I am starting a new job in the new year collecting and delivering to farms and most probably very small un heard of roads etc for a grain company.
Could anyone give me advice on what is the best sat nav for this type of role… Cheers
Not being funny mate but a sat nav is NOT what you want for this sort of work. Ok they’ll get you to the general area but what you really need is a good quality paper map. Sat navs are brilliant for getting you to RDC’s, industrial estates etc, but they will never do more than get you into a general rural area.
When doing farm collections before mobile phones and satnavs had even been invented, ordnance survey maps where very handy for farm locations.
weeto:
When doing farm collections before mobile phones and satnavs had even been invented, ordnance survey maps where very handy for farm locations.
^^^^^^^This^^^^^^ using A–Z of the local area have farms on,as does the Philips Navigator truckers Atlas.
Yeah satnavs will only get you so far on these types of drops. Remember also that in a rural area a single postcode can cover a large area and if it’s a truck nav it will probably not send you down some of the roads.
As said, OS map or you can dig and dig and dig via Google maps, even local authority searches to check the location. For instance I had a farm in Snowdonia to drop at, couldn’t find it anywhere, Google streetview couldn’t confirm it so I ended up on the local council site looking at planning applications and cross checking the diagram against the buildings on Google earth. But it was worth the effort as I could pick a better route in.
Also get the phone number of your end customer. If there are multiple ways in, it’s sods law you’ll choose the one with overhanging trees and a right angle bend. Mostly they’ll tell you how all the others go in and manoeuvre in a tight yard.
If you’re hitting low branches you’re the first on that road…
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As mentioned above, sat navs generally work fine in built up areas.
If I’m going to a rural address, I would check both the sat nav and Google, and a map too if necessary. Then I’d pinpoint the right place on the sat nav, because at the end of the day I find it easier to follow whilst driving. To look at a map properly you have to stop, and it is not always convenient / safe to do so.
I have a TomTom Go Professional 6200. Works great (but expensive). Re-routes me around traffic. Warns me if my speed creeps up. Tells me when I’ll get to my destination (obv useful for planning if your driving hours are running low, or if you want to plan when to have breaks). Warns me about fixed speed cameras and mobile camera hot spots.
I’m a country boy that used to deliver pesticides to farms. As everybody else says DO NOT RELY ON A SATNAV or else you could possibly be the next headline in The Yokel News regarding a stuck wagon down a cattle track.
Phillips Navigator has a lot of farms marked on their map and if not once I found the farm I would ink it in.
Am assuming by your name,and previous posts, your going to one of these, Hankins,Better or Rowell’s, ask the other drivers as most of them will have been to were you are going