Posted By Alan Nicholls Headline today: Foreign lorry driver wrongly sent up a cul-de-sac by his sat nav,wrecked SEVEN cars and a roundabout with Bulk Artic as he tried to get out yesterday. This happened at around 5.45 am. The driver was delivering 23tonnes of coke to a nearby foundry in Wadebridge Cornwall. Reported by the Current Bun He did manage to reverse out onto the main road but not before causing £50,000 worth of damage. Would your company rely on Sat Nav as the only aid to finding locations for deliveries in a foreign country? Does your company ask for specific instructions for delivery of goods etc, to assist your drivers? Does your company send information to your suppliers to aid in locating your premises? Always useful to know if low bridge, weight limit, single track road, humpback bridge,need to be negotiated; especially if you are using low loaders. I suspect the driver of the lorry will be looking at a hefty fine. Should have waited for assistance!! Any thoughts Alan N

Posted By Dan dan sat navs v a box of A-Zs, stopping to check navigate every 5 mins I would be lost without one, particularly driving up and down the country to non descript locations looking for satilite site locations

Posted By Peter Leese Agreed. Life without satnav would be like life without a mobile. They are now an integral part of modern living for those who travel around the country/world. Fighting progress like this reminds me of the Admiral who said words to the effect that '...there will never be a cannon with a range capable of firing over the Gibralter straits...'

Posted By Tabs Alan, sat nav is just one method of taking a wrong turn. Even getting maps from the place you are visiting is not foolproof - many places use outdated, poorly detailed maps with roads neatly straightened and distances changed to suit the size of box available on their pretty page. Wrong turns are taken every hour - the fact this made the news was due to a totally incompetent driver.

Posted By Adrian Clifton Sat Nav? Humbug! Never used one, always relied on maps. I use a general road Atlas to get me to the area and then a more detailed map printed off t'internet to find the exact location. Sat Navs' should be viewed as a distraction to drivers not a God send. Ban 'em and dump 'em. Thousands of the damn things being stolen from vehicles. Sitting on the broken glass from your car window is a health and safety issue too, both for the driver and passengers (duty of care to others). Ps. When you dispose of them, make sure it's done in line with the WEEE Regs. Adrian

Posted By Paul Leadbetter Give me a map and a sense of direction anytime. My daughter's boyfriend travels the country using sat nav and has no idea where he has been when I enquire. Paul

Posted By Peter Leese M'Lud, I rest my case.

Posted By John Tidyman I have to add my comments to this as I left my last job n October and have been doing agency haulage (Class 1 and 2) work as an income and to supplement my further studies. If a driver gets given details of the job he is to do in advance then the route should be planned and this should not happen. The employer should prior to departure ensure that the driver (foreign or not) knows the route and provide maps or multimap print off. However the normal is for for a driver to turn up, be given a vehicle and documents and very little else. Larger household name companies are actually very good, it is normally (but not always) smaller companies who have very poor management controls. Last week I was driving a Class 2 delivery vehicle around London (always good fun), had 8 drops to those shops in the middle of housing estates and without sat nav I would have been lost and probably a nervous wreck. The point I make is that sat nav should be used as an aid and not followed blindly.

Posted By Merv Newman I've been a consultant now for at least 15 years. Always said that the most difficult parts of the job were 1) finding the hotel, and 2) finding the factory. (that in a town you have never visited before and in about 10 different countries) clients and hotels do send maps but you are continually looking for street names, which aren't always visible, or you are stopping to look at your map. My latest car (rover 75. don't laugh. any offers above fourpence and a bag of chips ?) came with a sat nav. One of my first trips with it involved a 10 mile journey from the hotel to the plant. I allowed half an hour for the trip. 8am and thick, thick fog. Couldn't even see the motorway signs. Listening to the verbal instructions from the sat nav, and crawling at about 20mph I got to the meeting on time. Bless it. Merv And a competent artic driver should be able to reverse up a narrow street without bending anything. I admire their skill. If you want a laugh come and watch me backing up a trailer.

Posted By Ian Mitchell Hi Merv. Don't knock the 75! It is one of the great travesties we allowed a famous old marque to go belly up. The 75 (and MG ZT) was the only vehicle in the range worthy of the badge. The last decent rover! BMW designed and, until Rover went bust, a prestige car that was equal to the three series and Audi A4 brigade. (No, I have never owned a 75 so am not biased!) I know it's not Friday...

Posted By Steve Clark As an ex driver (still hold my C+E, that's HGV to us oldies) i did home delivery in an artic and also wagon and drag. I relied upon maps, common sense, drivers sense of direction and a little luck. I now have a SatNav (in my car) and it works 99% of the time. But... i will never put all my eggs in one basket and carry a good atlas, plan my route before i leave and make a note of any contact phone numbers for my destination if possible. The particular driver in question had (it would appear) particularly bad judgement. Maps with bridge heights are available and our depots issue them as standard - again they are not foolproof. A driver often goes down a road only to find the road has been resurfaced and the signs not changed. We have even had drivers stuck because the initial sign on the road was different to the one on the bridge! A good driver has a brain, not just a beer belly, i've been trying to lose my belly ever since i started driving a desk ;) Steve Clark CMIOSH R&D SG: Chair Transport & Distribution Committee http://www.iosh.co.uk/in...=specialist.news&sgid=13

Posted By Tony Brunskill All, You may be interested in this research. Granted it comes through Tom Tom but it appears to be relatively independent and is backed by Aon and others. Makes interesting reading. http://www.tomtom.com/page.php?Page=Safety&Lid=1 And no I do not have any financial interest in any of the Sat Nav manufacturing or retailing operations. Tony

Posted By Mick154 Let me tell my story Phone rings: - Hello P- Good evening sir, we are in your area fitting Sat-Nav at a very low price M- Don’t Wont one P- But sir they are the in-thing M- Don’t wont one P- But Sir You Will Never Get lost again M-Never Been Lost P:-But Sir it will tell you how to get where you’re going and which way to go M- Got one of them P- But Sir, please tell me if you don’t have one of our Sat-Navs, what is it makes you sure you will never get lost again or find your way around M:- how’s thirty years in transport and can read a map, and if I take the wife along she tells me where I am going and how to get there So, my thoughts, buy a good map every two or three years, look at your route before you set off and plan your tip Travelling along I see those with Sat-Nav using them like a mobile phone (£60 + 3 points) ‘’ Thing Before You Drive ‘’ And how many drivers go out of their (say) 50 mille radius of their homes so why do you need one of these toys in your car just so some one can steal it

Posted By John_Webster I have a sat-nav. It came with the car and is a fixed installation so unlikely to attract thieves. I always prided myself on being able to find my way about with just a glance at the map before I set off, so didn't think I would ever use it. In the days before one could access any town map from the Internet, on entering a strange town not in my atlas I would head for the police station (open 24/7) where one would invariably find a local street map on the wall just inside the door. Now I wouldn't be without it. Once the destination address is programmed, there is simply no need to fiddle with any of the controls again. Using the voice prompt, no need to even look at the screen. So if used properly it has to be much safer than fiddling with maps and sheets of Internet download. If I do get in the wrong lane, then I do what I always have - go with the flow and try to find another route. Only now, within a few seconds the satnav tells me I have gone the wrong way and re-plots a new route to the destination so I don't have to find a safe place to pull over to consult the map. But just like with a map, you have to remain alert to the road signs and layout and give priority to what your eyes can see not what the satnav tells you. The foreign lorry driver presumably did not see what would normally be an internationally recognised cul-de-sac sign before he turned in. If he had, he would have taken another route, and one which his satnav would have helped him with, in his own language! Although I do not use the satnav locally, I am well aware of a number of errors in my home town, one of which would send traffic the wrong way up a one way street, and the other along a narrow, pedestrian only, alley. But even a recent map shows both as "A" routes, and an Internet map gives no more detailed information. So it would be a bit stupid to blame the satnav when the signs at the ends of these roads are there clear for all to see.