So my garmin unit likes the gravel roads

Do you have the avoidances checked for the gravel roads? That might help.

There is a setting in the Garmin for Shortest Route or Fastest Route preference. The Fastest route will generally keep you on the main highways.

hummm...that is interesting, but makes sense!

I have my Garmin avoidance's set to avoid dirt roads. Best I can tell, it pays no attention to the setting. The U-Turn avoidance seems to work. Not certain about the Toll-Road avoidance.

The Nuivi really needs the capability to set way points set them to avoid.

They have e-911 rural addressing, and every gravel or dirt road is given a name with 'street', 'avenue', or 'road', which I presume the programming in the unit assumes = paved, thus the avoidance setting to avoid 'unpaved roads' sometimes does not work as we expect it to. This is why I always try to know at least a little about where I'm going, and let my good sense over-ride "the lady in the little box on the dash". It usually dos not take too long before she comes around and gets to going my way.

You may be interested in our first GPS trip when we were in Texas. It took up on a 'No Tresspassing, Private Property' mud trail in a pasture along a fence line. The route settings did nothing!

http://www.poi-factory.com/node/1175

OMG, that is so funny, did any backhill hill billy come out with a double barrel shotgun?

I had a similar story when last week I was attending a Microsoft seminar in Long Beach, Ca and my Nuvi (Jill) get routing me through a park that was closed - she kept up recalculating until I shut her off and asked a passenger how to get to this place

I also discovered that the maps in the Long beach area are not so great.

I think I made a big discovery!!!!

I think that the "faster time or shorter route" checkboxes override some of your preferences. My c320 avoids dirt roads a lot better when set to shorter time. Of course it could just be that it will try to put you on interstates instead, but I thought that I could tell a difference in addition to that.

You got the Zumo Dirtbike/4WD version too? I'm shocked that mine didn't come with "Ellie Mae" and "Jethro" voices to go with it.

There is an advanced button in Mapsource for marking avoidances. I'm running Mapsource on multiple computers and would like to share my advanced route avoidances. I'd like to be able to share with others as well. (Gravel roads etc) Anyone know how to do this?

Edit, Preferences, Routing Tab, then Advanced button to get there

Here's a screenshot

MS Avoidance screenshot

but if it is any consolation, the last 1/2 mile to my home is totally screwed up on the Navteq maps. Your GPS can only do as well as the data Navteq gives it.

I still think it is important, especially in rural areas to call and ask for directions, using the GPS as an aid, rather than relying on it as totally accurate.

BTW, having made a Navteq error report, I have read that the less populated areas are not a priority. Being a rural dweller I wish that this were not true, but I take it into consideration when using my GPS in less populated areas.

http://mapreporter.navteq.com/

I'm not sure how much good it does to report, but I feel better when I report errors I find in mapping. It sure feels better than doing nothing.

You need to talk to TerrySC. Apparently, his Zumo likes the taste of gravel roads as well.

I agree with your post completely which is why I make it a point to mark them when I find them. Now if we could share these like POI's it'd be great. I'm assuming if it is given a street name Navteq assumes it is paved. They can't verify everything.

...but got maa eye out fer um...

Terry, as far as sharing (although it's a bit more work and not an automatic avoidance), what about marking the beginning and ending points (or some other points that make sense) on the road in MapSource and then saving it as a gpx file which can be shared among other units. People could load them in their MapSource to at least be aware of them. And maybe even set them as a POI with an alert set by POI Loader to avoid them (or at least be alerted of them).

I know the ultimate goal is for Garmin to allow sharing of avoidances in MapSource, but this might be somewhat of a work-around for now.

MM that is basically what you can do with the advanced option under routing preferences. However I'm trying to determine a way to share them without having to recreate them again as a GPX file. Wish there was a way to just save it as GPX from the avoidance menu.

Maybe we can all supply info as we find it. Like you said a start and end and save as gpx, then compile them all in one larger file or by state. I'm sure there are Dual Sport riders that would like to have this info too so they could puposely locate the back roads and trails.

I'm going to be trying something similar for scenic byways too.

Well, I am a bit disappointed, tonight I asked the front desk person if my garmin was giving good directions to the place that I am going tomorrow. he said yes, but there were about 4 turns that i had to go through before i even got to my first set of directions, yikes! I am glad that I asked. However, his directions were about as backwards (in other words, I was lost) as I would have been without asking...lol

I don't yet know how if Navteq assumes a named street is paved. I'm not sure it does. I do know that Navteq shows roads where none exist in my area.

What is bad is when they take a 50 year-old paved, unamed private road, wrongly assign a name to it (a name that belongs to another road they don't even show on their map) and show it as a through street. This routes traffic over my private property. That is exactly what one of their errors does to me. Paved does not mean through or public, especially in rural areas, and sometimes Navteq just doesn't have the correct data paved or not.

I wonder where they originally got the data? In my case whoever their original reporter was, had no idea of the reality or of the property lines.

Interestingly, DeLorme has the roads mentioned above accurately portrayed. Why one has it totally right and the other has it totally wrong is beyond me.

I don't believe that DeLorme is using the same source as Garmin. The solution, though, is to report it to Navteq:

I'd suggest that you contact navteq and report it as well. I wouldn't be happy with just reporting it, I'd try to make contact with a person. Persistance may get it updated sooner than just a "normal" update, since it concerns private property.

Navteq Map Reporter

Fortunately they gave me a tracking number. In reponse to my Map Report submitted on 2007-01-22

Thanks for your suggestion lsmonop, but it looks like they have addressed it (forgive the pun).

Now I hope when the new maps come out it is actually right!

Now that they've addressed it, best case is they fix it and you won't have to go down that road again.

(Had to return the pun)

Hi all, newbie here. I took a trip recently across Southern New Hampshire, which has tons of dirt roads (even in the areas that are suburban - guess it keeps the traffic down 'cause the dirt roads in those parts have really expensive houses on 'em, but I digress). Sure enough, my TomTom (Navigator 6 on my Ipaq 4355) wanted me to take dirt roads when I had it set to "shortest distance" - though it was very quick to reroute me when I passed on taking its advice. My PT GT turbo is just not suited for those roads, especially in Mud Season. Changing to Fastest Route usually avoided the dirt roads. Next time I'll take my Subaru instead!

What was really funny is that a couple of times it wanted me to take dirt roads that clearly (judging by the size of the trees growing in the middle of them) hadn't been used in at least 30 years. It seems as though the more rural the area the more likely the maps would have those kind of inaccuracies, especially if they aren't state roads. As a comparison, they reconfigured an interchange near my house last year, and they have that right on the maps.

Now, I don't feel so bad. I* have my C340 set for NO DIRT/GRAVEL road. Yesterday, it took me down a dirt road and then wanted me to turn down another dirt road with a "private property/no tresspassing sign. Go figure?

Sometimes those private property/no tress-passing signs are not legitimate.
I have some property in Oregon next door to a guy that insists the street is his... Thats not what the city plats say.

Unfortunately for those of us that ride motorcycles, we want the shortest route and minor road selections to get the best riding. However not all motorcycles and not all riders can handle the gravel very well. When I'm alone I'll take them to see where they go but if leading a group I'm sure I'd be given a hard time about my new GPS if I took them down a gravel road or dirt trail. Some of those roads would be great on a dual sport bike though.

wow, great and entertaining feedback from all!

I had no idea that you could avoid small streets/dirt roads... I just flipped threw the instructions, and will have have to disable a few of the roads.

I also can't get my Garmin Unit to take the most popular route, and seem to pick fastest route & shortest route about equally.... and i can't rememeber if I had chosen the Shortest or Fastest route during my Trip on easter.

Hopefully next time I'm using the Garmin in the Country it doesn't choose so many w/ the avoidance set up a little better.