Driver slapped with £900 fine for following TomTom

JimmyTheHand · Frequent Visitor Joined: Apr 16, 2005 Posts: 386

if his delivery was in the village he might have at first thought it a track to where he was going. But if it was me, I'd have stopped and double checked and if not happy with the "route" would back out and phone
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J.

JimmyTheHand · Frequent Visitor Joined: Apr 16, 2005 Posts: 386

DennisN · Posted: Fri Sep 18, 2009 11:04 pm Post subject:

Well, call me funny, but how can they do him for without due care and attention? Certainly he wasn't caring and attending, but he was effectively offroad and Darren's done stuff like that himself (in a more suitable vehicle) without being put up before the beaks. I would have thought the charges for the emergency/rescue services would have been enough punishment without also stinging him in court. Seems a waste of court resources to me. ('Course, if he'd been driving a black VW Golf I'd have locked him up for life!).
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Dennis

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Two of them are obesiting!!

Stanley_Tweedle · Regular Visitor Joined: Jul 10, 2005 Posts: 207

It's easy in retrospect to say he shouldn't have followed the track but it's easy to get confused if you don't know where you are going. Maybe he thought his destination might have been down a track? I can certainly remember visiting a business regularly some years ago that was down about 1/2 of a mile of barely drivable track.

I can think of a couple of times a sat nav has directed me down an unsuitable road. In one case I thought it was a handy local short cut to my destination and the surface wasn't bad; round a bend I soon came across a huge locked gate; which obviously the sat nav hadn't anticipated. Another time it tried to take me off an A road up a steep declassified track across some moorland, sensibly I didn't even attempt to follow.

For my money I think we should be expecting the road mapping and sat nav manufacturers to eliminate such tracks from the routes; at least for 4 wheel use. When sat nav was in it's infancy they had the excuse that there wouldn't have been time for them to have driven all the roads on the map to check them and also the user base was so small it wasn't worth investing money in checking maps. But the time has got to come when that is not good enough. In a way their customers are already checking the roads for them they just need to be more efficient in picking up on this data. Sort of Map Share/IQ Routes I suppose but they obviously haven't made best use of customer data yet. But is it unreasonable to expect the companies themselves to drive the roads too? Just setting your sat nav on shortest shouldn't lead you onto a dangerous track. Maybe they can have a setting for using verified roads only, then the off roaders and mountain bikers can turn it off if required.
Obviously until roads are classified properly driver mistakes are going to happen and it's only the serious ones we get to hear about; there are probably hundreds of minor incidents daily.

I know a good driver should check the routes on maps etc. but people don't always have time for that and people buy a sat nav on the hope that it will take the homework out of driving.

pjal · Occasional Visitor Joined: Dec 23, 2006 Posts: 1

What really concerns me as a road user, is that Mr Robert Jones is allowed to hold a driving license at all!......going by his theory that that his sat-nav told him to do it, does this mean then that when a green light shows at a pelican crossing or a set of traffic lights, Mr Jones will just carry on regardless and potentially run dow any pedestrians, or ram into any other vehicles....just because he had a green light?...... I suppose his defence then could be ..."well the traffic lights told me to go" !... but add to that this mans profession, as a Driver...and things take a turn for the really scary....?

Privateer · Posted: Sun Sep 20, 2009 2:45 pm Post subject:

SatNav is and always will be a driver's aid, nothing more. As a driver you are responsible for the actions you take as well as safety of yourself, your passengers, and other road users.

However, if you are in an unfamiliar area then it's easy to see why people rely on their SatNav because that is what the thing is for. SatNavs are no longer the domain of geeks, SatNavs are now mainstream.

As long as the user has ensured that the maps on their SatNav unit are up to date (by buying the latest maps, or by buying a SatNav with the latest maps) then the user should be considered to have done everything as far as practicably possible. It should then become more the responsibility of:

1. The manufacturer of the SatNav and the provider of the maps for that particular SatNav (often the same company) to ensure that their products are accurate and safe to use on roads.

2. The authorities for ensuring that the roads are correctly signed as to their use as well as ensuring that all signs are kept visible by cutting back hedges etc.

Regards,
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Robert.
iPhone 6s Plus, iOS 14.0.1: iOS CamerAlert v2.0.7
TomTom GO Mobile iOS 2.3.1; TomTom (UK & ROI and Europe) iOS apps v1.29
Garmin Camper 770 LMT-D

classy56 · Posted: Mon Sep 21, 2009 5:26 pm Post subject:

I'm sure this guy is a very competent driver, on this occasion he was duped not only by his SatNav but by the local authority, by all accounts this track is marked as a road on all paper maps as well as his SatNav.

I have been caught once by SatNav, in the deepest darkest depths of Wales, it advised me to take the next left, I approached the turning, had a good luck and it looked a suitable road, in fact it was as wide as the M25, so down I went (this was in my coach), for two miles no problems, then the dreaded sign 'SINGLE TRACK ROAD WITH PASSING PLACES', there were two drivers on this job, so we stopped and discussed it, as it was 02.30am and we are used to single track roads in our native Dorset, we decided to push on, about another mile further on (0.5 miles from a main road and our pick up) there was a sharp left hand bend, so sharp it was a left turn rather than a bend, and yep we got wedged on the bend, it took us over an hour to get out of the lane after doing several thousand pounds worth of damage to the coach.

Our boss was not happy, I gave him an AA road map and asked him "which route would you have gone?", he chose the exact route we went.

So a bit unfair to blame the SatNav or even the driver, and to date, I have never gone through a green light and rammed any cars or humans for that matter Wink

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To old to die young.

Barkley · Occasional Visitor Joined: Sep 17, 2007 Posts: 3

i've seen this on a number of occasions - although not at Cliff edges. The best example is to search for Scotts Road in Glasgow. From the west heading east, it starts as a fully lit and tarred road, which changes to a farm track eventually ending at a farm gate. However the Council and OS continue to show the road continuing a further mile to the back of a housing estate - on maps it shows a viable route. I've already complained 3 times in 2 years to MavTeQ and the latest updates show it still in place.

Sure, the driver may have been foolish, but the major contributory factor in all this is would he have gone if the route had been correctly graded? The mnuacturers may assert they are not responsible for mapping inaccuracies, but where errors have been notified and the mapping STILL shows the error, just like council road defects, they take some of the blame. Blaming the driver 100% is neither fair nor reasonable.

JockTamsonsBairn · Posted: Wed Sep 23, 2009 12:34 am Post subject:

tsdinos · Pocket GPS Verifier Joined: Jun 03, 2006 Posts: 119

It seems that Mr Jones tried to be a wise guy and get some money of the big satnav companies with lawsuits. Fortunately it happened in this country, which people have common sense and served him right.

I wouldnt be surprised if such a case would have been succesful in a US court! Laughing

therobbos · Occasional Visitor Joined: Mar 29, 2007 Posts: 1

Hi
I think that in this case, it was obvious that the guy had slavishly followed the Satnav and left his common sense in the boot or at home.

But where do you draw the line?

Sometimes a Satnav will point you down a road which does not seem an obvious route and you are left thinking "Is this some clever short cut or a software cock-up?"

If the road seems reasonable, you are going to follow it - else why have the assistance of satellite navigation - and if it is a path, you will ignore the direction, but somewhere in between is a very grey area.

How can the courts decide, and where does common sense and "driving without due care and attention" meet and cross the fine line.

In the case of the Beemer driver, it was an obvious decision, but if these cases start going to court on a regular basis, it could get very messy.

Still made me laugh though when I saw it on the local news!

Steve

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