This chap took getting lost to a new dimension.
A 72-year-old man was rescued on Christmas Day by police after spending three days and nights driving up and down the M4 motorway, trying to get home.
There’s something a bit puzzling about the whole thing. According to the article, he set out from Trowbridge, drove to Gatwick after the flight he was taking his wife to catch was diverted and got lost on the way home.
He said he had been up and down to London three times, sleeping in his car each night and stopping to buy coffee and ask the way, but people did not understand his question, and so he kept coming back to the motorway.
What I can’t figure out is why he left the motorway in the first place. He blames his satnav – ahem… Now my satnav will take me off the M25 to take a shortcut to the M4 via the M3 and Bracknell – but if you follow it, it takes a pretty logical route, so why this chap ended up going back and forth to London, is difficult to work out. After all, once on the M4, Bristol and the West and London are both clearly sign posted.
Sure, once, many, many years ago, I got lost heading for Peterborough and went the wrong way from the M4 at Swindon, but back then, satnavs weren’t invented and I didn’t take a map with me, so I had an excuse… I think…
So I can’t help wondering what happened to Mr Bellazrak.
What I found most concerning about the story is that all his journies were already logged on the ANPR database, so all the police had to do was search for his number plate. A salutary lesson as to how spied upon we already are.
Indeed so and those in support of such use of technology will argue that in this case it proved useful, which is true. Technology is neutral, but the spying is not. So yes, that aspect bothered me, too.
I like his line “I blame my satnav”.
So… it’s not that you’re a prize idiot, then?
He must have spent an awful lot of money on petrol???
The blame the satnav always amuses me. By and large, they take a crowflies approach to navigation, defaulting mostly to major routes. You can tweak them if you want, but even the most basic sense of direction will tell you when they are feeding you a line.
In this case, I would suspect that the satnav would have taken him to the M25, M3, A329 then M4. If he went the wrong way, the satnav would complain – they always do.
Bucko, yes, I suspect he did 😉
My guess, based on the experience of various members of my family, is that he didn’t set the destination correctly.
He probably got it to tske him to Gatwick, and then somehow didn’t succeed in setting the new destinton to home. So the poor bloody machine kept trying to get him back to Gatwick.
I’ve had two diferent relatives do this while I’ve been driving.
Now that makes sense.
I always still have a road atlas in the car and use the net to plan my route before setting off, scribbling down the directions on a slip of paper.
Even on my worst “off day” this gets me within half a mile of my destination. Then I might switch on the sat nav. Or I might just ask a post man or a news agent.
My last employer was located in a bit of a tight place to get to, so we had to make a point of getting in touch with delivery drivers and tell them to ignore their sat nav after leaving the M62 to avoid getting well and truly jammed on the single track road they would be led to.
My guess is that this chap is probably now at an age where he is best just sticking to the local routes that he is familiar with and letting his bus pass do the rest, which is not meant to be offensive to him as it comes to all of us sooner or later, barring tragedy.
I generally rely on the map in my head as a backup. It works most of the time. I could have done with a paper map last week as I looked for an alternative to the M4 and A48 out of the back end of Cardiff, though. The satnav had picked up on the traffic problems on the M4 and kept pointing me back to the A48 which was equally beset with traffic. That said, given the snow, sticking with the clog was probably the best option anyway.
Mr Bellazrak? Is he not a native English first language speaker perchance? Maybe that’s the nub of the problem here. Although I’ve noted that stopping at Motorway services and asking directions tends to put you more in the company of people, native or not, who can’t speak English properly, and often don’t know the locale they work in.
I have a Satnav, but find a decent map and route planning works better. That and leaving the wife at home when I have a long road trip.
The only time I have made a complete balls up of driving somewhere was this Summer in Europe using a satnav.
We landed at Copenhagen airport from Tallinn and were headed to Hamburg for a music festival.
I had borrowed the satnav from friends in Estonia (who were with me on the trip) and had only glanced briefly at the road atlas before setting off from the airport.
As we approached the first roundabout from the airport carpark, the satnav was still buggering about looking for satellites so I took the exit signposted with the motorway number I had remembered from the atlas.
About 100m down the sliproad, the satnav started muttering about needing to turn around in 20km.
Unfortunately for me, I had taken the wrong direction on the motorway and now had a wonderful, direct, no turns offs trip to Sweden including toll payments of £35 each way for the privilege of using the The Øresund Bridge.
We did have a rather nice (if expensive) visit to Malmo and the bridge itself is pretty damned impressive although it did take about 5 minutes of swearing in several languages before the amusing side of the situation kicked in.
Thats the only time I have not taken a jotted note of directions with me and it will be the last time as well, satnav or no satnav.
Doea anyone else find that their sat nav will ALWAYS direct them to the toll motorways when driving in France. Even when the “avoid toll routes” option is selected?
It’s a conspiracy I tell you!!!!
The latest AA Road Atlas is usually available for a couple of quid when buying petrol at my local garage. With its help I’ve managed on two occasions to get from rural East Anglia to an industrial estate in Rochdale. I just used the traditional method of sitting down the night before, tracing a suitable route out, and making a simple list of roads, junctions, etc on a sheet of paper. I also consider roughly which direction I’m heading in, so the position of the Sun is usually a help.
Of course I’m regarded as an old fart by my cousins & nieces, but I always remind them that maps don’t need any power, and can’t crash when satellite coverage is poor! And, of course, we were navigating like this long before they were born.
Technology – Nothing can go wrong, go wrong, go wrong, go wrong, go wrong…………
Then of course there’s the fact that the road system is always changing. Roundabouts replaced by traffic lights, new roads, new one way systems, the list goes on.
All requiring regular software upgrades to the sat nav – the latest one for my 5 year old mondeo costing £300.
Three hundred quid?!? Garmin do a lifetime update deal for one hundred.