Previously, when I have read of people being led through little used routes by their GPS, I have tended to put it down to human error. In the 10 years or so that I have used (Garmin) GPS devices, combining the driving directions with normal common sense, I have never been taken down an inappropriate route.
In April, I switched to TomTom, and up until last week, my experience was no different.
Then I took a holiday in Somerset.
The bloomin' thing seemed obsessed with taking me down single track roads. Sometimes this was obvious, and I ignored the instructions. Sometimes, it would lead me down roads that looked viable at first, but soon turned into single tracks. In particular, the route from the nearest town (Taunton) to my rural holiday cottage, always directed me down 20 minutes of single track roads, even though there was a route that was mostly A or B roads, and then only 5 minutes of single track.
From what I could tell, in the absence of speed restrictions on these single track roads, it was treating them as 60mph. The sensible A-road route was longer in miles, and - according to TomTom - minutes longer in travel time. In fact, the longer route was far quicker, due to the winding single-track (with passing points) nature of the short route. Not to mention a lot less scary.
On my Garmin Quest, there was a specific setting not to use un-named roads unless they were the only possible route. In fact it allowed me to "weight" motorways, A roads, B roads and unnamed roads for preference in routing. But as far as I can see, the TomTom 1005 has no such setting.
Am I missing something?
In April, I switched to TomTom, and up until last week, my experience was no different.
Then I took a holiday in Somerset.
The bloomin' thing seemed obsessed with taking me down single track roads. Sometimes this was obvious, and I ignored the instructions. Sometimes, it would lead me down roads that looked viable at first, but soon turned into single tracks. In particular, the route from the nearest town (Taunton) to my rural holiday cottage, always directed me down 20 minutes of single track roads, even though there was a route that was mostly A or B roads, and then only 5 minutes of single track.
From what I could tell, in the absence of speed restrictions on these single track roads, it was treating them as 60mph. The sensible A-road route was longer in miles, and - according to TomTom - minutes longer in travel time. In fact, the longer route was far quicker, due to the winding single-track (with passing points) nature of the short route. Not to mention a lot less scary.
On my Garmin Quest, there was a specific setting not to use un-named roads unless they were the only possible route. In fact it allowed me to "weight" motorways, A roads, B roads and unnamed roads for preference in routing. But as far as I can see, the TomTom 1005 has no such setting.
Am I missing something?