The Nice People Thread, No.16: A Universe of Niceness.

silvercar

LydiaJ wrote: »

A question for NP who know about satnavs...

When my car was off the road a little while ago, I had a hire car with a satnav. I found it pretty useless compared with the satnav app on my phone. My phone can use my data allowance to get live traffic information and advise me which of several routes will be fastest considering the traffic of the moment. The car's satnav couldn't do that. Does this mean that when I eventually stop driving FIL's old car and get a replacement for myself, then even if it's got a satnav it won't be worth using, or is there a way to make car satnavs find out about traffic?

Virtually all built in car satnav system pick up traffic reports fairly instantly.

silvercar

cK- Luton mid stay car park gives a free half hour. If you head for the far, far left of the car park, you are possibly 20 paces further away than the short stay car park. Easy to walk from there to the terminal. Allow extra time to negotiate the traffic mess that is the airport roadworks, particularly in the early morning.

Still in Rio, was meant to be sight seeing today but visibility and rain mean that's not happening. Had the bonus of gay pride parade being right outside the hotel yesterday, fun during the day; slightly scary at night when there were over a million people here, some no longer sober.

Pyxis

silvercar wrote: »

Virtually all built in car satnav system pick up traffic reports fairly instantly.

Are you back, Silver?


How did it go?






Edit. Oops! Crossed posts!

ivyleaf

Pyxis no, she isn't But I can confirm that our car's inbuilt satnav does indeed pick up the traffic reports as we're on the move, and if there is congestion/delays it warns you, and asks if you'd like to take an alternative route.

Pyxis

silvercar wrote: »

.

Still in Rio, was meant to be sight seeing today but visibility and rain mean that's not happening. Had the bonus of gay pride parade being right outside the hotel yesterday, fun during the day; slightly scary at night when there were over a million people here, some no longer sober.

Rain in Rio? That's rough!

Especially as it's been rather dry here!

(Well, where I am anyway!)



That really old b/w film, Flying down to Rio, with the Astaire, was what got me wanting to do a wingwalk!

I tried for two years, yes! two years, but every time it was cancelled due to weather or engines.

CKhalvashi

silvercar wrote: »

cK- Luton mid stay car park gives a free half hour. If you head for the far, far left of the car park, you are possibly 20 paces further away than the short stay car park. Easy to walk from there to the terminal. Allow extra time to negotiate the traffic mess that is the airport roadworks, particularly in the early morning.

Thanks Silver, I'll let the person dropping me off at the airport know

I would have Tweeted the airport but they'd probably have directed me to the short stay.

Pyxis

CKhalvashi wrote: »

Thanks Silver, I'll let the person dropping me off at the airport know

I would have Tweeted the airport but they'd probably have directed me to the short stay.

Safe joirney, CK!

LydiaJ

ivyleaf wrote: »

Pyxis no, she isn't But I can confirm that our car's inbuilt satnav does indeed pick up the traffic reports as we're on the move, and if there is congestion/delays it warns you, and asks if you'd like to take an alternative route.

Maybe the one in the hire car I had would have done that if the congestion had been really bad. But my phone is much better than that. The journey from my house to Aged P's house has two possible routes that on average take approximately the same time. There's a similar situation with the route to DD's school. Although the routes are completely familiar to me and I don't in any way need directions, I routinely use the satnav app to choose which option to take. I became suspicious when the in car satnav told me to take the same route to Aged P's house on several different occasions despite being at different times of day. My phone, OTOH, shows me both routes (and sometimes some others as well) and tells me how long each of them will take, arriving at different answers on different occasions.

I have come a long way from my original belief that satnavs were for wimps. It started after I'd navigated myself through over an hour of heavy traffic in London on unfamiliar roads with the aid solely of a rather battered A to Z. I got there all right, but I was aware that the map reading was distracting me from the driving, and that I wasn't driving as safely as I would have been on a familiar route. So I began by accepting them on the grounds that "I can drive a car and I can read a map, but I can't safely do both at the same time." Later, I came to appreciate getting traffic information in map format.

CKhalvashi

LydiaJ wrote: »

Maybe the one in the hire car I had would have done that if the congestion had been really bad. But my phone is much better than that. The journey from my house to Aged P's house has two possible routes that on average take approximately the same time. There's a similar situation with the route to DD's school. Although the routes are completely familiar to me and I don't in any way need directions, I routinely use the satnav app to choose which option to take. I became suspicious when the in car satnav told me to take the same route to Aged P's house on several different occasions despite being at different times of day. My phone, OTOH, shows me both routes (and sometimes some others as well) and tells me how long each of them will take, arriving at different answers on different occasions.

I have come a long way from my original belief that satnavs were for wimps. It started after I'd navigated myself through over an hour of heavy traffic in London on unfamiliar roads with the aid solely of a rather battered A to Z. I got there all right, but I was aware that the map reading was distracting me from the driving, and that I wasn't driving as safely as I would have been on a familiar route. So I began by accepting them on the grounds that "I can drive a car and I can read a map, but I can't safely do both at the same time." Later, I came to appreciate getting traffic information in map format.

It'd be down to the car. What was it just out of interest? I'm happy to see if I have a navigation owners manual somewhere in the office tomorrow.

SingleSue

I use my sat nav (which will update for any traffic jams etc) but I also virtually drive the route via Google maps on my laptop a few times and memorise the route....OCD? Moi?

Got a lovely parcel from James delivered today, a parcel of various bags of chocolate and a big box of crisps as when he stayed with me after his op, he discovered there was absolutely no treats in the house whatsoever due to my budget shopping regime.