Satnav blunder sends Belgian granny 1,450km to Croatia
A Belgian granny who planned an 80km car trip to Brussels ended up in Croatia, after ill-advisedly obeying her satnav's orders to traverse Europe. Sabine Moreau, 67, intended to drive from her home in Solre-sur-Sambre to pick up a chum from the Belgian capital's Brussel-Noord station, but was instead directed eastwards on a two- …
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Re: satnav blunder? Really?
It's motorway all the way - at night you wouldn't see any difference.
What about her Passport
I can understand traveling between Belgium, Germany and Austria. But Croatia is a non-Schengen state. She would have needed a passport to pass through to Zagreb
Re: What about her Passport
This might be out-of-date, but from people who've been there, I heard the Croatian border guards don't make any sort of a fuss unless (they think) there's something obviously dodgy.
An old lady in a Belgian car probably just gets waved through.
Re: What about her Passport
You only need a valid ID document. A passport is not required.
Re: What about her Passport
... and in belgium it's obligatory to carry your ID card on you. So that solves the border problem.
Scenic route
That's what happens when you click on that button: 'Extended Scenic Route". It's a feature.
I don't see how that's possible
If you're that "distracted" you shouldn't be anywhere near a steering wheel.
Over that distance, she would have had to fill up her car with more fuel once at the very least.
It's beyond the realm of what I consider to be plain "stupid" to leave the house for a quick drive to the nearest station, then drive an incredibly long way, have to fill up, keep going, and somehow "not notice".
I would take the licence away immediately.
Licence revoked i hope? anyone who can't see their sat nav has a drive time in days rather than a couple of hours, shouldn't be driving...
How distracted must she have been? Dangerous lady...
And people wonder why the Dutch make jokes about Belgians
Quite besides being distracted, having to refuel a few times on an 80km trip should be a give-away that something is rotten in the state of Belgium.
Re: And people wonder why the Dutch make jokes about Belgians
Well, once if she was driving a car with a reasonable sized fuel tank... I can do around 560miles between refuels... (on paper the car can do around 800)
Re: And people wonder why the Dutch make jokes about Belgians
If cars can do that much further on paper, shouldn't all our roads be surfaced with paper, for economy? Oh no, the government would miss out of fuel duty, that must be why they're still using tarmac.
Re: And people wonder why the Dutch make jokes about Belgians
Indeed :) and all of them are the "stupid Belgians" variety, nicely justified once again by this story.
Re: And people wonder why the Dutch make jokes about Belgians
The French do, too.
Ask a French person why Belgian cars have windscreen wipers on the inside...
Where can I get one?
Quite a few people may be interested in getting one of these as a present for their mother-in-law.
Invasion
For some strange reason I read the title as "Satnav blunder sends Belgian ARMY 1450KM into Croatia". Now that would be news.
Non-information
This women seems to have some trouble (alzeimer?). Did she really type in the good destination or did she make a mistake? The problem seems in 90% not in satnav navigation... Maybe with the selection of destinations..
R.
Re: Non-information
Simply typing in the wrong name of the city will not cause this in general. On all satnavs I have used (Garmin and (long ago) ViaMichelin) you must first actively select another country. Otherwise Frenchmen would be sent to Paris, Texas by accident. ;-)
Remaining question: Is there a Brussels, Croatia? ;-)
Re: Non-information
Hm... "Lille" may either give a coastal city in France, or a small village in the north of Belgium. Not always that obvious you must select country.
Re: Non-information
""Hm... "Lille" may either give a coastal city in France, or a small village in the north of Belgium. Not always that obvious you must select country.""
What about the major French city of Lille that is neither of those ?
Easily done...
OK, ok, I'm going to admit that on one such 12-hour trip I took to Zurich, at Strasbourg I used to hop across to the German side of the border and cruise the E35 all the way down. One time it was extremely late and dark and I took the North exit, got to Mannheim before I realised I was headed in the wrong direction.
Not quite a 2 day excursion, more like an extra 4 hours but still... now go ahead and laugh/downvote!
Re: Easily done...
Maybe I should also mention, this was before I owned a satnav - I was using a mapbook and following signs.
Re: Easily done...
I have done the same error twice driving in Europa before there where satnavs. Both driving at night. A fairly easy error to do. I then bought a compass for the dash board to warn me. Never needed that of course.
Re: Easily done...
Ah yes. My first cross Europe drive to Wilhelmshaven , via Fance, Belgium, Nederlands, Germany etc also included an unexpected diversion, we managed to get passed Namur before the penny (dutch Guilders then) dropped, in my defence 1/ wife was map reading [dang thats an oxymoron] 2/ was pre sat nav days.
coat cos that's mine with the Tommy Testicle in.
Obligatory slight of Belgium
Driving tests weren't made compulsory until some point in the 1970s so it's quite likely the driver never had to take one to get her licence.
Also, having been to Brussel Noord I can understand her desire to avoid it. Not at bad as Brussel Zuid but certainly up there on the list of "100 Train Stations You Don't Want to Visit"!
Re: Obligatory slight of Belgium
You think Brussel Zuid is bad - have you ever been to Brussel Centraal?!
If she couldn't figure out...
...that on your average 80km road trip the road signs usually do NOT magically change languages, and it also does not require you to have "a few naps in the car", she should be put to sleep for good, for fear of managing to get behind the wheel of a car again in the future and doing some damage to an innocent bystander.
Re: If she couldn't figure out...
"...that on your average 80km road trip the road signs usually do NOT magically change languages, "
Although, in Belgium, signs do switch between three languages and is damned confusing if you are not used to it. Having said that, German is not a language used on Belgium road signs and she might have realised something was amiss when cars started whizzing past her at speeds well above 200KmH. Then there's the snow - one might have thought she would have noticed that the world had turned white when approaching the Alps.
not just the old..
I once went on a course just outside London, 2 young women (early 20's) who had driven down together from Liverpool didnt arrive until the next morning. When we asked why they admitted they had got to the M6 and turned left (North) instead of right (South)and ended up in scotland before they realised, they then had to retrace and get to the course adding an extra 300 miles to their journey.
Re: not just the old..
I have this image of these two confused (and for some reason blond) women asking directions from a bemused Billy Connolly or Rab C. Nesbit lookalike.
"Ach nea! Ye've come a wee bit too far north, ya stupid cows!"
Re: not just the old..
Yes they were both blonde, how did you know?
Also, to those who say she needs her licence taken away, it's entirely possible she thought the French/Dutch equivalent of "Fuck it, I'm 67 and I want to see Croatia before I'm gone: Full Speed Ahead!" and made up the satnav excuse for the benefit of the friend she failed to meet.
I've done 100-200 mile drives (admittedly before petrol was so expensive) on nothing more than boredom and a whim, so I can understand where it would come from.
I don't believe this story
You can be distracted, fair enough. Then, when things become out of the ordinary (give her a benefit of doubt, a few hours later) - you start paying attention, looking at the road signs, looking at the sights, paying (some) attention to them funny hills outside, perhaps a peculiar number of "foreign" registration plates overtaking, waving at you... you can't be f... distracted for two days, sorry.
So I expect it to be another cooked up marketing story, similar to those reported at face value by the media, on a toddler who bought a bulldozer off an auction site. There were others.
So what are they selling now? No satnav, that would be too obvious :)
A mistake??
Why is this woman stupid? Zagreb is a much nicer place to be than Belgium at this time of year. She doesn't sound as though she was distressed by it all.
I call foul.
There is obviously something else going on here. No-one can accidentally drive to a local destination and not notice being on the open road for days.
Probably more like 'Old lady does something weird and blames sat-nav'
Only Half a Story
What has happened to the friend that was expecting to be picked up from the station? I would love to hear that she is still waiting there.
Er, what about the Apple Maps?
I thought The Register's style guide required all navigational errors to be blamed on Apple. What's going on?
Re: Er, what about the Apple Maps?
Dang, you're right. Kill 'Satnav', replace with 'iPhone 5'.
C.
Funnier in France
This story is considered even funnier in France, where Belgians have the reputation of being (how can I put this tactfully?) a bit dim.
(The Belgians have the same opinion of the French, so that's alright then.)
Re: Funnier in France
Or in any neighboring country. Jokes are always told about your neighbors and the same jokes will travel around the world, only the subject will vary. Sometimes they fall asleep to wake up again centuries later. My advice is to tell no jokes at all, and especially never abroad, unless you want to take the risk of loosing your face. This subject is awfully rewarding and very funny if you enjoy "lost faces" and have the ability laugh at your self. Oh dear have to stop here.
Alton Towers
Apparently a friend of my father who runs a hotel in Alton, Hampshire, frequently has guests turn up, check in and then ask the way to Alton Towers (which is in Alton, near Stoke-on-Trent, a good 2-3 hour drive away).
And this happened long before sat navs too.
Stupid?
Given her age and the, frankly unbelievable, size of the blunder, my guess is that she suffered a mild stroke or something similar. It's not unknown for victims of strokes to remain in a trance-like state for hours or days after the stroke. Funny/sad how our -mine included- first impulse is to label her as 'stupid'.
couple of options
First, this could be a warning sign of short-term memory loss. Something like this, though less drastic, happened to the father of an acquaintance. He was nearer 80 than 70, but had some decent years left in him.
Second, there could have been a romantic getaway that she considered to be none of the son's business.
Let me guess, the "blunder" wasn't actually on the satnav end...
She was Absent-minded
She was edging past the figurative meaning of the term and straying into more literal territory. Or, as is often uttered in this part of the world, "Why bless her little heart!"
She's living in Alzheimer's World
That's what we call that state where a dementia sufferer does or says something clearly wrong, but is completely unaware of reality. In the early stages, this doesn't happen all the time, it can be episodic, and the person can appear quite normal the rest of the time.
I've seen my mum in a similar confused state, unaware of where she is or why she is doing something. She often denies that there is anything wrong, and had become quite adept at masking her confusion on a day to day basis, before we had her assessed to figure out what was going on (I have to say it was pretty obvious to me that she has dementia).
I hope the lady gets a diagnosis and support for her condition, it is a terrible disease which gradually robs a person of not just their memory, but ultimately their own sense of self.
Two days!
What?
Apart from fuel, no stops?
No food stops?
No hotels?
BS
Anyone consider that she'd met a Croatian guy on facebook, went for it, and then used the puzzled confused look when she was 'done'. Clever girl.
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