions into account.

All drivers must observe the laws of the country in which they are driving - this means speed limits, signage - such as width and height restrictions in metric or imperial measures, the need to carry certain spares or high visibility jackets. Drivers that don't do this can expect to face the relevant penalties.