4:42pm Thursday 18th March 2010
I have just been rereading the article about Gatehouse Lane in Burgess Hill and how it confuses sat navs and takes lorry drivers down a road they cannot exit (The Argus, March 8). I feel compelled to say that there are several inaccuracies in this story.
The cause of this problem is not the failure to rename the road when Jane Murray Way was built to dissect it. Indeed, there are many places in the country where roads have been cut in two and sat navs don’t care what a road is called, only that the mapping system says it is there.
Most systems in use today are reasonably up-to-date and would know from the master maps that the road is a dead end. Of course, that does not apply to all sat navs, and consequently some drivers will be directed down that road. But changing the road name will not make the slightest difference to the matter.
Secondly, the cause is not lorry drivers but all drivers, whether in lorries, vans or cars, who worship their sat navs in the sad belief it is all-knowing and never puts a foot wrong.
Sat navs do not read road signs as they go by, though the driver can or, at least, one hopes they can.
Drivers should be watching for such things as width restrictions, height restrictions or no-through-road signs and not just blindly following the awful voice on the sat nav.
If there is no sign at the end of Gatehouse Lane that is the fault of the local council, not the sat nav or its maker.
JF Stephens
(lorry driver), Handcross
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