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[sinjon]

Just back from a holiday in France and Spain. We drove for eight days, doing a zig zag down to Ciboure (South of Bordeaux)
a different hotel every night.
In the past, we would spend ages searching for our hotel, not anymore - make our way to city/town, turn on sat nav, punch in your hotel and your told to - ' turn right in .8 of a mile, take third exit at roundabout' etc etc. and finally - 'you have arrived at your destination'. Even if you make a mistake - 'recalculating', it never gives up on you, never gets cross or bad tempered.
It found our little remote hotel in the Picos de Europa in the dark - magic.

Colin

[Ghost in the shell]

mine says
"your journey to the darkside is complete", though It has been known to say (in a brummy accent) "At the end of the rrararoad, turturn ******* Left" and "You have arrived at your ******* destination" the joys of ozzy osbourne voice on tomtom, at the moment I have Yoda on mine.

Language Ghost!

[catengineman]

While I agree that a TomTom sat-nav is a must there are some that seem to have a flaw!

My one works perfect when I am alone but on other occasions there is two voices one telling the direction I should take then the other telling me

I think I had better not type the exact words but to disable audible or place where light can not go?

So I only use mine while I an alone

[BobF]

My poor sad old friend has his set to french speaking. He knows where he is going, but enjoys the sexy accent of the French Lady telling him what to do.
This is genuine, his name is Billy Shears. If you've ever met, him you would understand.

[Colin Bishop]

I find my Garmin NUVI SAT Nav invaluable. You can't entirely trust it to pick the best route so I always make sure I know roughly where I'm going anyway. The post code location is the most useful feature. Having said that, when we arrived at Cologne in the dark and from the wrong direction last year it took us right to our city centre hotel which would have been very difficult to find otherwise.

The other big plus is that you can download speed camera locations into it and it gives you a warning every time you approach one. Although not documented, i have found a way of loading separate camera location files for most European countries simultaneously so when we went to Holland earlier this year it had the UK, French and Belgium locations all programmed in. UK ones in mph and the continental ones in kph. There are a lot of cameras in Holland but of course the UK has thousands more than anyone else! I download my camera data from this site: http://www.scdb.info/ which costs me just £7 per year. They don't have every single camera listed but they seem to have about 99%+ of them.

Colin

[dougal99]

I have a Sat Nav and find it very useful until the road is blocked when the find alternative route option seems to think I mean take me on a magical mystery tour   

I always carry a map as well just in case. A friend going to Nurenberg (sp?) flew to the airport and used a hire car for the last part of the journey. Turned on his sat nav and got nothing. Apparently there was a fault with the satellites. Fortunately, he found his destination the old fashioned way.

Doug

[The long Build]

I find my Garmin NUVI SAT Nav invaluable. You can't entirely trust it to pick the best route so I always make sure I know roughly where I'm going anyway. The post code location is the most useful feature. Having said that, when we arrived at Cologne in the dark and from the wrong direction last year it took us right to our city centre hotel which would have been very difficult to find otherwise.

The other big plus is that you can download speed camera locations into it and it gives you a warning every time you approach one. Although not documented, i have found a way of loading separate camera location files for most European countries simultaneously so when we went to Holland earlier this year it had the UK, French and Belgium locations all programmed in. UK ones in mph and the continental ones in kph. There are a lot of cameras in Holland but of course the UK has thousands more than anyone else! I download my camera data from this site: http://www.scdb.info/ which costs me just £7 per year. They don't have every single camera listed but they seem to have about 99%+ of them.

Colin

I thought having any equipment that can detect speed, sorry safety cameras were illegal in France and you could be fined , or is that not the case ?

[Colin Bishop]

Active detection equipment is banned. If the French police catch you with it they will stamp on it and fine you big time. Passive detection which simply registers the location of the cameras by GPS is legal. Active detection equipment will be banned in the UK later this year.

In fact, in France you are more likely to be caught by a mobile speed trap than a fixed camera.

Colin

[The long Build]

Banning something else , this should be interesting considering the amount of people who I see every day using mobile phones in their hand whilst driving. The only problem with France that I have is that you need to keep a check on the speed as it is so easy to go past the limit  :angel:when on the toll roads as when we went last time we seemed to be the only ones on them ??.. 

[Colin Bishop]

The sneaky thing about the French motorways is that they can register your average speed between entering and leaving. A lot of people have been caught out that way.

The latest trick is to check whether you are carrying a reflective jacket for the driver for use in case of breakdown. It has to be carried inside the cabin, not in the boot. Mine is stuffed in the glovebox. This makes you an easier target to hit when you get out of the car.  ::)

[The long Build]

Re the jacket thanks for the tip , I carried them in the boot last time with the triangles which I believe you must now also carry, Least I know that the sat nav we are going to borrow will be legal.

[Colin Bishop]

I have travelled several thousand miles in France over the years. I think the standard of driving gets progressively worse as you go South - Latin temperament maybe? So far we have been pretty lucky in avoiding attention except several years ago in the Alps when we pulled out of a side turning on a mountain road and a motorcyclist piled into the side of us. It was pretty traumatic although we were unhurt. He sustained a broken shoulder and wrist which was quite lucky for him. The French police held us responsible as we were emerging from a side turning. The fact that he came round a blind bend at 60mph was of no consequence. I think we were also stitched up by the evidence given by his mates although none of them actually witnessed the collision. My insurers believed me however! We returned to the UK as foot passengers on the ferry, the car came back on a trailer and needed a complete new side frame. Not an experience I'm keen to repeat.

Colin

[Roger in France]

This thread has turned into a "Motoring in France" discussion and so I will add my bit.

Yes, driving standards are generally lower than in the UK. In rural areas one of the reasons is that traffic is much lighter and this breeds inattention. Also, I wonder if the standards are low because of the Driving Schools administering the test?

French drivers do not like to overtake and they seldom use their trafficators.

Speeding is generally frowned on and using speed trap detection is illegal. All static speed traps are marked on Michelin maps and each is proceeded by a warning sign. There are far fewer static traps than in the UK but there is a much greater use of hand held cameras (tell me about it: fined twice in three months!).

Gendarmes are Bully Boys! Expect no help or understanding from them. As Colin says they will always err on the side of the main road user and take a very simplistic and harsh view on the Law. They will tell you that an amber light means "Stop" and that parking is prohibited even where there is a parking metre beside you!

Drink driving is severely punished, you car can be seized and destroyed.

Carrying a triangle and luminous vest is now compulsory.

At traffic lights, do watch the miniature repeater which is fixed at eye level on a post beside your stopped position on the road. Remember that "Red" goes to "Green" with no intermediate. Also, look out for lights suspended over the road and not on a pole at the side.

Pedestrian crossings are very, very numerous and largely ignored by drivers and pedestrians. It is not illegal to park next to them. The Law states that if a pedestrian singles an intention to cross the road the driver must give way. The form of the signal is not specified and few drivers stop for anyone!

Finally, for a laugh, allow me to report that a few years back we had a campaign in my area "Drive like the English"!

Roger in France.

[MikeK]

Just to change the locality we recently had a motorhome holiday in Northern Spain and Portugal. (A big loop starting and ending at Bilbao Ferry) - NW'ly 9 outward bound, we hit EVERY Mile stone !!

Couldn't fault the Spanish and to a lesser degree the Portuguese drivers on their motorway/dual carriage lane discipline. Unlike the uk selfish style of lane hogging everyone, no matter how fast, immediately returned to the slower lane after overtaking which made the traffic flow so much smoother.

As for GPS - after getting the wing mirror wiped out on a lamp post as the nice lady sent us in circles in a small Spanish town with the road getting steadily narrower, then glibly announcing that 'we had arrived at our destination' after spewing us back at the start of the detour (and we hadn't  >:( ) Then being sent over mountainous narrow roads to get the adrenalin up a bit  - we eventually got into the habit of ignoring any instructions that sounded out of the ordinary and let 'the nice lady' work out an alternative ! As everyone advises - treat with caution !!

MikeK

[barryfoote]

Mike

I have a TOMTOM Go 720 and use it with great success around Europe and particularly Spain, where I live. Obviously these wondrous pieces of technology are only as good as the information provided by the map makers and Spain seems to be one of the worst around.

I live on a development of over 150 houses, which has been here for over 10 years, and covers a very large area. it is more like a village in its own right....You will not find it on a Sat nav or a Spanish map...Now that is slow..According to the Spanish Government, we do not exist....Unless they are after money that is.

As for Spanish drivers, yes I agree they do have good motorway discipline, but watch out on roundabouts. They have no idea how to use them. They will frequently go right around the outside of a roundabout to turn left with no indication and not caring that they are carving up the driver on the inside...

[John W E]

The sat nav I have is built into the Volvo    its canny for leading you astray and locating scare crows in the middle of fields 

The first time I used it was at the first Mayhem Bash and I set it for Wicksteed - I ended up in a dubious housing estate.

aye
john e
bluebird

[DickyD]

The sat nav I have is built into the Volvo    its canny for leading you astray and locating scare crows in the middle of fields 

The first time I used it was at the first Mayhem Bash and I set it for Wicksteed - I ended up in a dubious housing estate.

aye
john e
bluebird

What do you mean, "ended up", you came from a dubious housing estate.

[MikeK]

Mike

I have a TOMTOM Go 720 and use it with great success around Europe and particularly Spain, where I live. Obviously these wondrous pieces of technology are only as good as the information provided by the map makers and Spain seems to be one of the worst around.

I live on a development of over 150 houses, which has been here for over 10 years, and covers a very large area. it is more like a village in its own right....You will not find it on a Sat nav or a Spanish map...Now that is slow..According to the Spanish Government, we do not exist....Unless they are after money that is.

As for Spanish drivers, yes I agree they do have good motorway discipline, but watch out on roundabouts. They have no idea how to use them. They will frequently go right around the outside of a roundabout to turn left with no indication and not caring that they are carving up the driver on the inside...

'Morning Footski, I know what you mean about roundabouts, but there again I also found it hard to get things reversed in my head when approaching them, despite driving a LHD van ! One other strange Spanish/Basque habit I saw was in the rush our traffic in Bilbao when the driver in a car in the merging lane alongside me was idly doing everything EXCEPT looking out the windscreen, drove into the back of the car ahead. (Everything was travelling at a snails pace BTW) No getting out and having mutual inspections for damage etc oh no - just a languid wave of the arm in acknowledgement in the direction of the other drivers mirror and back to picking his nose, fingernails etc. He eventually got onto the motorway ahead of me (sod's law works in Spain too  :( ) were he dawdled along letting great gaps form ahead of him. I could just imagine that happening here on a rush hour motorway !

Mike

[MikeK]

The sat nav I have is built into the Volvo    its canny for leading you astray and locating scare crows in the middle of fields 

The first time I used it was at the first Mayhem Bash and I set it for Wicksteed - I ended up in a dubious housing estate.

aye
john e
bluebird

What do you mean, "ended up", you came from a dubious housing estate.

Whoa there DickyD, I detect stottie cakes at 10 paces if you're not careful 

Mike

[DickyD]

10 paces eh ? Better find me glasses then, hope they didn't go the same way as that nut and washer I spent most of yesterday afternoon looking for.

[sinjon]

Sat nav does take things literally. We had just joined the motorway but realised we were short of fuel, Sat nav said the nearest petrol station was at five miles - leave at next junction, take third exit - and go - five miles back down the motorway, good lesson, always take the second option.

[Ghost in the shell]

quite exacltly what is the French speedlimit, 80km/h?

[Colin Bishop]

It varies, on Motorways it is usually 130 kph = 81mph but many dual carriageways are 110kph or 68mph. Unrestricted single carriageway roads are 90kph or 55mph. All these are reduced in wet weather. In towns the limit could be almost anything depending on what the locals want. There are some imanginative traffic calming measures too so you are never quite sure what you might encounter.

Despite all this, I prefer driving in France to the UK because the roads are so much less crowded. As Roger says though, it really is best to stay clear of the cops.

Colin

[Ghost in the shell]

well My Nissan Serena diesel sits happily at 60mph, (about 100km/h), so hopefully if I had all the gear installed (triangle, hi-viz etc) the cops wouldnt bust me for doing 90km/h on l'autoroute

[Roger in France]

As Colin said:

When raining (no definition!) Autoroute 130kph drops to 110; Dual carriageway 110kph drops to 100; 90kph drops to 80 and 50kph (in all built up areas unless otherwise indicated) drops to 40.

Do remember that  as you pass the "town name" (black writing on white panel with a thin red outline) that is now a "built up area". As you leave the town and the name appears crossed through in red you are back to 90kph.

Roger in France.