The nuisance of large lorries getting stuck on rural lanes has been an issue for many years. There are at least 3 causes:
- Lorries are getting bigger.
- Foreign drivers getting lost or trying to take wrong ‘short’ cuts.
- Some lanes, especially in the south-east, connect heritage villages or market towns to listed properties alongside the narrow streets.
Mike Martin, the MP for Tunbridge Wells, suggests the cause is also faulty satnav advice, especially in the case of Goudhurst, a picturesque village in the High Weald within his constituency.
As I grew up and learned to drive in this area, I am very familiar with the Z-bend at the top of Clayhill on the A262, or in the other direction along the Cranbrook road. The problem is that there is a stone wall on one side protecting the church graveyard, and on the other, several large properties are too near the road. This was ok in the days of horse-drawn carriages and haycarts, but it tends to cause blockages if HGVs try this route.
Mike Martin thinks that sat nav is giving wrong advice, which lures drivers unfamiliar with this problem to try the A262. He has started an app to make it easy for constituents to notify him of blockages so that he can get the satnav companies to update the route guidance.
Ashford faced a similar problem
A similar problem used to occur at Mersham, near Ashford, with HGV drivers getting lost on their way to the Sevington border station, because of faulty satnav advice. Some were stuck and unable to turn around in a narrow, muddy lane.
The rise of longer HGVs – and why it matters
HGVs are getting longer. A Brexit ‘benefit’ is that GB, since 2023, has permitted the use of semi-trailers up to 18.55m in total articulated length, compared with the 16.5m trailers allowed on mainland Europe.
This is just fine if it is helping our supermarkets stock up on all the fresh veg and fruit we buy from them at affordable prices. And ok if the drivers stick to the M20, M25 and other M-routes. But absolutely not if a blockage on the M20 tempts drivers to try alternative routes across the county.
Even A routes are not suitable for such monsters!
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When satnav fails – and local knowledge saves the day
Mike Martin may be right that this is not the fault of drivers (foreign or not!) but of satnav not being accurate. If you are a local driver, you know your way around alternative routes, so that if there is a diversion, for example, due to an accident or a flooded road (increasingly likely in these days of climate change and under-invested water companies), you can pick a likely route even if satnav leads you to a faulty diversion.
Having been in such a predicament when going to a funeral in a Wealden village last year, and diversion signs just led us round in circles, I was glad that my driving companion could rely on her local knowledge. But we should be able to rely on the satnav.
I wonder what their system is for taking in recent information and reprogramming. They ought to accept recent bulletins from reliable authorities such as the traffic police and local water companies. So, Mike Martin may be on to something by opening up the possibility of more community interaction with satnav programming.
When out-of-date street view causes its own problems
A similar updating problem arises if you are unhappy with the street view of your property. This may occur if you are a houseproud homeowner who has just upgraded your property with new outside paint and solar panels, but the street view shows it in last year’s sad condition, with two people who look like drug dealers lingering outside it. Can you, as a property owner, insist that the street view is updated before you put your property on the market?
I don’t think there is any UK law on this, and Google is, of course, a foreign-owned company whose founders, Larry Page and Sergey Brin, still control 50% of the voting power. However, if you ask Google about updating street views, the response is that street view ‘is actively updating imagery across the UK’. They prioritise towns and busy cities and often update these on an annual basis. Rural and residential areas may get updates only every two or three years.
Street view is obtained by actually sending around cars with cameras on top, so it presumably clocks up more staffing costs than the satellite views. There is a lag of time between the capture of the street image and pinpointing it on the maps. Users can check the date stamp in the corner.
A human fix for digital errors
Mike Martin’s excellent project to engage with satnav companies is to be applauded, as it shows that in an era when we are increasingly reliant on auto-systems, it is advisable to recognise when they make mistakes. Then it should be possible, with some good human communication, to get these rectified. It is hoped that more of us realise that it is wise to question any algorithm used by AI once we perceive it as a threat to our well-being.
