Thursday 20 November 2008

Map reading isn't my strong point

Not only do I have difficulty reading maps, I'm also rubbish at following multimap directions. In my 3 years of driving, I've had a number of bad experiences of getting lost/missing motorway junctions/wondering where I am. Often behind these scenarios I've had to make a judgement call on which way to go, and nine times out of 10 I'm wrong. For example, last week I was following multimap directions to a hospital in North London. Multimap told me to leave the M25 and join the M40. What it didnt tell me (and I'm surprised at this) is whether to take the M40 east or west. So as the junction approached I had to make a quick decision - East or West? I was heading for Hatfield, which unhelpfully wasn't on any of the signs, so I picked West. Why did I pick M40 West - because it was the first slip road off the junction, and I figured that's what multimap must've meant.... I realised 2 junctions on that I was wrong. I should've gone East. I don't blame multimap (well not entirely) I'm just awful at mapreading. So I've bought a TomTom, that should fix things....

2 comments:

Puppet Master said...

Haven't used multimap in a long time (but looks like it's much better than it used to be). Google maps tells you what to header for "At junction 16, exit onto M40 toward Uxbridge/London(W)" which helps a bit. Soon they'll have that crazy "Streetview" technology too so you can check it out before you drive the route!! I saw the google car on the M3 with it's camera rig - image.
Tomtom is fine until you hit central london proper and then the satellite signals starts scrambling and bouncing off all the tall buildings and the tomtom thinks you've gone off road or taken a turning you haven't. Enjoy! :)

Ponderings from the Kitchen said...

I'll give google maps a try next time! Maybe a combination of tomtom and google maps could work? Although if I had to go to Central London I wouldnt drive, I'd get the train.
Tested out TomTom twice yesterday - once to the back of beyond in Lymington and the other driving up to my folks in Brum - so far so good...