Setting sat nav destination

We are about to go on holiday to Scotland on Friday, trying to set the destination on the sat nav is proving challenging, my preferred route from York is to go A1m, A66, M6, however the sat nav wants to take me straight up the A1, it makes no difference whether I press fastest, eco, ect, as you know, you have to be quick to decide which one to press, I know I could add a via point, but that might try and take us from the A1 over towards the west, are there any workarounds?

If you're likely to stop at a services or something on the A66/M6 section then just put that in as your destination. Then when you get there start a new route to your final destination. 

Or, as you live in Yorkshire and probably know that part of the route anyway, just know where to turn off for the A66 and ignore the nav at that point. Somewhere along the A66 it'll recalculate. (The problem with that is it won't care about traffic on the A66 until you turn onto it.)

Have you tried adding a stop along the route to force it to go that way? 

No, but I will do, we have a couple of places marked to use as waypoints..

1 hour ago, ColinB said:

Have you tried adding a stop along the route to force it to go that way? 

Years ago I did that. The exact location turned out to be a few metres off the road. After I passed it the satnav just kept trying to make me go back there until I managed to stop safely and beat its brains out (then reprogrammed it.)

More modern units may be cleverer but if you don't actually stop ...

I've never dared try it again anyway. In fact even if I'm going to stop I just set the leg and program the next one while there. Things change, so it might offer other route options and it's much easier and safer to deal with that when stopped.

6 hours ago, Primus1 said:

We are about to go on holiday to Scotland on Friday, trying to set the destination on the sat nav is proving challenging, my preferred route from York is to go A1m, A66, M6, however the sat nav wants to take me straight up the A1, it makes no difference whether I press fastest, eco, ect, as you know, you have to be quick to decide which one to press, I know I could add a via point, but that might try and take us from the A1 over towards the west, are there any workarounds?

on page 165 of the multimedia document you can just set waypoints so the route will calculate taking those into mind from reading it.

6 hours ago, Primus1 said:

We are about to go on holiday to Scotland on Friday, trying to set the destination on the sat nav is proving challenging, my preferred route from York is to go A1m, A66, M6, however the sat nav wants to take me straight up the A1, it makes no difference whether I press fastest, eco, ect, as you know, you have to be quick to decide which one to press, I know I could add a via point, but that might try and take us from the A1 over towards the west, are there any workarounds?

Don't forget your Passport 🛂 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿😄

My traditional method of using Satnavs is to completely ignore whatever it's telling me and take whatever route I want to get there until it finally caves in or I get to a point where I don't know where I'm going and then start blindly following it.

This works well most of the time, although it has tried to send me into a lake or random farm field on occasion as, I suspect, some sort of attempt at revenge for me ignoring it for the first 90 miles.

36 minutes ago, Cyker said:

My traditional method of using Satnavs is to completely ignore whatever it's telling me and take whatever route I want to get there until it finally caves in or I get to a point where I don't know where I'm going and then start blindly following it.

This works well most of the time, although it has tried to send me into a lake or random farm field on occasion as, I suspect, some sort of attempt at revenge for me ignoring it for the first 90 miles.

 

What baffles me with ANY sat nav system is ...we use it even when we are going somewhere we know or even local and the sat nav just takes you around the houses for no reason  and if you are not knowledgeable in that area, in these cases I may override the sat nav and take a punt !!

I use the sat nav all the time because I "assume" it has already factored in accidents, road works etc .  This method does work and a lot of people don't use it for short journeys or even just for popping to the end of the village.

4 minutes ago, 152bobby said:

What baffles me with ANY sat nav system is ...we use it even when we are going somewhere we know or even local and the sat nav just takes you around the houses for no reason  and if you are not knowledgeable in that area, in these cases I may override the sat nav and take a punt !!

I use the sat nav all the time because I "assume" it has already factored in accidents, road works etc .  This method does work and a lot of people don't use it for short journeys or even just for popping to the end of the village.

There is always the “Human Factor”

most commonly the “i Ain’t going that way you stupid. ****”

2 minutes ago, Paul john said:

There is always the “Human Factor”

most commonly the “i Ain’t going that way you stupid. ****”

 

Totally agree, when my daughter FIRST passed her test and HAD NO CLUE, she got a ticket for going down a road for buses only and I swear, it could not have been more obvious with the signs etc, but she said the sat nav directed her that way...she learned from that and now also uses her EYES 😄

12 minutes ago, 152bobby said:

I use the sat nav all the time because I "assume" it has already factored in accidents, road works etc .

I do this if I'm going into the Southampton area exactly for that, though if it suddenly sent me an odd way I'd probably try and stop and see why.

I have a (possibly) cautionary tale from last Saturday. We had been at Alton Towers, which if you don't know is in the sticks north of Birmingham. I use Google for serious nav as the car is out of date and I prefer the options on Maps. I don't have tolls deselected as I like to see the options when choosing the route.

So at AT I put in destination home (near Soton) and I'm offered M6 Toll or 2 mins longer on M1 (on a 3.5hr journey). So obviously I pick the M1.

Stop for fuel somewhere (Uttoxeter?) - spontaneous, Tesco just there on the left - and when I start off again the nav sends me back the way I came for 1/2 a mile before continuing south-ish. I thought that was odd, but guessed the traffic had changed in the interim.

As we progressed I noticed it occasionally offering alternative routes like "5 mins longer - no tolls" but driving strange roads with other traffic and no easy places to pull over I couldn't really give it my full attention and once past the junction the option disappeared anyway. By the time I realised it was actually taking us to the M6 Toll the option was 25 mins longer and I decided I would pay the nearly £10 rather than divert.

I have learnt from this but I'm still not sure what is the best way to handle it. And being Google it'll be different in a year's time anyway.

Other navs will vary 🙂

Best Sat Nav Ever 

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Philips-Navigator-Britain-Spiral-Atlases/dp/1849076138/ref=pd_vtp_h_pd_vtp_h_d_sccl_1/259-7987573-0740419?pd_rd_w=Lvlal&content-id=amzn1.sym.0024c6b5-da90-4821-b6c0-667e7c129058&pf_rd_p=0024c6b5-da90-4821-b6c0-667e7c129058&pf_rd_r=09PFA40H2305PS5XV3QA&pd_rd_wg=BgxSt&pd_rd_r=0cd358d0-0174-4187-acac-cd81a97cdec9&pd_rd_i=1849076138&psc=1
 

1 minute ago, Paul john said:

Best Sat Nav Ever 

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Philips-Navigator-Britain-Spiral-Atlases/dp/1849076138/ref=pd_vtp_h_pd_vtp_h_d_sccl_1/259-7987573-0740419?pd_rd_w=Lvlal&content-id=amzn1.sym.0024c6b5-da90-4821-b6c0-667e7c129058&pf_rd_p=0024c6b5-da90-4821-b6c0-667e7c129058&pf_rd_r=09PFA40H2305PS5XV3QA&pd_rd_wg=BgxSt&pd_rd_r=0cd358d0-0174-4187-acac-cd81a97cdec9&pd_rd_i=1849076138&psc=1
 

Out of date even before it goes to print but still worth having !!

15 minutes ago, Paul john said:

Best Sat Nav Ever 

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Philips-Navigator-Britain-Spiral-Atlases/dp/1849076138/ref=pd_vtp_h_pd_vtp_h_d_sccl_1/259-7987573-0740419?pd_rd_w=Lvlal&content-id=amzn1.sym.0024c6b5-da90-4821-b6c0-667e7c129058&pf_rd_p=0024c6b5-da90-4821-b6c0-667e7c129058&pf_rd_r=09PFA40H2305PS5XV3QA&pd_rd_wg=BgxSt&pd_rd_r=0cd358d0-0174-4187-acac-cd81a97cdec9&pd_rd_i=1849076138&psc=1
 

Hmm, I have one of those stuffed in the passenger seat storage pocket, albeit circa 1997...    Been through many cars that map  

I generally use Google maps for any long distance journeys, mainly for its better traffic information as I normally know where m going, although I do use the built in one for local journeys where I don't know the particular destination. I still always keep a road atlas in the boot, albeit years out of date, for looking for places to visit when on holiday and, if all else fails satnav wise, landmarks to find my way home - I've had them fail on me before. 

I can’t not use sat nav, my geography teacher wrote on my school report, “ how this lad finds his way home I’ll never know “…

One of the many strange quirks in human behaviour that I have noticed,is when someone buys a new sat nav the first thing they do is set it to go home from the local store that they bought it from.

I suppose they must need one very badly if they can't find their way home from Halfords.

That's called testing 🙂 and this is just a common sense IMO as you are able to verify it's abilities to find a path and you will notice immediately if something is off.

Back to the paper maps and write a route out 🤩

Does anyone remember the times that you could get from A to B just following the major road signs ?  Absolutely no chance of that now as they have either fallen over, been vandalised or the main one which is totally hidden by trees, bushes etc....all to do with this No Mow May rubbish, which meant to be for butterflies etc, the councils real hidden agenda is to save money....and what happens to that saved money ?  It must cost more and take twice as long to cut all this overgrown vegetation down, when they get round to it.  I cannot even walk properly on the pavement round my village because of the overgrown stinging nettles etc and pulling out from junctions that are all overgrown is downright dangerous.  Don't get me wrong, I do get that letting things get overgrown is good for butterflies, bees etc, but I've seen lots of dangerous situations because of this.  And it's now 24th June and I see no evidence of them cutting all this back.

Sorry, I went off topic a bit 🥺😄

I have used TomToms for many years and found them very accurate 

However when I set a route I always refer to Google Maps to check the route it has chosen and then select way points on the TomTom

The one time I did not follow a suggested route I ended up in a one hour traffic jam 

As I live on the outskirts of Greater Manchester I also use it for short trips as TomToms live traffic information is excellent 

Before the days of sat navs SWMBO was my navigator and rarely got us lost using OS maps

2 hours ago, Rhymes with Paris said:

One of the many strange quirks in human behaviour that I have noticed,is when someone buys a new sat nav the first thing they do is set it to go home from the local store that they bought it from.

I suppose they must need one very badly if they can't find their way home from Halfords.

 

To be fair if it's like the one near me, just trying to navigate out of the retail park's one-way system can be tricky  

15 hours ago, 152bobby said:

Totally agree, when my daughter FIRST passed her test and HAD NO CLUE, she got a ticket for going down a road for buses only and I swear, it could not have been more obvious with the signs etc, but she said the sat nav directed her that way...she learned from that and now also uses her EYES 😄

This is a good object lesson, and at least it was just a fine and she didn't drive into a literal lake like you used to hear about Americans doing!!  

1 hour ago, 152bobby said:

Does anyone remember the times that you could get from A to B just following the major road signs ?  Absolutely no chance of that now as they have either fallen over, been vandalised or the main one which is totally hidden by trees, bushes etc....all to do with this No Mow May rubbish, which meant to be for butterflies etc, the councils real hidden agenda is to save money....and what happens to that saved money ?  It must cost more and take twice as long to cut all this overgrown vegetation down, when they get round to it.  I cannot even walk properly on the pavement round my village because of the overgrown stinging nettles etc and pulling out from junctions that are all overgrown is downright dangerous.  Don't get me wrong, I do get that letting things get overgrown is good for butterflies, bees etc, but I've seen lots of dangerous situations because of this.  And it's now 24th June and I see no evidence of them cutting all this back.

Sorry, I went off topic a bit 🥺😄

Yeah I have noticed it's trickier due to overgrowth and fading, but I must admit the brown signs and AA signs are a god send when you're going to an unfamiliar event - Whoever puts those up should be in charge of all sign placement as they're almost always in exactly the right place and in good time to be seen, almost as if whoever put them up *gasp* actually drives a car and has perspective of where a driver will be looking!   

As opposed to whoever puts up new speed signs and ULEZ signs in London, who apparently does it backwards with a blindfold on as they're always BEHIND other signs or placed in the exact place a driver won't be looking unless they're not paying attention to the road. Almost as if they don't WANT you to see them until it's too late...  

59 minutes ago, Johnold said:

I have used TomToms for many years and found them very accurate 

However when I set a route I always refer to Google Maps to check the route it has chosen and then select way points on the TomTom

The one time I did not follow a suggested route I ended up in a one hour traffic jam 

As I live on the outskirts of Greater Manchester I also use it for short trips as TomToms live traffic information is excellent 

Before the days of sat navs SWMBO was my navigator and rarely got us lost using OS maps

I do prefer a good co-pilot - My BPS, or Brother Positioning System has never failed me, and doesn't give me confusing instructions like In 100 Metres Keep Left and Bear Right and Turn Left Now Recalculating Route Perform A Legal U-Turn, but clearer instructions like You're in the wrong lane you muppet that lane NO That one! Up yours Audi we were here first! Now take the 3rd exit left Yes NO THE NEXT NEXT LEFT OMG how are we still alive etc.

No GPS can beat that!   

10 hours ago, ColinB said:

I generally use Google maps for any long distance journeys, mainly for its better traffic information

Yes, that is good and very dynamic. Exiting a roundabout recently it was showing some amber for traffic ahead, but when I got there it was clear. But the amber had moved on. A minute later I was in the amber as I joined half a dozen other cars following a council grass cutter.

I was impressed.