timesonline.co.uk — THERE is a lucrative new sport in the Wiltshire village of Luckington: fishing stranded motorists out of a ford at £25 a time. Since a road closure, dozens of drivers have blithely followed directions from their satellite navigation systems, not realising that the recommended route goes through the ford. Pict included.
Apr 20, 2006 View in Crawl 4
pagitApr 20, 2006
This is Britain where the 30 mile drive is considered a long drive for the motorist and if driving 60 miles the motorist packs a lunch.
cnt2infinityApr 20, 2006
I actually ran into a road that was still being made in burlington, NC. This area is the stix but the road directions came off mapquest.
Closed AccountApr 21, 2006
By "mine" he means his home.Please, stop it with the uppity comments Mesach and dancpsu. Fact is, you wouldn't complain about the language barrier when you're talking about "high school", "college", "grade school", "trunk", etc, which all mean different things in the UK or don't exist.So next time you post about "grade school" tell me what age range that is, or stop complaining and get on with your lives.
Closed AccountApr 21, 2006
Yeah, we don't tend to sue everyone over everything.
efisherApr 21, 2006
Years ago i heard a story about testing that was done on calculator usage. They were modified to give obviously wrong answers occasionally. A group of people were asked to use these calculators to solve a series of problems. Older adults would tend to catch the erroneous answers whereas younger participants accepted them at face value. The conclusion was that the older people were performing some mental math because they learned math in a pre-calculator era. Over-dependence on technology can go to far. I've tried a couple of gps nav systems in the car and find them more irritating than there worth. The auto-routing is like some obcessive-compulsive backseat driver, the maps are rarely accurate, and weird anomalies like a 500 ft e-w offset in some areas. I bring out the delorme street atlas/gps and laptop when I'm in an unfamiliar area to get a location fix study the area map. Then I put it away!
agentgonzoApr 21, 2006
"Here in the US we have something called "barriers" that stop drivers from driving off a cliff or into water, whether their 100 year old grandma, the guy down the street, or the GPS tells them to go that way. I don't see how you can blame the GPS or sat-nav for this. If an American driver ruined his car because he drove down a road that was open and unblocked (even if there are warning signs), they would sue the pants off the local officials and it would never happen again. I guess thinks just work differently in the UK (i.e. nobody gives a #$#@, or the govt can't be held responsible)"And in the rest of the world, we have things called "brains" to stop you doing something incredibly studid things, just because someone or something told you to do it. If a driver ruined his car because he drove down a road that was open and unblocked, he would feel like and idiot and everyone would laugh at him for not using his common sense. If he tried to sue the government, they'd laugh at him and throw the case out of court because he should use his brain, rather than just driving his car without thought and hoping the government was nannying him enough so he would be safe.
agentgonzoApr 21, 2006
And that's why I'm glad I don't live in the USA. If you drive into a river, it is YOUR FAULT, not the government, not the GPS manufacturer, not the car manufacturer, and not McDonalds who made the coffee too hot. Use your f**king brain for once, and stop suing everyone because you stubbed your toe.
pixiewarriorApr 21, 2006
->PockyThe depth gauge is actually in the shallowest part. There are parts of that Ford that are deeper than the gauge shows!!!
burgerman851Apr 21, 2006
aureliusm states that the *majority* of Americans are dumb, and then proceeds to mention one American in Prague as support for his claim. It's been quite some time since I passed Elementary Statistics, but I seem to recall that the sample size required to make a determination about a population as large as that of the United States might just be slightly greater than one.