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Sat Nav - The spy in your car.


Dog
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It seems Tomtom are selling data throughout Europe to the Police and other interested Government agencies.

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2/3f80e432-7199-11e0-9b7a-00144feabdc0.html#axzz1NY4BZh4V

This makes having a stanav play into the hands of the sleath-taxers who will look at the data and set up mobile traps where people accidently speed.
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What is "speeding accidentally" when it is at home?

Why would anybody have their satnav switched on if they know where they are?  Surely it's only something you use if you're in strange territory, in which case you'd be driving more carefully anyway.  Wouldn't you?

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Not in my experience. 

I do not have one but it seems that what I understand as proceed on this road for the next 200km (Gerade aus für zwei Hundert Kilometer), actually translates as put yer foot to the floor.  Must get some more German lessons!

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Tomtom apologised to customers over that issue and have stated publicly they won't do it again. I often put my satnav on just to alert me of a speed camera or two on the way home to save me the fine and points should I err over the limit. Did that once for a camera I have know about for many years fortunately no ticket that day. If there are children or other lemmings around it automatically makes you aware of the possibility of an accident but mile after mile of empty road it is easy to drift up in speed. Often thought there should be pre set speed buttons built into cars these days.

BTW Dog, if you are involved in an accident and speed maybe a contributing factor the police in the UK will remove the satnav interogate its electronics and obtain a log of the speed you were doing at the time!

A chap did the same but altered the file to lower his speed then submitted the evidence to the court, the device was further interrogated and they found the altered file and nicked him for falsifying evidence too!

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[quote user="Rabbie"][quote user="cooperlola"]

What is "speeding accidentally" when it is at home?

[/quote]It is quite easy to find you are  driving a little over the speed limit in a modern car if you are not using cruise control[/quote]What cruise control?  We don't all have expensive cars - most of us have SPEEDOMETERS!  Speeding, maybe but accidentally?  It's not that I don't do it, it's just that saying it's accidental is just plain daft and a pretty feeble excuse.  I bet the gendarmes don't accept it as an excuse when they catch you at it, nor the speed cameras. Blimey, whatever will people think of next?
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[quote user="cooperlola"][quote user="Rabbie"][quote user="cooperlola"]

What is "speeding accidentally" when it is at home?

[/quote]It is quite easy to find you are  driving a little over the speed limit in a modern car if you are not using cruise control[/quote]What cruise control?  We don't all have expensive cars - most of us have SPEEDOMETERS!  Speeding, maybe but accidentally?  It's not that I don't do it, it's just that saying it's accidental is just plain daft and a pretty feeble excuse.  I bet the gendarmes don't accept it as an excuse when they catch you at it, nor the speed cameras. Blimey, whatever will people think of next?[/quote]I don't have an expensive car unless you count £1,250 as expensive. I prefer to keep my eyes on the road and traffic rather than obsessively stare at the speedo. My point was, as I am sure you understood, that speed can creep up quite easily. I never said it  was a valid excuse. In my mind there is a difference between this and deliberately setting out to ignore the speed limits.
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Of course I understood really, Rabbie![:)]   I just find this whole idea of speeding being somehow an "accident" quite funny, to be honest.  Unintentionally maybe, but by accident?  Personally, I think it's quite easy to get a feel for what speed you are going, especially in a familiar car, from the way it pulls and the engine note.  However, if I were ever to get done for this particular crime, I might tell everybody I committed it by accident too.[:D]
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My use of accidental was probably not the best way to explain an unintended breaking of the speed limit.

It is very easy in various situations to inadvertantly break the speed limit.

I believe it to be safer looking where I am going than at the speedometer.

For the past year with fuel prices as they are I have been travelling at our below the speed limit whenever possible, (my wifelet still chides me for occasionally breaking a limit) I would suggest that it has put me in far more danger than in my previous reincarnation when I drove as fast as possible.

In the last week while adhering to the speed limit I have been overtook on double white lines on blind bends and as I slowed to enter villages.

I have received various hand signals that I cannot find in driving manuals.

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I can't resist winding people up on this subject really.[6]  I am certainly not above breaking the speed limit myself even if I've never been caught at it (my turn will come.)  My point, I suppose, is that speeding is speeding - there are no degrees apart from the obvious, measurable ones.  Actually, I really believe that deliberate speeding on open roads in good weather conditions and good visibility is far less dangereous than the "I wasn't really concentrating so ended up doing 60 in a 50kph limit by mistake" is the lesser evil.  For one, you concentrate, for the other it "just happens accidentally." 

 As to the effect which sticking to the speed limit (especially in built up areas) has on other drivers well, that is their problem.

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[quote user="cooperlola"]Why would anybody have their satnav switched on if they know where they are?[/quote]Two reasons I can quote straight off for you Coops.

1. Many people use their Sat Nav as a more accurate speedometer. Why drive below the legal limit simply because regulations say that your speedo must not under read your actual speed and typically over reads it by anything from 7-10% so an indicated 90kph may in reality be only 81 or so and the motorway 130kph as little as 117 to 121 ?

2. For a car with an MPH only speedo, my MGB for instance and probably most of it's contemporaries, a sat nav makes the perfect alternative to changing or modifying the speedo or doing mental arithmetic all day long [;-)]

On the open road in the Skoda I routinely run on the sat nav with the cruise control for the limit -1kph. In the MGB I'm very familiar with the MPH equivalents but still often use the sat nav as a second indicator.

For some saddos there is a third reason of course - which is to simply show off that you have one [:(]

The answer to not having stored data accessed is to PIN code protect the device, without that nothing can be read off by anybody [;-)]

[quote user="Judith"]I find

maps, a good sense of direction and the application of  common sense

quite adequate.

[/quote]Oh that all were endowed with such basic powers Judith. For navigational purposes a sat nav should be regarded as an aide to common sense not a complete substitute for it. [:D]

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[quote user="cooperlola"]Of course I understood really, Rabbie![:)]   I just find this whole idea of speeding being somehow an "accident" quite funny, to be honest.  Unintentionally maybe, but by accident?  Personally, I think it's quite easy to get a feel for what speed you are going, especially in a familiar car, from the way it pulls and the engine note.  However, if I were ever to get done for this particular crime, I might tell everybody I committed it by accident too.[:D][/quote]The wonderful flexibility of the English language. Some of us use Unintentionally and Accidently as synoyms in our sloppy way.[:)]
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[quote user="Rabbie"][. Some of us use Unintentionally and Accidently as synoyms in our sloppy way.[:)][/quote]Yes, but do you do it deliberately?[:D]

AnO, I admit you might not want to do this with a classic car, but if your speedo is in mph not kph, why not mark it at the appropriate points if you drive it over here a lot?  But come along - is it really so difficult?  50kph = 30 90=60 etc - it's good enough and errs on the side of the law, as does working on what the speedo says and not your actual speed.  You use the built-in under reading (which is only a couple of k's per hour in built up areas where speed is most critical) to give you a margin for error which keeps you within the law.

Judith, I too like to read maps if I can, but I usually do my long trips alone and so the SatNav is a fantastic help.  I remember in the past driving around for ages trying to find people's houses and having to stop, change my glasses, get out a map (or worse, instructions they gave me over the phone) and then set off again to drive around anonymous streets in search of obscure addresses.  That doesn't happen any more.  In saved fuel alone, it's a great aid.  But I don't use it as a speedo (although I have - when somebody else has been in the car with me) used it to test how accurate the one supplied with the car is (only 10 ks out at 165 kph as it happens - on an Autobahn, before you get started.)

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[quote user="cooperlola"]AnO, I admit you might not want to do this with a classic car, but if your speedo is in mph not kph, why not mark it at the appropriate points if you drive it over here a lot?  But come along - is it really so difficult?  50kph = 30 90=60 etc - it's good enough and errs on the side of the law, as does working on what the speedo says and not your actual speed.  You use the built-in under reading (which is only a couple of k's per hour in built up areas where speed is most critical) to give you a margin for error which keeps you within the law[/quote]You make the risky assumption that a 40 year old speedo from a time when no meaningful rules about accuracy really applied anyway, not to mention the wear incurred over that time and 300k miles, is going to be anywhere near the accuracy of a modern one. I can assure you that is not the case.

No it's not difficult and I would have no qualms about making marks if I needed them but I don't, I did say that "in the MGB I'm very familiar with the MPH equivalents",

and the sat nav helped to establish them accurately rather than simply

muyltiplying or dividing by dividing by 1.6. I would happily change the speedo for a KPH one but unfortunately they fall into 'hens teeth' territory for my particular car.

BTW 90kph = 56mph (that's why the seemingly odd 56mph speed limiting for HGV's in UK [;-)]) but 60mph = 96kph which is quite sufficient to trigger some speed cameras ![:(]

And anyway, I sometimes use the sat nav for no other reason that I have it and I can !

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Got to agree with Ernie on this Coops.

This screen is really useful

[IMG]http://i129.photobucket.com/albums/p211/Bugbear2/P1000658.jpg[/IMG]

It gives accurate vehicle speed - maximum speed on this journey (plod knows how to access this) - average speed - distance to destination - time stopped - time travelled - compass heading etc, etc.

.

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[quote user="AnOther"]Didn't have the nerve to leave the last maximums on screen then bugsy? [/quote]

[:D][:D][:P] I couldn't possibly comment.

[quote user="AnOther"]

Same sat nav BTW, or near enough, mine's the 260[/quote]

Pretty well, its a 760, now discontinued, but does everything I need and a lot better IMHO, than the Tomtom. Fits nicely on my bike as well

.

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[quote user="AnOther"][BTW 90kph = 56mph (that's why the seemingly odd 56mph speed limiting for HGV's in UK [;-)]) but 60mph = 96kph which is quite sufficient to trigger some speed cameras ![:(]

[/quote]Yes.  Sorry. I meant in the opposite direction!  My fault because of course I have the precisely converse problem where my equivalents are within tolerance, not outside it (since my speedo has no mph on it.)[:$]

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Sorry, Bugs, but I've already got the rev' counter and the speedo plus any warning lights to keep an eye on, plus (oh - sorry - forgot this important bit) er the road to look at.  I really don't want a third thing to distract me.  Thus my SatNav is just that, a navigation system, and I rarely look at the screen, I just listen to the instructions and have all the speed warning stuff and camera warnings turned off.  If I want to have a good thrash, I have a couple of camera free bits of fun road which I use and I just have to hope that the fuzz don't discover which ones and catch me at it one day.[:-))]  The rest of the time I try to stay within the speed limits, especially when they're less than 90.  I don't find it a problem and am pretty good at knowing how fast I'm going even without looking at the speedo.
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[quote user="Bugsy"]Got to agree with Ernie on this Coops.

This screen is really useful
[IMG]http://i129.photobucket.com/albums/p211/Bugbear2/P1000658.jpg[/IMG]

- time travelled -
.
[/quote]

You can "Time Travel" too, That's flash [:)]

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[quote user="AnOther"]

[quote user="Judith"]I find

maps, a good sense of direction and the application of  common sense

quite adequate.

[/quote]Oh that all were endowed with such basic powers Judith. For navigational purposes a sat nav should be regarded as an aide to common sense not a complete substitute for it. [:D]

[/quote]

Well I manage to get all the around France and the UK without a sat nav, even to places I've never been before.  Can't say I've never got lost, but a map always gets me out of it...... though I learnt to read maps at an early age and loved knowing where I was even as a kid.

I do agree that for towns a sat nav can be most helpful, but so many people do indeed forget about it being an aide and seem to be unable to manage without it..... and so by loose half the fun of driving alone unknown roads .....

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