Michelin, I Love You!
Whenever I go on one of my rambles, whether alone or with my husband or daughter, I study a map beforehand. I either buy a physical map of the area I am visiting, or I download and print a more detailed map from the internet. The key to me is to have it in paper form in my hand. I love to trace the green and red roads along the paper, see all the different roads they interlace with, and the different places along the way. When I start the drive, the maps are in the passenger seat, either lying there for me to check, or for the passenger to advise me.
I have never had a GPS thingee, whatever they're called; Tom-Tom Go, Garmin, I don't care. I have never had my phone programmed to give me directions, either. I have used Google Maps on occasion, but like a physical map, for me to check under my own power. I have always preferred to find out by myself how to get to a spot. If my powers of reading a map are not good enough for a certain area, then I will stop and ask someone local. I am not about to follow the sweet, mechanical voice giving me directions from a piece of plastic and metal attached to my dashboard.
Many people, however, swear by those gadgets. Some for celerity, others because they can't read a map no matter how they turn it around (my daughter has not inherited my powers), and others because they prefer new technology to paper, and why have umpteem paper maps taking up space in the car when a little gadget can take you from one end of Europe to the other?
But sometimes those little gadgets can be worse than having a paper map and not know how to read it. Many truck drivers depend on those gadgets when they have to deliver products to a place they've never been before. Unfortunately, sometimes the instructions are to be followed only if you're travelling in a small car or on foot.
Last week, in a little village in a township near ours, the neighbors found yet another truck on the narrow lane that runs between their closely-built houses. In January it had already happened. In fact, it has been happening quite frequently, usually with foreign truck drivers that come to the nearby canning factory to load their trucks. The lane is narrow and has closely following curves, which means that a long trailer has no room to move. A crane had to be called in to remove the truck. There is a small sign much before the village, but the foreign drivers don't understand it, and will follow their GPS that tells them in a joyful tone to carry on along the lane.
Many truck drivers have fallen into the GPS trap. Close to twenty years ago there was an intrepid driver who ended up at a lighthouse instead of his destination. He was a very good driver, because he had to negotiate sharp curves along the narrow road that led to the lighthouse. And then he had to somehow turn the trailer around in about 18 meters when he got there and go back up the road. He managed to do so - and then broke the axle on the first curve out. He spent a nice week with the lighthouse keeper. Then there was a German driver who miswrote his destination, Cerdeira instead of Cedeira, and ended up on a track in the middle of the hills in Ourense instead of the seaside town. Not speaking Spanish, and trying to make himself understood, he gratefully discovered that in the village he had plonked himself in there were people who spoke German, thanks to years of emigration. He spent some days there while machinery came in to widen the track and a crane could get in to get the trailer out.
Then there's the Bermuda Triangle of truck drivers in the hills of Ezcaray, in La Rioja. The first one to fall into it was a Ukrainian truck driver transporting oranges to Latvia. He followed the GPS instructions to leave the highway to go to a gas station in Turza. He ended up in the middle of the hills, on a mountain track that might fit a tractor, but not a tractor trailer. The poor driver didn't know what to do. Luckily, he found someone who spoke Ukrainian (Spain is turning into the United Nations, thanks to e- and immigration.) who helped him be understood by the Guardia Civil, after spending a night of tears in the cab. After him, came a Russian driver, taking oranges to Sweden. Then, came a third driver, who was luckily stopped before heading into the hills. This driver, suspicious of his GPS, decided to ask a living and breathing person how to get to the gas station marked on his gadget. Mystery solved. It seems that the three drivers, all working for the same company, had the coordinates of an inexistant gas station marked into their gadgets. I think someone might have lost their job.
There are many more cases, in Spain and in Europe. There's the case of various cars in the middle of Teruel trying to go down the steps of a steep pedestrian street because their GPS told them to turn right. There's also a case of a Belgian woman who only wanted to go to a train station in Brussels, some forty minutes away from her. The woman must not have a sense of direction, nor a sense of time. Nor much knowledge of just what languages are spoken in her country. She ended up in Zagreb, twelve hours and three countries away.
I just hope Michelin keeps churning out paper maps. If not, I will print out maps of every route I hope to take, and tape the pages together. I prefer the old-fashioned way of getting places, checking the maps and asking questions. Those little GPS buggers simply can't be trusted.
I have never had a GPS thingee, whatever they're called; Tom-Tom Go, Garmin, I don't care. I have never had my phone programmed to give me directions, either. I have used Google Maps on occasion, but like a physical map, for me to check under my own power. I have always preferred to find out by myself how to get to a spot. If my powers of reading a map are not good enough for a certain area, then I will stop and ask someone local. I am not about to follow the sweet, mechanical voice giving me directions from a piece of plastic and metal attached to my dashboard.
Many people, however, swear by those gadgets. Some for celerity, others because they can't read a map no matter how they turn it around (my daughter has not inherited my powers), and others because they prefer new technology to paper, and why have umpteem paper maps taking up space in the car when a little gadget can take you from one end of Europe to the other?
But sometimes those little gadgets can be worse than having a paper map and not know how to read it. Many truck drivers depend on those gadgets when they have to deliver products to a place they've never been before. Unfortunately, sometimes the instructions are to be followed only if you're travelling in a small car or on foot.
Last week, in a little village in a township near ours, the neighbors found yet another truck on the narrow lane that runs between their closely-built houses. In January it had already happened. In fact, it has been happening quite frequently, usually with foreign truck drivers that come to the nearby canning factory to load their trucks. The lane is narrow and has closely following curves, which means that a long trailer has no room to move. A crane had to be called in to remove the truck. There is a small sign much before the village, but the foreign drivers don't understand it, and will follow their GPS that tells them in a joyful tone to carry on along the lane.
Many truck drivers have fallen into the GPS trap. Close to twenty years ago there was an intrepid driver who ended up at a lighthouse instead of his destination. He was a very good driver, because he had to negotiate sharp curves along the narrow road that led to the lighthouse. And then he had to somehow turn the trailer around in about 18 meters when he got there and go back up the road. He managed to do so - and then broke the axle on the first curve out. He spent a nice week with the lighthouse keeper. Then there was a German driver who miswrote his destination, Cerdeira instead of Cedeira, and ended up on a track in the middle of the hills in Ourense instead of the seaside town. Not speaking Spanish, and trying to make himself understood, he gratefully discovered that in the village he had plonked himself in there were people who spoke German, thanks to years of emigration. He spent some days there while machinery came in to widen the track and a crane could get in to get the trailer out.
Then there's the Bermuda Triangle of truck drivers in the hills of Ezcaray, in La Rioja. The first one to fall into it was a Ukrainian truck driver transporting oranges to Latvia. He followed the GPS instructions to leave the highway to go to a gas station in Turza. He ended up in the middle of the hills, on a mountain track that might fit a tractor, but not a tractor trailer. The poor driver didn't know what to do. Luckily, he found someone who spoke Ukrainian (Spain is turning into the United Nations, thanks to e- and immigration.) who helped him be understood by the Guardia Civil, after spending a night of tears in the cab. After him, came a Russian driver, taking oranges to Sweden. Then, came a third driver, who was luckily stopped before heading into the hills. This driver, suspicious of his GPS, decided to ask a living and breathing person how to get to the gas station marked on his gadget. Mystery solved. It seems that the three drivers, all working for the same company, had the coordinates of an inexistant gas station marked into their gadgets. I think someone might have lost their job.
There are many more cases, in Spain and in Europe. There's the case of various cars in the middle of Teruel trying to go down the steps of a steep pedestrian street because their GPS told them to turn right. There's also a case of a Belgian woman who only wanted to go to a train station in Brussels, some forty minutes away from her. The woman must not have a sense of direction, nor a sense of time. Nor much knowledge of just what languages are spoken in her country. She ended up in Zagreb, twelve hours and three countries away.
I just hope Michelin keeps churning out paper maps. If not, I will print out maps of every route I hope to take, and tape the pages together. I prefer the old-fashioned way of getting places, checking the maps and asking questions. Those little GPS buggers simply can't be trusted.
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