Satnav: avoid unclassified roads

In the "old days" before a satnav, I would write a quick list of principle towns and road numbers. Following the gantry/ road signs would get me to within striking distance of my destination.

In the old days there were no gantries, and many of the road signs had been removed or repositioned to confuse any unwanted visitors from across the Channel.

Hi richardandros,

Thanks for that helpful information. I have a TomTom but I haven't tried that method of planning a route and loading it onto the satnav so will try it if I can't find a better way. 

Hi David,

Thanks for your reply. I think I found the Government webpage you are referring to about road classification. Yes 60% of all roads being unclassified is a high number of roads and they probably date back to the days of horse and carts. I notice the website goes on to say:

"an unclassified road will generally have very low significance to traffic, and be of only very local importance."

so satnavs really shouldn't be routing us down these. 

Hi peedee,

Thank you very much for both replies you posted. I have unsuccessfully tried an app called RoadLords but I hadn't heard of Mapfactor Navigator. I have downloaded it to my phone and tried out one of my test routes (Cirencester to Bourton-on-the-Water Club site at GL54 3BU). I had to put in the GPS co-ords of the site because it didn't recognize the postcode, but it successfully avoided the pitfall of a long single track lane which my TomTom took us down in May (luckily we only met 1 car but it was stressful). I will try some more test routes (where we also got caught out this year) and report back.

My driving "old days" don't go back that far having been born post D-Day. 

 Long after D-Day, and even after we were well into the last quarter of the previous century, some local authorities had still not replaced missing finger-post signs.  Does not help that there are mischevious fools about who re-position signs!

My original satnavs way back allowed  "main roads only" which was the best setting for towing as it avoided all the narrow roads until you were within the sites approach directions. More recent devices only allow fastest, economy etc much less helpful.

I have used this as it allows for truck settings, the only downside is if you deviate from the uploaded route the device recalculates with its internal settings back to fastest or whatever.

A good few years ago I used to use Mapfactor Truck, it had a few quirks, one in particular which used to annoy me was it would take routes through the middle of towns rather than use a bypass unles there was a truck ban. I was pointed in the direction of Co-Pilot Truck which I found much better so I dropped Mapfactor. Co-Pilot has since been taken over and is now marketed differently and although I still use it, it is not what it used to be. Map Factor may well now be a better option especially as I used to like the add on, Map Explorer as a planning tool. This used to come free with Navigator purchase.

I have also downloaded the free version to my tablet and will also trial it. You can change the settings to tell it to not use any of the UK road types and congestion charge areas so I am hoping that if I set it not to use any of the local roads or give the major roads a high preference, it will avoid them unless I included them as a waypoint. Unlike other sat navs  I think one might have to play around with these road settings, in combination with waypoints, to obtain the most suitable routing for the type of outfit you are driving

peedee

On my very old TomTom with 20 year old maps, I always used "fastest" which prioritised major roads. On my latest "Camper" version, the algorithm seems to have been tweaked and, whilst it's yet to send me down a "goat track, I am less happy with the choices it now makes. I find I'm increasingly ignoring the directions in favour of following the signs on the gantries.