Sat Nav (Satellite Navigation), or also known as GPS, (Global Positioning System) and all its spin offs will help everybody be it returning from The Hull Bridge or Barneys Transport Cafe or otherwise. Eventually it will help the whole world in ways that most have not even thought of yet,,, however on this page (and there are two others provided) I will concentrate on Sat Nav Information and how can it help you.
First lets look at what you drive or what you do,,, lets take an HGV and coach driver no matter if in the UK or on the continent. You get a job from point A to point B and you have not covered that route before as it crosses the country quite a bit,,, in this Blog or article I will concentrate on Tom Tom Sat Nav because after much research over 12 months and more I decided to buy a Tom Tom GO 300 which is provided with UK maps, that’s all I personally need.
Your boss or office says go to Dover and collect a coach and its passengers and take them to Koln in Germany they are staying in the Marriott Hotel. Now its 6pm in the evening and you are off home for food and rest,,,, and have no computer at home,,,, next day early in the morning you arrive at Dover and collect your coach,,, you have not been to Koln before,,, I quick look at the map and you could be on your way,, and then asking where the hell the Marriott Hotel is with a coach full of passengers who expect you to know every place on earth,,, plus the frustration of watching you do various manoeuvres with a large modern coach in a major city whilst thinking what sort of know nothing driver have we here.
Its really easy with Tom Tom Sat Nav in that you could just select the Marriott Hotel from the points of interest you have in your Sat Nav and then say fastest route and off you go,,, or tell it limited speed and again off you go after it has told you what time you should expect to arrive,,, and its accurate in my experience,,, very much so,, it even whilst you are en route tells you if it has updated the arrival time due to events or your driving speed difference. Telling your passengers that you will arrive at about 5 minutes past 4 is impressive,,, and that’s a Sat Nav in the shape of a Tom Tom Go 300 or 700 in the case of having all the EU maps.
The next day you have to drive to Paris and a different Hotel,,, again your Sat Nav will look after it all for you,,, telling you en route to watch the speed camera at this and that location,,, sounding off a noise of your choice,,, it will for Sci Fi fans switch to a robot voice telling you that you have arrived at your destination and to stand by for Docking Procedure,,, or if you miss a turn it will advise you have strayed into the BETA Quadrant,,, which can bring a smile to many faces,,, all good fun!
If you meet a road block/serious traffic jam, it will route (if you tell it by touch command) you around the jam easily, or you can just drive down a side road, thats if you don’t have a coach or HGV and the voice and visual directions will eventually select a way back onto your original route,,, but that’s not so safe for HGV and Coach drivers,, indeed for the HGV and coach driver you need to select fast route or limited speed to generally avoid small roads,,, now be aware that on arrival of a mile or so from your destination,,, it might like to send you down a quite small road,,, if it tries to do this then just ignore it and drive straight on, it will eventually choose a larger road which you are happy with,,,, you could easily drive around the destination area in a circle using your common sense and it would keep trying to guide you inwards to your destination,,, you would allow yourself to be so guided if you agreed the road looked ok.
OK where does the Hull Bridge come into this,,, well I am retired and I do this site out of love and all the info you get is my contribution to society and in particular HGV, Coach, White Van Man and the interested person in the subject I might cover,,,,,, right the Hull Bridge,,, and Sat Nav,,,, OK! ,,, well one journey I took was to photograph a Transport Café and post its details to the web for you all to get benefit from,,, and because this Café Truck Stop Lorry Park was near the Hull Bridge I wanted to take some photographs of it.
I first called in at The A1 Truck Stop on the A1 a first class place which is always difficult to pass if you have half an excuse to stop,, after a short time I proceeded to Barneys Café de Chauffeur (that’s professional drivers for you chaps) located on the end of the M180 near Humberside Airport, of course the Sat Nav did the route work for me.
The Tom Tom Sat Nav guided me there with ease and knowing pretty exactly what time I would arrive. You can programme it for a number of different stops as a white van man might need, all in a certain order, which is a must for some delivery drivers, but I just do them one at a time as a retired pensioner chap.
So! I am off to Barneys and the Hull Bridge, I used the shortest route as it was not a lot of difference in time from the fastest route,, and so much more interesting. You may find and its worth setting a route with the limited speed command as the fastest route can add far to many miles, for example a 240 mile journey on fast route can in some instances be reduced to 170 easily by entering 45 mph limited speed, but check this for small roads before setting out, also try different speeds like 55mph as the fast route likes motorways and it might be not in your interest to use fast route because its not always faster for an HGV. Also don’t forget to set it to ask permission for toll roads, that way you get the choice each time it wants to use one. I have read that setting max speed at under 65mph causes Tom Tom to avoid motorways; this is NOT the case with my TomTom.
An example of setting a route is as follows:-
From Telford set a route to Pembroke dock on fastest route, which is 232 miles in 3.5 hours using a toll charge. Avoiding the toll charge the distance is 157 miles in 3.53 hours; this avoids small single-track roads. You can then select limited speed at 25 miles per hour and it returns 151 miles in 6.28 hours. I then selected shortest route,, it delivered 150 miles in 4.12 hours. The last selection was dome for 50MPH and it delivered 154 miles in 4.04 hours. I have found the estimated time amazingly accurate,,, putting in a limited speed of say 50PMH will give a decent rout which you can ignore at parts if you wish (you can do this with any route) and you know you will be there unless its a motorway you go on and there is a heavy duty crash,,, so I hope all these comments help you .
On arrival at Barneys I did my photo session and then had a fine meal of Mashed potato liver & Bacon and Onions,,, good healthy grub, really nice for me,,, but for those none lovers of such delights many many other meals were available at very decent cost.
I asked Barney where was the best place to photograph the Hull Bridge,,, he started to explain and all the turn here and sling a right at Fred’s funeral parlour came out,,,, but,,, Sat Nav to the rescue,,, he showed me on the Map where I needed to be with his local expert knowledge, and I then brought out the Sat Nav and selected "Point on the Map" for a destination, it told my how many minutes before I arrived there whereby I set off bidding thanks to my host Barney and his wife.
To help a little I should explain that you control Tom Tom Sat Nav by touch and drag on the screen, (in the same way as google map) so you bring up the map area you require, set the resolution you require, and drag in the bit you want to see,,, touch the bit you want to go to with a different finger pressure, select it as your destination and BINGO, off you go,, couldn’t be easier! .
AS a result of all this you will find on this page the photographs of the Hull Bridge and Dawson Bicker of Boston Lincolnshire (which is where he came into it) passing over at the time I arrived. Using a 10 times zoom on an Olympus Camera I was able to get quite close as the photographs will show you. My thanks to Dawson Bicker for driving accross the Hull Bridge when I was there! :) :) :)
Now it was time to return home to Shropshire,,, the time mid afternoon,,, there was no way I could get back before rush hour,,, and even en route towns would be busy with traffic,,,, so I put the Tom Tom Sat Nav to work selecting a point on the map or a chosen village located in-between towns of population and then selected shortest route and off we went into the countryside without a worry and seeing some wonderful and quaint places, places and views you would miss unless you had local knowledge, on arrival at a this chosen quite village or just outside at a junction or the like, I would stop and view the map again selecting a point ahead again to make a near straight line between places of population,,,, more enjoyment,,, I did this time and time again crossing motorways seeing traffic squared wheeled whilst I journeyed on at leisure in Britain’s countryside arriving home in safety and no traffic stress.
If you are further interested in what the future holds regards Sat Nav (Satellite Navigation) or also known as Global Positioning System then you read the report on
Traffic Control Centres in the UK
in which Scotland & England are featured. This covers in its end blog appreciations of what is to come.
More detailed information on the Tom Tom Sat Nav can be found on the
Tom Tom Sat Nav Page,
information to help you choose if Tom Tom is for you because apart from Tom Tom Go 300, which is currently priced at near £300.00 others (UPDATE FEBRUARY 2007, TOM TOM ONE FROM £160/170 INC POSTAGE PRICES ARE FALLING) in the market place are half that price,,, and what are they like,, it could be that there is one out there that is as good as Tom Tom Sat Nav but I am honestly not aware of it. If I find one as good or better I will add it to these appreciations.
UPDATE ONE April 2008
Sat Navs are now cheaper still, I have seen them for just over £50.00 but not Tom Tom,, these I have seen for just under £100.00 but which model I did not look to see, but sure it may be good for UK use only.
UPDATE TWO April 2008 HGV & COACH (PSV PCV LGV) SPECIAL SAT NAVS THAT MARK UNSUITABLE ROADS
In the next month (May 2008) I shall be evaluating such a Sat Nav, I would think that any Sat Nav claiming to be good for Coach & HGV drivers must me desirable, given nothing is perfect including You,,,,,,,, and Me!
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Below are a selection of photographs which I hope you will enjoy wherever you are, but please remember that they are copyright to http://www.transportcafe.co.uk Permission to use these photographs for business purposes is granted free to educational establishments and governments. Copyright applications will be sent on making a request to the Webmaster. Use on personal computers at work or home is permitted, provided no copy/copies made or distributed. Please refer friends direct to the website. Thank you!
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-- View 2 miles away from Hull Bridge.
- Closer View of Hull Bridge.
- hgv_crossing_hull_bridge
- close view of Dawson Bicker of Boston Crossing the Hull Bridge.
- This HGV (Van Vliet) was inside the Artic circle on a previous page.(photo by driver)
- Judge Dredd Judge &Jury at a Show (photo by driver).
- TDR Transport Services front view low loader en route the A5 A483
- TDR Transport Services rear view low loader en route the A5 A483.
- Eddie Stobart southbound on the M6.
- Sherborne from Bradford parked up for a break.
- The green warrior veenplant bv holland on delivery with plants in the UK.
- The green warrior in person unloading green stuff.
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-- HJ Van Bentum BV Woudenberg Tanker Transport quite a vehicle and sparkling clean when I caught it here!.
Club 460 Roadrunner Transport Services again in smart trim.
KH Services Transport Yeovil Somerset.
Blackwell Transport Birmingham.
Byeston Group Transport.
Walon Car Transporters.
Allan Jones Welshpool Transport westbound.
Bowens Coaches southbound M6.
- Old Timer Bus or Coach, remember the sort that boiled going up a hill!.
L Jeffreys Removals Halifax England 1969 in the QE2 Shipyard on delivery. The same driver has a different truck today.
Rolls Royce 1920 20hp Brake Model a real beauty.
Rolls Royce 1920 20hp Brake Model frontal elevation.
Citroen a real Classic better painted black!
JML of Ireland or is it Holland,,, the driver says if it aint Dutch it aint up to much! ,, Ah! always our own house is the cleanest,,,,,,, but we take it with a good smile and good fun!
