Ever since I received it I have been a staunch supporter of the Garmin Sat Nav the family bought me for my 50th birthday just over two years ago. No dead ends, no railway tracks, easy to update, reliable through France, generally excellent with no problems – until today.
My youngest son had a Rock School exam this afternoon in Darley Dale for his electric guitar. I duly set my trusty SatNav to the DE22 post code that was on his exam confirmation letter and off we went. All was well initially, but as we approached what the satnav called our destination, we were travelling along the A38 busy dual carriageway and we were told our destination was on the right. [private_basic]This meant we were supposed to park on the edge of this busy road, run across two lanes of traffic, jump over the central reservation crash barriers and again another two lanes of traffic. Then, looking upwards, we could see the school but would have needed a load of climbing ropes and tackle to scale the almost vertical 40 foot high wall of the cutting that we were at the bottom of.
Something didn’t feel right about this so we, against the satnav’s advice, continued along the dual carriageway for a couple of miles hoping there would be a way back and a way up! In the meantime, Matt was on the phone to No.1 son, Chris, who looked up our position on google and directed us back to the school. We ended up right next to the finish flag on the satnav screen, but 40 foot above it!
I suppose I have been lucky to have used the satnav for over 2 years without issue – but because we were due at his exam at 15.04, our problems induced a small state of panic whilst we floundered around trying to find the school. If it hadn’t been for google maps, we may still have been looking for the school now – nearly 2 hours later.
The moral to the story is, SatNav’s are wonderful, but it always pays to double check if you are going somewhere new and there is a time issue!
~Ray[/private_basic]