The one that always gets me,is when,on asking for directions the local yokel usually says “Turn left before you get to the butchers/bakers/candlestickmakers”.
Obviously by the time you’ve hit said establishment,you’ve already by definition missed your turn and then have the pain of having to turn the beast round.
You’d be amazed (-on second thoughts,I doubt it!) how many times I’ve heard that.
Off the subject,a first time poster here,stumbled across the site by accident.What a top site.Absolutely love it. Pity I hadn’t discovered it earlier.Just got made redundant (last week) after 6 yrs on a rigid at the same place.Just got myself fixed up today on permanent staff with an decent agency (‘:D’)
(gauranteed hours and all that),so it’ll be no more cosy predictability for me.Took me a while to get a decent hourly rate-there’s alot of poor payers still out there.I’ll have to start working proper again for a living. I must be mad!!(‘:shock:’)
Thanks to all contributors for making this site what it is.
Had a Garage door to Deliver in middle of nowhere so calls number on delivery note, sweet old woman gives directions finishing off with along country lane for about a mile and i’m on the left just past the blue car
Anyway I followed the instructions to the letter but could like hell find the house or the blue car so pulls in and phones again, she says whereabouts are you? So I’m looking for a landmark but all there was were high fern trees, so I says well if it’s any help I’m next to some high fern trees, she says can you see though them? barely I says as they are pretty dense, so I gets out of the cab looks through the fern trees by pushing my head and shoulders through and at that precise moment she says Yoohoo and there she is looking out the Window
You’ve come down the wrong lane your at the back of the houses
I hate giving directions to a place I’ve been to hundreds of times. If I’ve only been there 3 or 4 times its no problem.
The first time I go somewhere, I’m following someone else’s directions, so I’m very careful of getting all of their landmarks and looking for landmarks which mean something to me. The next few times I go there, I’m still having to look out for my landmarks, but I rarely take a wrong turn. Once I’ve been there several times, I note my landmarks but don’t really pay that much attention to them, as I drive past. After that I start to forget about anything else that other people might need, just noting my landmarks as I pass.
I forget about pedestrian crossings, either counting them as traffic lights or forgetting about them completely for eg, when giving directions.
When I first started doing European work I began a card index, writing down directions for places when I went there for the second time. But found that I referred to it so rarely that I started to think it was a waste of time. It came in useful when giving directions though.
Davey Driver:
Had a Garage door to Deliver in middle of nowhere so calls number on delivery note, sweet old woman gives directions finishing off with along country lane for about a mile and i’m on the left just past the blue car
Anyway I followed the instructions to the letter but could like hell find the house or the blue car so pulls in and phones again, she says whereabouts are you? So I’m looking for a landmark but all there was were high fern trees, so I says well if it’s any help I’m next to some high fern trees, she says can you see though them? barely I says as they are pretty dense, so I gets out of the cab looks through the fern trees by pushing my head and shoulders through and at that precise moment she says Yoohoo and there she is looking out the Window
You’ve come down the wrong lane your at the back of the houses
Should have known better really
RAOFLMAO. Rang my mate up one morning.
“Where’s so and so.”
" Where are you?"
" On such and such a street In Loughborough, facing towoards blah."
Doesn’t help that I live locally. I can hear “you dipstick” down the 'phone when nothing’s being said.
First time I went to Heathrow for Servisair, a place called HCH, driver said turn off the M25 after the M4, bear left, lots of roundabouts, keep going following cargo centre until you see a building with a big Q on it, then get in your right lane turn right at the bollards over the hill and turn right. Ok I found it eventually, but what big Q, what bollards, and their aint a hill for miles■■?
He got me in the right direction, but he must be seeing things that I am not.
why is it that some drivers are hopeless at giving directions.
you ask a guy where such and such a place is and he volunteers the info, but it is wrong( unintentional) even if he has done the route many many times).
others are fantastic ,they include every detail. turn left at the third lampost etc ,etc.
me , i like to draw maps, i hate sending anyone the wrong way.
then again a while back someone ask me for directions to a place in peterborough, i only live around the corner so i told him and drew him a map just to be sure.the funny thing was as soon as he set off i realised i had sent him to the wrong industrial estate at the other side of town (if it was you i apologise ).
then we have the “never heard of it” people.
when i done agency work you would ask certain regular drivers who would say they did not know the drop. but later on you find that they have been doing this drop for years. thank god they are a small minorirty.
the funniest time i recall asking for directions.
i was searching for a drop in walthamstow many years ago.(the drop turned out to be on top of a multi storey car park)
anyhow i pulled into a bus stop (in an artic mind) and got out and asked this rastafarian did he know where the drop was. he said he did and when i asked for directions he said " get on the number 62, i will take you straight to the door"
I think that drivers have different types of reference points,
If you ask an ontime automotive driver directions in Koln, they will always send you past 23a.
Seriously though, everybody will take notice of different things. I have had people saying “turn left at Joe Bloggs, you can’t miss it” I have found the place I am lokking for but am still looking for Joe Bloggs.
I find the guys who have been to places hundreds of times are the worst to ask because they don’t give you a chance to write down the drections cos they blurt them out so fast or they assume you know landmarks that are there when you don’t. Either that or they miss out key bits of information.
My favourite ‘direction giving’ used to be walking through town on a Saturday and some ‘out of town’ car would pull up with all the away teams colours on show!!
“Eeerr mate, where’s Bootham Cresent?” (York City ground)
“Go past the racecourse and follow signs for Tadcaster. It’s up there on the right.”
If you know York then you’ll know what was happening!!
York City needed all the help they could get and a few less fans of the away team might have made the difference!!
I I lived in Salisbury for a few years, including my last 2 years at school…the famous cathedral there is so tall (it has the tallest spire in Europe) you can see it for miles around the city, never mind when you’re actually in town…
…which is why we used to find it highly amusing to direct all the foreign tourists who asked for directions to a tiny local church 2 miles away…
:oops:.”
