Sat Nav v Speedo.

Has anyone else noticed that they show different speeds? Which one is the more accurate? Yes, I do drive a white van and yes, I do look at my speedo now and then!

The satnav is the accurate one. Some say it registers its speed in relation to the satellites it is locked to. Others say it measures satellite lock distance travelled and time taken and calculates the speed. The speedo is mechanical from the vehicle - flat or overinflated tyres, improper wheel sizes can all make it inaccurate, plus who can manufacture a mass-produced vehicle finely enough to ensure it always gives the correct speed. There's a time lag when first accelerating/braking, but at a steady speed, the satnav is the accurate one. Remember also the speedo regulations say it must be within 10%, but NOT slow. So when you're doing actual 30, it can read up to 33, but NOT 29.

Interesting? My sat nav always show 1-2 mph faster?

I have two sat nav's in the van and they never read the same speed. One is always a couple of mph faster than the other.

I run three satnavs simultaneously in my van. AM-PM and GJC over the last 9 years using satnav I have never experienced what you have. The satnav is ALWAYS slower than the van speedo - back 9 years ago the speedo invariably showed 10% faster and over the years with presumably better engineering, mine is now only about 5% faster. I always say that if somebody is done for speeding, their speedo must have been showing them greatly speeding with the general 10% + 2mph tolerance exercised by most police forces. So they will only prosecute for at least 36mph in a 30 zone, so with a 10% over reading the speedo would be showing 40mph - which is not "slightly" or "inadvertently", the words used all the time by speed merchants. Even 5% over reading would show 38mph, still not slightly or inadvertently - all that speeding has got to be deliberate disregard for the limits. 5% over at the tolerance value for 70mph (being 79mph) the speedo has to be reading over 83mph, 10% over would be reading 90mph. - "Slightly", "Inadvertently"? I think not!

I will now run for cover!

Fascinating stuff. My Tom Tom shows a slower speed than my speedometer, so when going through road works with average speed cameras if my sat nav is showing 50 and the speedo is showing 53 in a 50 mph limit I should be OK then? On a slightly different note, I just heard on the radio that sat navs started becoming available only 10 years ago this week. How did we manage without them? I must admit, I still look at my old fashioned paper map before setting the Tom Tom.

Hi Dennis was not say my sat nav was faster then my speedo just one of mine differs from the other, having said that one is a very old unit. I agree with what you say I would also go with Sat nav speed over speedo 100%.

Got to ask why do people run 2 or 3 satnav's at the same time

SMH said:

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Got to ask why do people run 2 or 3 satnav's at the same time

Ditto. Me to

SMH said:

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Got to ask why do people run 2 or 3 satnav's at the same time

Because all three (and I have five!) will occasionally give different results. I can live with funnies, but when the satnav loses satellite lock in the middle of London, I'm in the brown stuff big time. So I run one in 3D mode and two others in 2D mode. That gives me a chance that one of them will hold satellite and keep guiding me truly. Until last year, I only had one with TomTom HD Traffic service. But it was getting flaky, a GO550 Live, kept rebooting mid journey and that's even worse than losing satellite lock in London.

I now have a GO1005 Live, which is good for Traffic, but fails on the basis of navigation - the touchscreen is capacitive - can only be operated by finger and on the windscreen that's too far to reach. Plus the route calculation is woefully slow and entering addresses is really difficult.

I've more or less retired my GO550 LIve because of the rebooting. In its place I'm using a GO520. No traffic, but very quick on planning a route and I have a bluetooth remote control for it so it can live at the end of my windscreen without problems.

My new van (1st August 2013) is the sport model Kangoo. It turned out that the items I always specify from basics added up to equivalent of the sport model, which included front fogs, alloys and the Renault R-Link mutimedia system, which includes a TomTom Live satnav. Lovely thing, nice big screen and nobody can smash the windows to steal it. Apart from those two good things, the rest of it is the worst satnav I have ever owned - I've owned many TomTom satnavs since 2005 and done over half a million miles guided by them. This one is so sh*** that it won't take a house number over 100. That's when it isn't losing satellite lock and wandering off into the next road or off the wrong exit of a roundabout. The system also does handsfree phonecalls brilliantly, fingertip pickup of calls, fingertip volume control. Except it doesn't bloody work any longer, has lost audio. It is described as having voice recognition, but everybody says it doesn't recognise bugger all - certainly when I say "phone home" (like ET, probably the most recognised voice recognition phrase in the world) it doesn't recognise. I can't copy my POIs into it - that's the POIs of all my customers. I suppose I could spend several hours inputting them into the system, but apart from that taking many hours, I'd lose them if I ever got a new map. It's been back to the dealership three times to get NINE faults fixed, latest was for five weeks during which I put 6,000 miles on their courtesy van. But it still isn't fixed and neither the dealership nor Renault support seem to care a monkeys.

So... I run three satnavs becuase not one of them is good enough to meet my requirements and between them they stand a moderate chance of doing so.

Makes me wonder how many would survive without sat navs? We used to drive all over Europe, deliver into all major Cities, using something called common sense and a map!

RAPID LIGHT TRANSPORT LTD. said:

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Makes me wonder how many would survive without sat navs? We used to drive all over Europe, deliver into all major Cities, using something called common sense and a map!

Common Sense, if you where born after 1975 then you wont have much, if any.

AJM sameday Couriers said:

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RAPID LIGHT TRANSPORT LTD. said:

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Makes me wonder how many would survive without sat navs? We used to drive all over Europe, deliver into all major Cities, using something called common sense and a map!

Common Sense, if you where born after 1975 then you wont have much, if any.

Never a truer statement Gary!

It amazes me how many set off blindly, with absolutley no idea where they are going, putting their trust 100% with their satnav. A satnav is only as good as the settings you've given it.

Stansted to Luton does NOT involve going down the M11, round the M25 and up the M1...

My advice is look at a map before you move, gives a clue what your satnav lady should be telling you.

Before satnavs? We all used to sit down and plot our route using maps, and service stations up and down the country selling the local one's for the last leg were a godsend

I also don't get why it's called "common sense" cos from where i'm sitting it's about as "common" as rocking horse sh*t

Speed Couriers Nationwide Ltd said:

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I also don't get why it's called "common sense" cos from where i'm sitting it's about as "common" as rocking horse sh*t

Where are you sitting?

On the sofa of life Gary, the sofa of life... lol

Speed Couriers Nationwide Ltd said:

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On the sofa of life Gary, the sofa of life... Lol

Thats ok until you fall off

Hopefully still a few years left in me before that happens Gary

I heard once that back in the good old days, we from Yorkshire used to send a man down to London every now and again to look at Big Ben, write down the time, then come back and set our clocks for us. Nowadays, we all have our own watches.

I look at the route summary on my satnav and make sure I'm not doing that Stansted to Luton route. I've still got a box full of several hundred pounds worth of paper A-Zs which I abandoned after I got my first satnav in 2005.

In 2004 we went on holiday in the van, toured Europe with just an out of date Europe Road Atlas I bought in one of those discount shops for £1. We didn't get lost because I said we'd be heading whichever direction the van was pointing when we got up each morning. One morning in Italy we set off and I discovered 20 miles later that we were heading east instead of west (raining, no sun rising in the east, etc).

We did a similar trip in 2006 with a TomTom and didn't get lost for the same reason.

The difference between the atlas and the TomTom was that we didn't need to look down, stop or turn pages on the second trip. Although in 2006 the nice speaking lady did get confused when she lost her orientation on the odd hairpin bend and said "Turn around when possible".

RAPID LIGHT TRANSPORT LTD. said:

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Makes me wonder how many would survive without sat navs? We used to drive all over Europe, deliver into all major Cities, using something called common sense and a map!

NOT HALF, uk/europe/africa never used a satnav

SMH said:

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RAPID LIGHT TRANSPORT LTD. said:

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Makes me wonder how many would survive without sat navs? We used to drive all over Europe, deliver into all major Cities, using something called common sense and a map!

NOT HALF, uk/europe/africa never used a satnav

I love it when you talk dirty! Some couriers are really aaaaaaard aren't they?

Dennis said:

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SMH said:

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RAPID LIGHT TRANSPORT LTD. said:

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Makes me wonder how many would survive without sat navs? We used to drive all over Europe, deliver into all major Cities, using something called common sense and a map!

NOT HALF, uk/europe/africa never used a satnav

I love it when you talk dirty! Some couriers are really aaaaaaard aren't they?

just know where we are going lol

Worst thing that happened to transport, satnavs and auto gearbox trucks

SMH said:

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Worst thing that happened to transport, satnavs and auto gearbox trucks

Ooooo. I've gone all wet!

How is a sat nav the worst thing that happened to transport? In stead of drivers wasting upto an hour looking work a place or asking the village idot we now have a little box stuck on the windscreen that takes us dirrect to our drop with no messing around.

Trust me im old school but sat navs have to be the best thing that has happened to transport.

when you get in a naff truck with a manual gearbox and no cruise control youll wish you had that ato gear box even more so with 5 drops round london.

SMH said:

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Worst thing that happened to transport, satnavs and auto gearbox trucks

Three years ago come August I was down in Friederickshaven with an artic when I partially ruptured the Achilles tendon on my left foot and thought it was a bad sprain, after 5 days hobbling around in agony and waiting for the exhibition to finish so I could reload and come back to the UK I was more than mighty glad the Renault Premium I had was fully auto as there was no way I could have pressed down a clutch pedal. I eventually had to go to get it seen too and I spent the next 3 months in a plaster cast. But my sat nav did try to re route me through Switzerland on the way back.

Drivers R Us (midlands) LTD said:

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How is a sat nav the worst thing that happened to transport? In stead of drivers wasting upto an hour looking work a place or asking the village idot we now have a little box stuck on the windscreen that takes us dirrect to our drop with no messing around.

Trust me im old school but sat navs have to be the best thing that has happened to transport.

when you get in a naff truck with a manual gearbox and no cruise control youll wish you had that ato gear box even more so with 5 drops round london.

I think what Simon means, is with Sat navs, any old Tom Dick and Harry is capable to get from A to B ( sort of) without having to 'think'. It has sort of diluted any necessary skill required to do the job.

RAPID LIGHT TRANSPORT LTD. said:

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Drivers R Us (midlands) LTD said:

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How is a sat nav the worst thing that happened to transport? In stead of drivers wasting upto an hour looking work a place or asking the village idot we now have a little box stuck on the windscreen that takes us dirrect to our drop with no messing around.

Trust me im old school but sat navs have to be the best thing that has happened to transport.

when you get in a naff truck with a manual gearbox and no cruise control youll wish you had that ato gear box even more so with 5 drops round london.

I think what Simon means, is with Sat navs, any old Tom Dick and Harry is capable to get from A to B ( sort of) without having to 'think'. It has sort of diluted any necessary skill required to do the job.

Can you stop getting up at these early hours.

Ive been a courier since 1990 no satnavs then. But it seems to be that all new drivers ae relying on them constantly and when summat goes wrong on the road they ring up stressing that they cant make the delivery cos the road is closed. I proved my point the other day i set my satnav to go from watford to thame simple journey satnav said 50 miles and 48 minutes. I changed the route to they i would drive it going via aylesbury and it was 36 miles and 1h02mins but every one of our driver would have gone the long way such a waste of fuel

Deadline Despatch said:

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Ive been a courier since 1990 no satnavs then. But it seems to be that all new drivers ae relying on them constantly and when summat goes wrong on the road they ring up stressing that they cant make the delivery cos the road is closed. I proved my point the other day i set my satnav to go from watford to thame simple journey satnav said 50 miles and 48 minutes. I changed the route to they i would drive it going via aylesbury and it was 36 miles and 1h02mins but every one of our driver would have gone the long way such a waste of fuel

Hmm. So this is where the "necessary skill required to do the job" - Rapid Light Transport comes in is it? I'm not sure it's a skill in this particular instance - in my van that would be a fuel saving of £1.13 and if a job hasn't got the leeway to cover an extra £1.20, all is not well. However, when I go to Southampton, I always come back the short route which saves me 30 miles. Maybe it is a skill, to decide when to do that sort of routing - I always look at the route summary before setting off. And of course, with three satnavs I can let the first one set whatever route it fancies, then with the next one choose a more direct route and compare both the mileage and ETA. Certainly, I usually go for fastest route outbound, because I judge that's what the customer wants with sameday. If the customer is happy with "today, sometime before 5pm", I'll use my skill to decide I can do it more directly and save fuel costs. But to be honest, at slightly under 10p a mile, fuel cost is for me no great deal breaker. That's only a problem with subbing for the likes of TNT who price subby payments on a "Shortest Route" basis. Or subbing for those companies who pay a "better" rate of 60pplm. Caveat subby!

Maybe 'Skill' was the wrong word to use. Just seems since the advent of the 'Sat Nav' it has opened the door to alot more 'numpties' [how it seems to me]

As far as saving £1.13 in fuel cost for a job, I would sooner jack it in than faff about with 3 sat navs! Price the damn jobs correctly in the first place ffs, it is because people are prepared to be mobile chicanes, and using shortest routes to save a few pence, and therefore sell themselves to vendors on the cheap, that prices generally offered to subbies is crap!

Not many of my customers would be happy for a job to get there anytime that day! It is because a job needed to be there 'yesterday' that we get the work!

I guess there are different service levels but ours is URGENT which means get the stuff to its destination in the fastest possible time!

RLT it wasnt about the saving of £1.13 but that does help. I dont drive for a living anymore im office bound. But it astounds me that people rely on satnavs so much. I have had drivers pick up from going beaconsfield to egham on a busy friday afternoon and they follw there satnav and get stuck on the M25 for an hour.. Instead of going through slough and langley

Deadline Despatch said:

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RLT it wasnt about the saving of £1.13 but that does help. I dont drive for a living anymore im office bound. But it astounds me that people rely on satnavs so much. I have had drivers pick up from going beaconsfield to egham on a busy friday afternoon and they follw there satnav and get stuck on the M25 for an hour.. Instead of going through slough and langley

I agree, my first post said we used to travel all over Europe with a map!

RAPID LIGHT TRANSPORT LTD. said:

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Deadline Despatch said:

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RLT it wasnt about the saving of £1.13 but that does help. I dont drive for a living anymore im office bound. But it astounds me that people rely on satnavs so much. I have had drivers pick up from going beaconsfield to egham on a busy friday afternoon and they follw there satnav and get stuck on the M25 for an hour.. Instead of going through slough and langley

I agree, my first post said we used to travel all over Europe with a map!

OH I agree that you still need a certain amount of common sence even using a sat nav even more so when your out in an artic.

But in all honesty I wouldnt want to be driving an artic and trying to do deliverys old school with a a/z on my steering wheel. (not that i would drive and read a map ever lol)

Im sure if you asked your drivers for a day to go out and deliver without a sat nav more than half would struggle.

RAPID LIGHT TRANSPORT LTD. said:

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Maybe 'Skill' was the wrong word to use.

Not many of my customers would be happy for a job to get there anytime that day! It is because a job needed to be there 'yesterday' that we get the work!

I guess there are different service levels but ours is URGENT which means get the stuff to its destination in the fastest possible time!

No, I agree skill is the right word to use. But I use my satnavs to get there and I've already explained why I use three - and that's not because I've bought three, it's because I haven't chucked the old ones away (so I've actually got five if I wanted to cover the windcsreen and drive by idiot remote control!).

I'm a subby, pure and simple. Whenever anybody asks me to do a job I ALWAYS assume it's "hot", "urgent", "get there yesterday" and that is indeed what sameday is all about. But yesterday I subbed and whilst en route to pickup was asked to do another in the middle - pickup the job, then go pickup another and deliver the second en route to the first, thereby making the first one somewhat less than "hot', "urgent". But it was, of course, an example of the true skill in this job - the guy in the office judged the second job could be carried out without noticeably affecting the first one. Usually as a subby I don't get that option - there have been times when I've turned down a second job, simply because I already had the first one and they had said it was "hot", "urgent". My customer (for example RLT) makes the call, not me - you're the one exercising skill and judgement. Occasionally, one of my customers is kind enough to tell me it's not "hot", just make sure they get it today before their office closes at 5pm, therefore (he says) if I get another call for the same direction, I can add it on.

The example above, Watford to Thame, which provoked ths discussion about routing and timing, quoted distances and times which showed the fastest route being 14 minutes (quarter of an hour) quicker and I opined that saving £1.13 on fuel was not doing the job as I would have done it. In my opinion, quarter of an hour over 40 or 50 miles IS significant. Taken over 200 miles it's not noticeable (the difference between stopping for a pee and fuel or crossing your legs and hunting desperately for the cheapest garage). Another skill example? A service level?

I always come back the short route which saves me 30 miles

But what if that route has you driving 30 minutes more thus no fuel savings

Satnav mansfield to Birmingham will take me m1/a42/m42/m6

Me a38 job done

It has sort of diluted any necessary skill required to do the job. Is that why the rate has not gone up with inflation.

As there are artic drivers amongst us is the Snooper better than the Tom Tom? Truckers seem to not like getting behind me @ 50mph in roadworks.

Looking at some of the posts here it would seem that local knowledge is of a significant factor as well. 30 miles on a motorway at sensible speeds would win me over everytime over 30 miles of stop start traffic on an A road.

Fastback Parcel Solutions said:

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Looking at some of the posts here it would seem that local knowledge is of a significant factor as well. 30 miles on a motorway at sensible speeds would win me over everytime over 30 miles of stop start traffic on an A road.

Unless you are on the M25 any afternoon and puts 30 minutes on your journey as well as 30 miles

SMH said:

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Satnav mansfield to Birmingham will take me m1/a42/m42/m6

Me a38 job done

It'd be ok but for the roadworks. I went down there the other day and got stuck for ages.

Having 3 satnavs in window is obstructing vision and screaming out to thiefs to come and get me, thats the trouble with couriers nowadays they rely too heavily on sat nav. Granted they do make the job easier but you also have to have common sense to go with them! Back in the day when i was a full time hgv driver all we had was A-Zs and if i jump in a wagon nowadays i always pre check the route with a map aswell as sat nav to check if the roads it picks are suitable for large vehicles, bridge heights etc.

SMH said:

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I always come back the short route which saves me 30 miles

But what if that route has you driving 30 minutes more thus no fuel savings

It DOES have me driving 30 minutes more. BUT in addition to 3 litres less for the mileage, at the reduced speed crosscountry, it also boosts my fuel consumption from 10 to 12.5 miles per litre, a double saving - 130 miles at 70mph, at 10 miles per litre = 13 litres. Return trip 100 miles at 55mph at 12.5 miles per litre = 8 litres. I'd say that's a no-brainer when the only result is sitting down to my dinner half an hour later than if I break my neck rushing home the fast route.

Dennis said:

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SMH said:

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I always come back the short route which saves me 30 miles

But what if that route has you driving 30 minutes more thus no fuel savings

It DOES have me driving 30 minutes more. BUT in addition to 3 litres less for the mileage, at the reduced speed crosscountry, it also boosts my fuel consumption from 10 to 12.5 miles per litre, a double saving - 130 miles at 70mph, at 10 miles per litre = 13 litres. Return trip 100 miles at 55mph at 12.5 miles per litre = 8 litres. I'd say that's a no-brainer when the only result is sitting down to my dinner half an hour later than if I break my neck rushing home the fast route.

Is your dinner ready when you get home?

Bennetts Distribution said:

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Having 3 satnavs in window is obstructing vision and screaming out to thiefs to come and get me, thats the trouble with couriers nowadays they rely too heavily on sat nav. Granted they do make the job easier but you also have to have common sense to go with them! Back in the day when i was a full time hgv driver all we had was A-Zs and if i jump in a wagon nowadays i always pre check the route with a map aswell as sat nav to check if the roads it picks are suitable for large vehicles, bridge heights etc.

My satnavs don't obstruct my vision - one is built in and below the windscreen base, the other two are at the base of the windscreen and I'm tall enough to see out over them - anybody who isn't, shouldn't be driving! As for thiefs, I simply don't leave any satnavs in the window to scream at thieves. Anybody who does is not bright enough to be driving also, certainly not whilst responsible for someone else's goods! As for looking at the map before setting off, if you look back at my earlier post you'll find I said "I always look at the route summary before setting off."

Dennis said:

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Bennetts Distribution said:

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Having 3 satnavs in window is obstructing vision and screaming out to thiefs to come and get me, thats the trouble with couriers nowadays they rely too heavily on sat nav. Granted they do make the job easier but you also have to have common sense to go with them! Back in the day when i was a full time hgv driver all we had was A-Zs and if i jump in a wagon nowadays i always pre check the route with a map aswell as sat nav to check if the roads it picks are suitable for large vehicles, bridge heights etc.

My satnavs don't obstruct my vision - one is built in and below the windscreen base, the other two are at the base of the windscreen and I'm tall enough to see out over them - anybody who isn't, shouldn't be driving! As for thiefs, I simply don't leave any satnavs in the window to scream at thieves. Anybody who does is not bright enough to be driving also, certainly not whilst responsible for someone else's goods! As for looking at the map before setting off, if you look back at my earlier post you'll find I said "I always look at the route summary before setting off."

I think you should have more than 3 sat navs, I mean just think if they all break on the same day your stuffed.

PHAX said:

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As there are artic drivers amongst us is the Snooper better than the Tom Tom? Truckers seem to not like getting behind me @ 50mph in roadworks.

3 reasons this happens

1. Some truckers think those adverage speed camers dont work.
2. Truckers like me sit on cruise at all times so we see speed limit them hit cruise to 50. Its hard to stay at a constant exact speed in a car or van if you dont use cruise so good chance trucks sticking to 50 and your slowing and speeding up.
3. Or the truckers foreign and just drives like a clown at all times

AJM sameday Couriers said:

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Is your dinner ready when you get home?

Yes.

AJM sameday Couriers said:

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I think you should have more than 3 sat navs, I mean just think if they all break on the same day your stuffed.

Well, only if I've left the other two and my iPhone and iPad at home. I'll try not to forget them.