We have a ford near us which is navigable in good conditions, however not so long ago someone was drowned there because they thought that following their satnav through a river in spate was going to end well. Of course, it didn't.

The more we let technology do things for us, the less common sense is applied. Applying common sense is a bit like exercising a muscle, it gets weaker the less you use it.

I'm fairly sure if you gave someone under 30 a road map and told them to get on with it, you'd get a helpless look and a 'but I've never been there before, how am I going to cope?'.

Ok maybe a generalisation, but there's a truth in all clichés.

Looking at that site (Salisbury) it looks a nightmare to get into at every level, the delivery access is a fair way round the corner, which is where the satnav lets you down as it goes to the postal address at the front door, and even if you went in the right way the yard is pathetic, but but but what was he trying to do? The option was to reverse back out onto the main road, which isn't a great option, but it beats trying to knock down a house. We were chatting about similar things at work last night and the older more experienced of us all agreed that in such circumstances the best thing to do is to put the handbrake on and get out and look before formulating a plan and then during the manouver as well to check things are not going awry.

Not a satnav error but poor signage led to a hapless driver stuck up a dead end with inches either side clearance from parked cars in a fixed bed box wagon towing a box trailer.
Sign on a junction in Aberystwyth said A487 with an arrow pointing straight up, local knowlage means you ignore it and turn right through the town, this poor lad had no local knowlage and followed the arrow, down pier Street and along the sea front until the dead end at the end of Victoria road.
To help the poor guy out I parked the van blocking the road with beacons flashing and banked him back past the junction, gave him directions to the A487 and sent him on his way, the number of drivers seeing him stuck but bliethly carrying on blocking his way was astounding.
If you've never made a mistake criticise, if you have do what you can to help.

Paul.

Sounds like you know the area :). The S-bend to get into that car park is tight in my XC70 so totally impossible in a truck. A chap from the store had come out and was trying to get the traffic to stop so the driver could have a bit of space to work in, but people seemed to be too impatient and kept pushing past.

That's the difference between a young satnav user and a wizened old trucker with 30 years experience. Back in my youth the only option was to use paper maps, but with experience I soon got to a point where I could look at an A to Z and tell that some roads would be trouble, it's difficult to say how or why but the pattern of the streets could tell me it was an old residential area or a new industrial estate. Nowadays if I'm going somewhere I don't know I'm a devotee of google maps, Satellite View and then Street View. Looking at the photo there's a phone number with a Salisbury code, short step from there to find Home Bargains and then check the views, with a little experience one can use the cars in the Satellite View to gauge the roads, following a route with Street View then means I can spot landmarks and gauge the corners etc. It does require advance notice of where I'm going or access to the web but it's not rocket science to me. Where I work now we go to a limited number of depots so it's not too hard to learn them but if in doubt we do have 'Idiot Sheets' for each depot with directions and a small map, usually written by a driver who goes there regularly, add to that a lot of drivers in the yard who've been there before and it shouldn't be too hard. We still get guys coming in from the agencies who will ignore all of that accumulated knowledge and tap it into their Satnav, only to whinge later about how hard it was to get to a depot.

Google,satnavs, I wish I had had these gizmos when I worked for BRS doing London odds ,all we had was a bundle of notes with informative addresses like Clark and Co NE 6 ,not even a road,but I used to do 16 drops starting at Letchworth and ending in Canning Town then back to Brum to reload ,leave Thursday morning back home Saturday morning. All for £30.00 a week !!!!

That be Thornford ford then - I've only ever been through it twice both of which were in Landies. I did once as a lad in the eighties rescue a couple in a Morris traveler that had ventured in & flooded, Me & a mate waded in & pulled the car back out. The driver gave us a fiver each for helping him which back in those days was a quite considerable sum.

As a retired HGV1 Driver. If things looked like they might be tight I would park up and get out and sus it out on foot 1st, it could save a lot of time.

Nowadays they'd tap that in their satnav and head to Newcastle, if those days you'd ask and someone would have said ' Nah mate that's Kilburn High Road, London NW6, we've told that silly bugger in the office so many times!'