The Forgotten Art of Map Reading

Way back when in 1997 mobile phones had been just becoming element of my every day life and it was a handy gadget to have particularly as I had just purchased my 1st 7.5 tonner at the age of 17 and I had began subbing for DFDS at Coggeshall, Essex. the one point I would by no means have believed back then was that now a days there would be a gadget in in the cab that would have saved me from learning  what felt like each and every street across Essex, Suffolk, Norfolk, Cambridgeshire, Northamptonshire, Bedfordshire, Hertfordshire, Buckinghamshire, Oxfordshire, Berkshire, Hampshire, Surrey, West Sussex, East Sussex, Kent and last but certainly not least, Greater London. In my very first week I was given a day in London with something like 15 drops across the Higher London region, good. Oh for those who aren’t positive, Greater London is possibly less complicated described as everywhere inside the M25 circle. So age 17, 1st week of owning and driving my first Tonka toy and 15 drops across one particular of the worlds busiest cities, exactly where do I commence???! One particular of the other DFDS subbies said “Don’t be concerned son, just get oneself a hard back copy of the Master Atlas of Higher London and you will be fine.” – I couldn’t have had any much better tips than that. So on the way down the A12 I stopped at a garage and identified a copy of the London bible.

So just take this in for a minute, its 1997, I had X amount of drops (& collections) across the capital, a list of addresses, not many with postcodes and TWAT SAT NAV was no where to be seen. How did we ever cope I hear you ask. Pull up a sand bag and I’ll inform you a story. After upon a time you could quit at a garage and get these tiny paper paged books known as road maps. You could acquire them for counties or towns based on what you needed and basically they had pages complete of the layout of your selected region. At the back was an index with a full list of roads and estates and these had been listed with a page quantity and grid reference so you could find the road on the web page in the map, wonderful huh?? Using one of these town maps along side a larger road Atlas you could pretty effectively find any exactly where you wanted to go, all on your own without having 22 satellite’s guiding you down an unsuitable one way street! Or even far better than making use of the road map you’ve just purchased you could use what we used to get in touch with typical sense, most men and women had a bit of typical sense as it was gained from parents and the college of hard knocks and difficult luck. For example your honour Station Road, Anytown. 1st up have a look on your map (if you have a single of that location/town) and look for station road in the index or just for the station. If there is no visible station have a look to find the closest road to a railway line, basic. Again utilizing a bit of typical sense and a good map you can even work out exactly where an old railway may well have been. If you haven’t got a map you could often head towards the town and see if you could choose up the sign posts for the station. Or final but not least you could ask the neighborhood and they’d send you appropriate round the town and back to where started and in the imply time with a bit of luck you’d stumble across Station road.

Now in London the streets are a lots and the visitors lights and junctions are even a lot more. So obtaining to preserve an eye on your difficult back atlas was quite simple or handy so I discovered it ideal to tear the A4 web page out. See the photo above. Still an A4 web page isn’t so easy to hold, so when you are close adequate you can fold the web page to A5 size. Then ultimately when I was really close to where I necessary to be I would fold again so its small enough to hold in finger and thumb. Please see my thumb below. I have to say that in day to day driving it was really much find your personal way to your location, no typing in a postcode and comply with the arrows on your dash-mounted screen. All drivers back in these prehistoric instances had to have a sound understanding of the UK’s road ne2rk and most industrial towns and somehow we managed. In a preceding life as a transport manager I watched a driver heading from Ipswich to Leamington Spa take the A14, M6, M42, M40 to his destination. When I quizzed him to why he went this extended way round, I got the response “That’s what sat nav said”. Now contact me an old stick in the mud but I asked if he had looked at his road atlas to check exactly where he was going and I got a brief silence and then the response “I haven’t got one”. Not impressed I confiscated the drivers twat sat nav for the following week. Now I hope he has a slight knowledge of the road ne2rk. Anyway I digress.

The beauty of a paper map over a twat sat nav is that I discover I can usually see more than I want to, which can only ever help you know exactly where you are and what your surroundings are. For instance heading into London the other Saturday as a passenger I decided we would have a Map-Off. This was fine and a great contest and we both arrived at the right spot with no main dramas, but along the way I could check every single street I passed and I could see how far ahead the next turning was, with no obtaining to wait for the 200 metre warning or what ever it is. Also looking at the map you can get some thought of what the road you are turning into is like or which way it goes, something which twat sat nav cannot do extremely well. The one particular downside I identified to the paper map is that it does not light up when you enter a tunnel!!

I challenge any driver who is not a map reader to take up the challenge and attempt and get oneself across the nation with no twat sat nav. At the end of the day you may just uncover that you have some sort of new found satisfaction in your day to day job. Twat Sat navs do have there uses and I for 1 do like that fact they can tell you how far you are from your destination and I can never ever argue against the truth that some one particular shouting directions at you is far safer than reading a map even though driving along or every time you stop. My most significant fear is that the beauty of a excellent map is lost on all new drivers. Where’s the sense of path that you all had to fond the nearest sweet shop when you were a kid? Does any person else agree that all drivers must have an understanding of exactly where about’s they are in the nation and what other roads are available to the a single your on with no assist from NASA convention on your dashboard?? In the worst case we know that at 12 o’clock the sun is in the west and we want to be just to the right of that, so we ideal take that tangent………………..

The Forgotten Art of Map Reading