Man, 72, lost because of satnav

dave_beast

dave_beast

dave_beast

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A GRANDFATHER spent three days driving around southern England, before he was found on Christmas Day, after his wife's flight was switched from Heathrow airport to Gatwick airport during last week's travel chaos.


“I was a little bit frightened because I would stop and ask for directions but nobody would give me any. They would just say that they didn’t know where I was going or I was going too far away. I had my sat-nav but I was still lost. It kept on taking me all over the place."

“I will never go out without my mobile phone again. I blame my sat-nav for what happened.”


Full story http://www.heraldsun.com.au/lifestyle/the-other-side/grandfather-72-drove-in-circles-for-three-days-after-getting-lost-in-uk-travel-chaos/story-e6frfhk6-1225976669827
 
surely even the worst Sat-Nav in the world can direct him correctly in the general direction!

and what happened to his wife? Waited for him for 3 days in Gatwick?
 
Sounds like some Moroccan guy not speaking english:
Mohammed Bellazrak lost his way while trying to drive back to Wiltshire from Gatwick airport on 23 December after dropping off his wife.

He had set off from their home in Trowbridge to drive to Heathrow airport, but due to the snow, Mrs Bellazrak's flight to visit family in Morocco was diverted to Gatwick, so they drove on into Sussex.
Click to expand...
and ask the way, but people did not understand his question,
Click to expand...


Yeah, blame it on your satnav going up and down the same motorway multiple times :rolleyes:.
 
Couldnt use a payphone?

Either way. Sounds like a moron and almost certainly shouldn't be on the roads, or the next time he's in the news it will be because he drove into bus stop full of schoolkids.
 
Supposedly he drove 2,000 miles. He said "i thought i would run out of petrol but i didnt". 2,000 miles, sleeping at night with the heater on... one a tank of petrol?

Right oh.

Hope the press money buys him something nice though.
 
As funny as that is you have to feel sorry for the silly old sod, glad this had a happy ending and not some terrible car smash up.
 
So he managed to get to the airport but couldn't find his way back, total dumb ass, all he had to do was press home on his sat-nav and all would have been ok.

He clearly can't follow on screen instructions.

I love the bit where he says his son will be going with him to nivigate when she returns from holiday, how about you get your son to drive and you stay at home.
 
Sounds like dad to me. He's 72 & he drives to Heathrow & Gatwick a fair bit, he helps people out by driving them to the airport & back & drives their car back home rather than leave it in an expensive & dingy airport car park for a couple of weeks. Wouldn't surprise me at all that he'd up forgetting how to drive to both airports one day. :p
 
Surely there are road signs between Gatwick and Heathrow - in fact I know there are some road signs at both those locations having driven past them (that the road signs often disappear when you need them most is neither here nor there) so surely once you get in the general vicinity then it's not all that hard to find. There has to be more to this than the link gives or the man probably shouldn't be on the road - Gatwick and Heathrow aren't exactly inconspicuous, they're fairly well signposted from miles away and they're pretty sodding big even if you don't see the planes flying overhead.

A sat-nav is not a substitute for a working brain and (hopefully) a general sense of direction and ability to follow signage. Still it's good that the story has ended happily with everything being fine.
 
snowdog said:
Sounds like some Moroccan guy not speaking english:
Click to expand...

More likely the accent was too strong (and/or he was confused so not speaking clearly). We've had Moroccans live in the town for generations, so should speak English fine.
 
Should read 'man, 72, lost because of lack of common sense'.

Actually, fiver says he was following his grandkids DS with Mario Kart.
 
What an idiot,
Pay phone, police station, shop/library with maps, browse maps on satnav to work out where you need to go.

I'm struggling to believe this is an actual real event. It just boggles the mind. How many petrol stations did he stop in and didn't think once of getting a map.
 
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