On 07/02/2016 23:16, T i m wrote:
On Sun, 7 Feb 2016 22:06:35 +0000, Vir Campestris
wrote:

On 05/02/2016 22:26, T i m wrote:
Unfortunately they can't use width limits to protect us because they
still need to get the dustcarts and any other legitimate HGV traffic
down here

A width limit can be signs only.

Interesting point, however, seeing as they ignore the three signs
suggesting there is no access to their intended destination, and given
the width restriction isn't physical ... ? ;-(

If the width limit isn't physical and they get stuck because of cars
parked then someone is obstructing the highway.

"F Murtz" wrote in message
eb.com...
The Natural Philosopher wrote:
On 01/02/16 17:47, charles wrote:
In article ,
The Natural Philosopher wrote:
On 01/02/16 17:33, dennis@home wrote:
On 01/02/2016 16:06, charles wrote:
In article , The Natural Philosopher


Nowadays, I take a photo of the car (with reg plate).

yebbut I keep my camera in the car..

use your phone!


If you have a recent smart phone you can use the GPS to mark the
location too.

If you don't have a smart phone, a tablet, or a surface and you own a
car, and you can read a map, its amazing what you don't need.

a map won't necessarily help you find your car in a car park

Never said it did, it just extends the range of technology you don't
need.

I had an argument with a technophile friend. Full of himself and his
gadgets 'a satnav will always tell you how to get there better than a
map'

How? mine does not know some one way streets and it keeps telling me to do
Uturns when it is illegal, tries to send me up streets with no access etc
etc etc.

Which one is that ?

'Possibly, but it doesn't help me decide where I want to go, does it?'

"T i m" wrote in message
...
On Mon, 08 Feb 2016 09:12:56 +0000, Tim Streater
wrote:

In article , Vir
Campestris wrote:

On 05/02/2016 22:33, T i m wrote:
On Fri, 5 Feb 2016 21:21:57 +0000, Vir Campestris
wrote:
The main reason I bought a satnav was for my daily commute. I drive
into
a small city, and the traffic is a nightmare. One week I was given a
different route every day.

Sweet. And did it seem to pan out?

usually, but it's not infallible.

One day it took me on a five mile detour that ended back where I started
- because new jams appeared and old ones cleared.

Luxury.

There's a report in the Times today about a Yank tourist in Iceland who
mis-typed the street-name where his hotel was, after picking up the
hire car at the airport. 600 miles later, he gets to the place with the
road that he actually typed.

For the next leg of his trip he did the same again - another lengthy
detour. He was then reported to be leaving the island - and as the
Times put it: "it isn't known whether he found the airport".

This the point about using technology as an aid and not doing so blindly.

Or doing stuff as basic as looking at how far it says the destination is
away.

I do sometimes have the satnav offer me some place in america
instead of in my own country, particularly with very obscure
streets that aren't in any major town in my country or when
the one I wanted isnt even in the map database in my country
at all. Just had a couple the other day when google has just
fixed after I advised them of the error.

As I've said I keep my GPS set on 'North up' because I understand
maps and still can no matter which way I'm actually traveling. (It goes
into 'Track up' when it navigates you at junctions in any case). As it
happens, a GPS is better than a paper map there because if you did
prefer to use 'Track up' (where the world spins around your constant
'North' orientation) the place names still stay the right way up. ;-)

And shows you where you are on the map too.

So, if I set a destination and it displays the planned route, I check
to see if it's taking me in the direction I know I'm supposed to be
going in, the distance and ETA . If it doesn't look right I may have
selected the wrong 'Recently used' or postcode so I re-check before
further committing.

Course it could be argued that he's just a twerp.

I guess if you didn't know the country or area you could be fooled
into thinking the destination 600 miles away was the one that was
supposed to be only 60, especially if you haven't glanced at the
map previously or don't try to make sense of stuff like that.

Unlikely that you would actually want to go to a hotel 600 miles
from the airport even if someone had managed to book a room
in a hotel 600 miles from the airport by accident.

NY wrote
Tim Streater wrote

There's a report in the Times today about a Yank tourist in Iceland who
mis-typed the street-name where his hotel was, after picking up the hire
car at the airport. 600 miles later, he gets to the place with the road
that he actually typed.

There was a report the other year of a chauffeur-driven limousine taking
some people to a football match at Stamford Bridge stadium (Fulham's
ground in London). The chauffeur's satnav directed him to the town of
Stamford Bridge in East Yorkshire. And the mistake was only discovered
when he got there and the football ground was nowhere in sight.

I'm not sure whose fault it was. Should the chauffeur have noticed when he
programmed the satnav that it was a long way from where he was starting,
and queried with his passengers? Should the passengers have thought "We've
been on the A1 for a couple of hours - this doesn't seem right" and got
him to turn round?

When I use a satnav I always first glance at the intended route and the
distance/time estimates to make sure that they are sensible.

I normally just look at the map of the destination if I had hit the search
button instead of selecting from the list of destinations that pops up
as you type the destination in with the state and country included.

Whether it's a long journey or a fairly local one, I would never just set
off;

I do that sometimes when setting up a nav using voice commands
because not only can't I see the screen when I do that, the phone is
in the bin under the radio where the screen isnt visible, I dont want
to take my eyes of the road in that situation even if the screen was
visible to check something like that. Too dangerous.

But siri does add the town, so if you tell it to go to Jones St,
it will say 'getting directions to Jones St, Whoop Whoop' etc.

I'm often curious about "I wonder which way it will take me".

Yeah, I am too, mainly an academic interest in how well it does that.

When I know a better route when actually following the turn by
turn instructions, I just go the way I know is better and have the
satnav reroute automatically after I have diverted from what it
suggested I do route wise.

In other words, I have a fairly good idea of how to get to my destination

While I do most of the time and normally only use the satnav
to get to a particular house on the street with the garage sales
and when I am picking up something I have just bought in one
of the facebook buy sell swap groups or ebay etc, it isnt always
true when in some other town that I haven't been in much before.

but use the satnav to make sure I don't miss any crucial junctions

Yeah, particularly when I know one has been completely
rebuilt and moved recently and isnt yet fully engraved in
my mind because I haven't been thru it often enough yet.

Or where I know that the road thru a particular town
is quite complicated and easy to miss the correct turn.

and as a time/distance countdown ("ah, I'm now 10 miles / 10 minutes from
journey's end").

Yeah, that recent change with google maps is quite
handy. It now announces the ETA which is very handy
if you have setup the nav with a voice command and
haven't been able to check the map because you are
driving.

On Mon, 08 Feb 2016 11:48:38 +0000, Tim Streater
wrote:

In article , T i m
wrote:

On Mon, 8 Feb 2016 10:07:17 -0000, "NY" wrote:

snip

When I use a satnav I always first glance at the intended route and the
distance/time estimates to make sure that they are sensible. Whether it's a
long journey or a fairly local one, I would never just set off; I'm often
curious about "I wonder which way it will take me". In other words, I have a
fairly good idea of how to get to my destination but use the satnav to make
sure I don't miss any crucial junctions and as a time/distance countdown
("ah, I'm now 10 miles / 10 minutes from journey's end").

Yup and I think the old fashioned term for all of that is 'Having your
wits about you'. ;-)

Well quite.

I also have the feeling that many people these days have no sense of
danger. So they wade into the 3ft deep swollen stream and get swept
away.

I wonder how much of this is down to kids not being exposed to smaller
risks as they used to? You only had to fall out of a tree to realise
you probably wouldn't survive when drunk on some scaffolding or
faffing about on your hotel balcony. Or (as you say later) wading in a
stream or brook and possibly being washed onto your ass (not to your
death) taught most of us a good lesson? Getting a shock of an HT lead
taught us we probably didn't want one off a mains cable. Coming off a
cycle or moped taught us we probably didn't want to do so on anything
bigger.

My SiL on a trip to a glacier near Chamonix, reachable by
mountain train and then cable car (this was 35 years ago or so). Steps
out on the ice and goes arse over. Then says people shouldn't be
allowed on it. Er hello - ice is slippery!

Maybe they should have put a sign out to that effect, they seem to do
so for everything else these days?

'Caution, this coffee may be hot'

Cheers, T i m

T i m wrote:
On Mon, 08 Feb 2016 11:48:38 +0000, Tim Streater
wrote:
My SiL on a trip to a glacier near Chamonix, reachable by
mountain train and then cable car (this was 35 years ago or so). Steps
out on the ice and goes arse over. Then says people shouldn't be
allowed on it. Er hello - ice is slippery!

Maybe they should have put a sign out to that effect, they seem to do
so for everything else these days?

At the entrance to our local indoor ski slope, there's an Elfin-Safety
style notice warning of "slippery surfaces". Possibly a legal or
insurance-company requirement.

--
Mike Barnes
Cheshire, England

On Mon, 8 Feb 2016 12:42:22 +0000, dennis@home
wrote:

On 07/02/2016 23:16, T i m wrote:
On Sun, 7 Feb 2016 22:06:35 +0000, Vir Campestris
wrote:

On 05/02/2016 22:26, T i m wrote:
Unfortunately they can't use width limits to protect us because they
still need to get the dustcarts and any other legitimate HGV traffic
down here

A width limit can be signs only.

Interesting point, however, seeing as they ignore the three signs
suggesting there is no access to their intended destination, and given
the width restriction isn't physical ... ? ;-(

If the width limit isn't physical and they get stuck because of cars
parked then someone is obstructing the highway.

Well yes, but there is a difference between 'stuck' and not being able
to turn a 40' artic round in an urban backstreet that (even) they
didn't want to be in in the first place. ;-(

And it's not just here of course, someone I know a mile away had her
car (along with many around her and many road bollards) damaged by
another lost 'continental' artic.

I thought there was a road traffic rule that suggests you shouldn't
park in such a way that reduces the road to less than two car widths?

If that was Policed in most towns in the Uk (and especially places
like London) a very large number of drivers would get prosecuted.

So the big question could be, how much of the highway needs to be
obstructed before you fall foul of the following:

"Section 137 of the Highways Act 1980 (as amended by sections 38 and
46 of the Criminal Justice Act 1982 and the Police and Criminal
Evidence Act 1984, Schedule 7) provides an offence of wilful
obstruction of the highway. An offence is committed if a person,
without lawful authority or excuse, in any way willfully obstructs the
free passage along a highway."

Could that mean (if some authority chooses to decide so) that every
person reducing any road to less than (potentially) *two* HGV widths
is 'willfully obstructing' the highway?

Is the highway still 'obstructed' (as a general thoroughfare) if there
is still one HGV width clear?

Cheers, T i m

In article ,
T i m wrote:
Maybe they should have put a sign out to that effect, they seem to do
so for everything else these days?

'Caution, this coffee may be hot'

I wonder how many people who do not have their reading glasses on tilt the
cup to get a better few of the warning and spill the coffee down
themselves :-)

Alan

--


Using an ARMX6

In article ,
Alan Dawes wrote:
In article ,
T i m wrote:
Maybe they should have put a sign out to that effect, they seem to do
so for everything else these days?

'Caution, this coffee may be hot'

I wonder how many people who do not have their reading glasses on tilt
the cup to get a better few of the warning and spill the coffee down
themselves :-)

or "view" even!

Alan

--


Using an ARMX6

On Tue, 09 Feb 2016 10:35:13 +0000 (GMT), Alan Dawes
wrote:

In article ,
Alan Dawes wrote:
In article ,
T i m wrote:
Maybe they should have put a sign out to that effect, they seem to do
so for everything else these days?

'Caution, this coffee may be hot'

I wonder how many people who do not have their reading glasses on tilt
the cup to get a better few of the warning and spill the coffee down
themselves :-)

or "view" even!

Isn't that funny, I read your few as view anyway. I wonder how may of
us mainly read for content?

And you are right, I'm sure some will have done that. I gave our
daughter a scalpel to do some fine craft with and whilst warning her
that it was 'very sharp', just caught on my hand and it bled quite
badly. ;-(

'Yeah, nice safety demo Dad'. ;-)

Cheers, T i m