Cornish village councillors take an enlightened approach

Residents of a Cornish village have released a map of satnav-vulnerable trouble spots which lorry drivers can download to update their databases.

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New York Times Discovers SatNav Errors

News of the phenomenon spreads to a country where strangely little is heard of it -- presumably because the roads are so big and the network so geometric that it is a novel phenomenon.

It's certainly true that satnav errors are essentally a characteristic of small rural roads (or roads taht turn out to be paths or fords...).

“We’ve heard some very hilarious stories where people just blindly follow the sat nav instructions,” said Vince Yearley, a spokesman for the Institute of Advanced Motorists, using British shorthand for “satellite navigation.” “Like if the sat nav says, ‘Drive into this muddy field,’ they think, ‘That’s weird,’ but they do it anyway.”

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Onwards, into the mud

The normal journalistic angle when reporting satnav errors is either to crow at the overpaid technophile's fall from grace, or to tut-tut at the truck drivers from central Europe getting stuck or destroying cottages in English country lanes. In fact one of the crucial features of these incidents is the way in which the route can look so plausible to begin with, and how the true nature of the road can only become apparent when it's too difficult to turn round -- combined with a sense of how far you would have to go back if you were to give up now. Combine that with a tendency towards obstinacy and bloody-mindedness and you have the makings of a classic satnav error.

John Cleese portrayed it perfectly years when satnav was unheard of in Michael Frayn's film Clockwise. Determined to avoid the embarrassment of admitting that he has directed his old flame driving the car up a blind alley, he directs her to press on regardless, in an attempt to find a short cut back to the main road. Instead things just get worse and worse and even when they find themselves crossing a field, the watchword is onwards, ever onwards... into the mud.

Satnav truckers "damaging village restoration work" in Welsh villages

First rule of architectural conservation: get your satnav signs up first.

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Google to the rescue

Not much help to satnav error victims perhaps because the essence of a SNE is that you don't recognize it -- or perhaps will not admit it -- until it's too late (the symbol of all SNE victims should be that of the frog boiling slowly to death over an increasing hear).

However Google, as ever, propose a novel angle on an existing use case by providing wayfinding maps at petrol pumps.

Satnav error leaves Czech lorry driver wedged in English country lane for three nights

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via The Map Room