Garmin Drive Smart takes me down narrow lanes, how to avoid?

CliveOfIndia

I have to agree with those that have suggested a good old-fashioned road atlas.  It never runs out of battery and it doesn't care if there's no signal.

Don't get me wrong, I'm something of a techno-dinosaur, but even I find Google Maps on my phone very easy to use, and it's great, pretty much all of the time.

But I find a map much easier when you're trying to navigate in an area you don't know very well, I find it easier to visualise where something is in relation to somewhere else, and get a sense of how far away it is.

Slightly off-topic, but I also find it great if you're on holiday in a place you've never been to before.  Sort of "where shall we visit today?".  Dig out the map.  "Ah, there's a museum there, there's a beach there, a forest somewhere else.  Doesn't look too far away, let's go there for the day".  Maybe I really am an old fuddy-duddy, but I find satnav is great if you know where you want to go, a map is much better if you're just "browsing", as it were.

Nasqueron

ontheroad1970 said:

Nasqueron said:

ontheroad1970 said:

I try and have a road atlas in the car, and if I am doing a long journey I don't make often, will look at the route on the map in the atlas first.  It can come in handy when you encounter a real issue and need a detour when your satnav continually tries to send you back to the same route with the traffic problem.

It's a lot easier and quicker just to whack it on google maps as it'll be very similar to what the SatNav uses, especially on the fastest route option and you can see where it'll use small roads. My car satnav actually has 4 options, fastest, shortest, most economical and another one I can't remember, it shows the distance and time of each alternative. I typically now use google maps on the phone as the satnav maps are out of date and I won't pay for updates plus it has travel, warnings of speed cameras/vans etc (not really an issue as I normally drive at around 62 on the motorway but does give warning for people braking at the last second!)

Better to have a hard copy in the car in case you can't get coverage, also good idea to look at the possible routes so you can get ahead of the satnav when she decides to send you back the way you came, or where there is more traffic.  I make sure to know parallel routes to places not so far away from my true destination in case it is better to take a route to somewhere within 20 miles.  My wife missed a flight in a situation where there was gridlock, and better knowledge of other routes would have enabled her to make the flight albeit losing 30 or so minutes by going south and then east.  Also, just about everyone is following the same reroutes.  A little lateral thinking and a knowledge of other routes 20 miles south can sometimes be a lifesaver.

Maps allows you to download the route beforehand to avoid the issue of no coverage. It's an expense of buying an atlas every year and having to keep stopping and rerouting as you obviously can't look while driving. Google maps/Waze also alerts you to traffic and reroutes you which avoids the need to stop and look at a map and plan alternatives - especially if you don't know the area, while google does. 

I have never had an issue with satnav coverage separate from the car and not seen any issues with the phone either and I do plenty of drives to places I haven't been before for the sport I do, where I'd never learn all the back routes 

ontheroad1970

Nasqueron said:

ontheroad1970 said:

Nasqueron said:

ontheroad1970 said:

I try and have a road atlas in the car, and if I am doing a long journey I don't make often, will look at the route on the map in the atlas first.  It can come in handy when you encounter a real issue and need a detour when your satnav continually tries to send you back to the same route with the traffic problem.

It's a lot easier and quicker just to whack it on google maps as it'll be very similar to what the SatNav uses, especially on the fastest route option and you can see where it'll use small roads. My car satnav actually has 4 options, fastest, shortest, most economical and another one I can't remember, it shows the distance and time of each alternative. I typically now use google maps on the phone as the satnav maps are out of date and I won't pay for updates plus it has travel, warnings of speed cameras/vans etc (not really an issue as I normally drive at around 62 on the motorway but does give warning for people braking at the last second!)

Better to have a hard copy in the car in case you can't get coverage, also good idea to look at the possible routes so you can get ahead of the satnav when she decides to send you back the way you came, or where there is more traffic.  I make sure to know parallel routes to places not so far away from my true destination in case it is better to take a route to somewhere within 20 miles.  My wife missed a flight in a situation where there was gridlock, and better knowledge of other routes would have enabled her to make the flight albeit losing 30 or so minutes by going south and then east.  Also, just about everyone is following the same reroutes.  A little lateral thinking and a knowledge of other routes 20 miles south can sometimes be a lifesaver.

Maps allows you to download the route beforehand to avoid the issue of no coverage. It's an expense of buying an atlas every year and having to keep stopping and rerouting as you obviously can't look while driving. Google maps/Waze also alerts you to traffic and reroutes you which avoids the need to stop and look at a map and plan alternatives - especially if you don't know the area, while google does. 

I have never had an issue with satnav coverage separate from the car and not seen any issues with the phone either and I do plenty of drives to places I haven't been before for the sport I do, where I'd never learn all the back routes 

The issue comes when you want to look to go somewhere that is outside of the area you have downloaded.  In my wife's case, there was an accident that snarled up all the area around Reading.  I would have gone on to the A34 south to the M3 to avoid it while everyone was being rerouted around A roads around Reading.  Satnavs are great tools but to get the best out of them, you have to research your route.  I don't buy an atlas every year, and they are generally only around £7.99.  If you are following a reroute from your satnav, so are many others, so you run from one traffic jam to another.  To think outside the box you must in the end research the route and know in your head the best direction and turn route guidance off or change it to a destination that will work.  It's like the old Blockbuster grid on TV.  Sometimes the winning route is longer but less congested.  

CliveOfIndia

Nasqueron said:

 It's an expense of buying an atlas every year

I actually just recently chucked out my old atlas as it was falling apart, and bought a new one.  Published in 1997 !  And in all those years, it's done what I needed it to.

For all practical purposes road layouts (at least, the major routes) don't change all that often.  Yes of course, there are some major projects that go on, but I find that pretty much any old atlas is near enough, then use Google Maps on the phone to find my way around the smaller, more local roads.

Each to their own, I guess, what works for one person won't suit another.

Ah, reminds me of the good old days before satnav - genuinely, if I was going somewhere and didn't know the route, I'd sit down with a map beforehand and write directions down on a notepad to keep in the car.  It was awkward if the road you intended to use turned out to be closed or whatever, but even then you could pull over and have another look at the map.

Barkin

ontheroad1970 said:

Nasqueron said:

ontheroad1970 said:

Nasqueron said:

ontheroad1970 said:

I try and have a road atlas in the car, and if I am doing a long journey I don't make often, will look at the route on the map in the atlas first.  It can come in handy when you encounter a real issue and need a detour when your satnav continually tries to send you back to the same route with the traffic problem.

It's a lot easier and quicker just to whack it on google maps as it'll be very similar to what the SatNav uses, especially on the fastest route option and you can see where it'll use small roads. My car satnav actually has 4 options, fastest, shortest, most economical and another one I can't remember, it shows the distance and time of each alternative. I typically now use google maps on the phone as the satnav maps are out of date and I won't pay for updates plus it has travel, warnings of speed cameras/vans etc (not really an issue as I normally drive at around 62 on the motorway but does give warning for people braking at the last second!)

Better to have a hard copy in the car in case you can't get coverage, also good idea to look at the possible routes so you can get ahead of the satnav when she decides to send you back the way you came, or where there is more traffic.  I make sure to know parallel routes to places not so far away from my true destination in case it is better to take a route to somewhere within 20 miles.  My wife missed a flight in a situation where there was gridlock, and better knowledge of other routes would have enabled her to make the flight albeit losing 30 or so minutes by going south and then east.  Also, just about everyone is following the same reroutes.  A little lateral thinking and a knowledge of other routes 20 miles south can sometimes be a lifesaver.

Maps allows you to download the route beforehand to avoid the issue of no coverage. It's an expense of buying an atlas every year and having to keep stopping and rerouting as you obviously can't look while driving. Google maps/Waze also alerts you to traffic and reroutes you which avoids the need to stop and look at a map and plan alternatives - especially if you don't know the area, while google does. 

I have never had an issue with satnav coverage separate from the car and not seen any issues with the phone either and I do plenty of drives to places I haven't been before for the sport I do, where I'd never learn all the back routes 

The issue comes when you want to look to go somewhere that is outside of the area you have downloaded. 

Non-issue. Map sizes & coverage are user selectable. Download map/s that cover a wider area. 

Arunmor

The one killer I have found on Google maps is their eco routes.  I ventured South to Surrey from the wilds of Scotland (first time in over 30 years) and it wanted to take me a route which was about 20 minutes longer than an option as I approached a junction.  Eco mode has been switched off ever since!

HillStreetBlues

CliveOfIndia said:

Nasqueron said:

 It's an expense of buying an atlas every year

I actually just recently chucked out my old atlas as it was falling apart, and bought a new one.  Published in 1997 !  And in all those years, it's done what I needed it to.

For all practical purposes road layouts (at least, the major routes) don't change all that often.  Yes of course, there are some major projects that go on, but I find that pretty much any old atlas is near enough, then use Google Maps on the phone to find my way around the smaller, more local roads.

Each to their own, I guess, what works for one person won't suit another.

Ah, reminds me of the good old days before satnav - genuinely, if I was going somewhere and didn't know the route, I'd sit down with a map beforehand and write directions down on a notepad to keep in the car.  It was awkward if the road you intended to use turned out to be closed or whatever, but even then you could pull over and have another look at the map.

Those were the days, sit down the previous night plan everything on a piece of paper, have paper on passenger seat ready to use, get on motorway, open windows & sunroof and watch paper fly out