Dropping down the escarpment at Lympne to The Marsh I turned into the wind and found it VERY breezy. I decided to take a break at the Lathe Barn cafe/restuarant where I knew I could sit on the patio in the sun but out of the wind. A group of cyclists was already there, so I passed the time of day and asked where they had ridden from. "We have just come up from Camber", one replied.
I suggested that they would find the going heavier on their return as it would be all head wind cycling and suggested that they might find an ebike like mine of some use."Yeah, I was thinking that maybe your bike would just suit me", said on of them, who, I noticed had no left leg below the knee. I commented that his injury did not stop him cycling and asked how it happened. "Stepped on a mine in Afghanistan. Cycling is part of my physical and mental recovery", was the clipped reply.
After a pleasant 30 minutes in their company and with a cream/jam scone and pot of tea inside me I made to set off again in their intended direction. "Race you!", shouted the ex-army guy. I demurred, preferring my own gentle 12 mph pace, alone. It was a clear day with typical Marsh skies and, in spite of the head wind the electric genie gave steady going.
However, a couple of miles after I stopped to take the above shot I rounded a corner of the lane to be confronted by this.
One expects to see the odd dead badger by the side of the lanes, but not a full length, 16.5 metre, 44 tonne, 12 wheeled artic blocking the way completely. In fact my only way past was to squeeze self and bike through the gap on the left between the hedge and lorry.
A Dutch driver, he was about 5 miles in any direction from a suitable road (for him) and had obviously got lost and was trying by satnav to reach such a road. A lot of HGV drivers seem to use car-type satnavs which are not at all suitable for behemoths which try to negotiate "lanes which wind like streams among the hedgerows" (to quote Betjeman, who enjoyed Romney Marsh). In fact their winding is to follow the dykes which cover this corner of Kent and all these lanes have deep ditches to each side which the driver found out to his cost when trying to get round this tight corner, putting his offside rear six wheels down into the 8 foot gully.
Engaging satnav must have switched off his brain because he passed a sign about 200 yards before this warning of a small bridge a mile ahead which he could never have crossed (assuming he could have negotiated the succession of tight corners to it). Note how he had destroyed one support of the sign, (see his wheel ruts). I managed to bend it back so it could be read.
In my years of training coach drivers I always insisted that, if they had to use a satnav, it was one designed for large vehicles and to KEEP THE BRAIN ACTIVE TO MAKE SURE THE ROADS WERE SUITABLE.
I much prefer maps. One can see everything around you and where the roads go, not putting one's trust into the "keyhole"view or disembodied voice of a Satnav. I have never owned one, although I grant that they could have their uses when negotiating strange towns.
14 comments:
I wonder what Waberer's solution to this was...
I wonder that, too. Giant helicopter crane? Could the Dutch driver read the sign he plowed into? I wonder that, also.
Avus, I learn things every time I read your posts. In fact, I wander off on tangents checking out what you're talking about, so reading these takes me some while. I will read more later. Have you kept track of what happened next?
Tom and Vita:
I could not imagine how they were going to get that lorry out of the situation, since there was no room beside it for a recovery truck. So I returned next day (by motorcycle) to see if it was till there. But, somehow, it was gone, with 3 deep parallel skid marks across the road where those rear wheels had been dragged sideways up out of the ditch and back onto the lane.
There were no marks in the left hedge so nothing had stood there (it couldn't anyway, since there was also a deep ditch on that side too). However I managed to get into the adjoining field and there were plenty of deep wheel ruts there, so a vehicle, presumable with a heavy winch, must have stood there and put a cable through the hedge to drag the lorry back onto the road. I would have loved to watch the operation!
I bet the lorry recovery was worth watching. Sat navs are useful but you shouldn't totally rely on them always have a map, and you're right have one that suits your vehicle ideally one where you can programme it for the vehicle size, height etc. I use one on the bike and its great for touring as it saves having to consult a map and maps in wind and rain dont go well together. The weather at the moment is glorious cycling weather.
I have owned and used five satnavs over the last decade; the technology has improved markedly. On the last two French holidays we've used the tunnel to the west of Paris (10 km, said to be longest urban tunnel in the whatever). It works like a dream, removing most of the horrors of the peripherique but I shudder at trying to get to the entrance with a map.
Of course we carry the 250-page Michelin but it's so limited. The satnav tells you where the next filling station, caff, hospital, hotel is and how to get there and how long it will take. It has a continuously updated time calculation for your ultimate destination, good to the nearest minute. It will calculate a detour if the road ahead is blocked. If you've got a savvy passenger you can experiment in all sorts of ways without stopping. There are warnings about speed cameras. Information about leaving a motorway includes what you can expect to see on the upcoming road sign. The so-called "keyhole" view can be enlarged until all France (or the UK) is contained on the screen. As to the disembodied voice, one of my satnavs used a woman's voice with the slightest hint of a lisp, although Avus being Avus could - by pressing a button - have despatched her for the more comforting voice of a chap. By pressing another button the varying speed in kph is displayed.
The road system in France is expanded each year (Compare that with what passes for progress in the UK). I download these changes from my desktop to my satnav.
And now satnav comes free with my £80 smartphone. I can put in a start and finish, a feature tells me how long the journey will take on foot, by bike, by car and by public transport. A choice of routes is offered with varying times. A dotted line marks my progress. Destinations can be identified as shops, car-parks, museums - not just as addresses.
Yes I can believe you've never owned one. Worse, you appear never to have used one. Or if you have it was in the Dark Ages.
But here's the point. Luddites delight in misguidances attributable to satnavs but nary a word when maps get them lost. Maps it seems are perfect. I must have been dumb because in the pre-satnav era I regularly got lost. Now it happens rarely. One problem with maps is scale; OK if you're using OS but how many of them would you need for a 100-mile car journey? With a satnav a button increases the scale and roads that would have been invisible on a car atlas now become visible and - more important - usable. Even if they have grass growing down the middle. Tee-hee about the Dutch lorry driver but how would it have helped if he'd been using a car atlas? He'd have stuck to main roads but perhaps he was making a delivery to a remote farm. That happens a good deal in Herefordshire
Dave:
I take your point about battling with maps in wind and rain and if I was still up to that type of cycling I should probably by now be using a satnav. However I love to settle down (comfortably!) to muse over OS maps and my "Little Corner" is firmly fixed in my mind, even the byways. I carry the OS map in my head.
RR:
Yes, I can understand how useful a modern satnav can be for the sort of driving you envisage. Unfortunately my motoring is limited to out and back journeys of about 100 miles these days as, with my condition, I get "set" and need help to alight from the car if I have driven too far or for too long.
Why you should think I would need a masculine "voice" to guide me by satnav I cannot understand. If I was using one I would expect accuracy and clarity. It is only a digital machine which produces noises after all.
Yes, too, "The so-called "keyhole" view can be enlarged until all France (or the UK) is contained on the screen", but what use would that be, the screen is still miniscule compared with a large map.
In my days of motorcycling 500 miles over all of southern England I carried 1" to the mile OS maps for the unknown (and to explore) parts and a couple of 5 mile to the inch OS maps for general planning, but satnavs were unknown or in their infancy then.
I do not condemn modern satnavs, only the type of mind which switches off when the satnav is switched on.
The satnav voice is not digitally created but built up from many real-life recordings. There is usually a choice of voices to suit different temperaments. All my French teachers were women as were some of my ski-instructors. As is my singing teacher. I find I respond better to instruction from women than from men. I have been reading your blog for about ten years and with one or two exceptions (Your daughter being a notable case) you appear to inhabit a predominantly male world. By intention all the central characters of my novels have been women, simply because I find them more interesting, reckon they have more literary potential given that even now society discriminates against them and fiction feasts on all forms of conflict.
You would probably pooh-pooh this but after a while you develop a relationship with the voice of your satnav. As do your passengers. When for some reason you ignore an instruction the talk tends to be: "That'll annoy her."
I know a wide range of satnav users and I don't recognise such "switchers off". How do you infer this state of mind? Have you never in your life said to yourself: "That's what the map says but I'm going to try this." Therein lies the unknown and thus adventure. My acquaintances recognise that the satnav is a useful tool but is not perfect (though close to); they are all alert to this, they'd be fools not to be. The marvel is that in a box the equivalent of two bars of chocolate and costing about £100 lies the wherewithal to travel informedly all over Europe, through huge towns, into remote areas; technology that would once have cost thousands of pounds always assuming that satellites were already in place. The satnav is not a thing to be liked or disliked, it is a unique source of vital dynamic information which maps simply cannot provide. I tend not to disdain information. And of course owning a satnav does not preclude owning a map.
Diminishing the satnav's view of a route (by reducing its scale) is only useful for strategic reasons I agree. But a map which covered the same area (ie, stretching from Calais to Carcassone, about 650 miles) would have to be pretty large to show anything other than autoroutes and the next level down of main roads. Push a button and the satnav's view would change from the whole of France to a 20 km radius of Clermont Ferrand.
Engaging satnav must have switched off his brain. I like that. It seems to be a problem for many humans using computers as well. Recently, I was offered a trip on a houseboat being taken from where we live in Evran to Dinan prior to its being shipped back to the UK. On the way, a crew member showed me his satnav and how well it was working. Now I ask you, what value was satnav on a boat travelling along a canal and the River Rance in Brittany? There were not too many options available other than Go and Stop.
Tom:
" Now I ask you, what value was satnav on a boat travelling along a canal and the River Rance in Brittany? " I am afraid I have no answer to your question, but I am sure our mutual acquaintance, RR, could provide one! Over to you, Robbie.
Re. boats. If by now you aren't aware that satnavs provide a multiplicity of info other than just guidance (as do maps of course) I'm prepared to regard you as incorrigible.
I would not like to have been that driver. I wonder if he's still there...?
Pam:
Well he definitely ain't there now (nor the lorry) as I rode through that way last Sunday. But I wonder if he still has his job?
There is a lot to be said for regular maps. We use Google maps when trying to find our way in the car and that causes enough trouble. Do have the OS maps now on the phone now. They have the huge advantage of a blue dot which pinpoints where you are on the OS map at any time. that really comes in handy.
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