School speed zones

Did you look on this page?

http://www.poi-factory.com/poifiles/us/schools

I downloaded these poi's but discovered that unless you were actually on a route, the proximity alert would not sound. Even then, the alert sounded only when within the set distance from the actual school location, not where the actual zpeed zone was. Not much use for me, think I will delete them.

That is why I put the distance to be 1/2 mile. And you are right, unless you enroute to the school, it doesn't alert, but who cares cause you won't be going through the zone anyways.

Thanks, Copied and pasted the URL and dowloaded northeast schools

I suppose that would be true of the Interstate Rest Stops POI's, as well. You probably have to be on a route for the alerts to work, too. I wonder if I route a trip from Az to CA, if the rest stop alerts would sound or if you actually have to be on a route specifically to a rest stop for the alert to sound? Anybody try it and know?

In order for any alerts to sound you must be on the road on which the POI is located headed toward the POI.

It will also (usually) alert if you are on a road PARALLEL to the road that the POI is on, IF the alert distance is set large enough.

The alert will usually NOT sound if you are on a road that is PERPENDICULAR to the road the the POI is on even it you are linearly within the alert distance.

The alert distance does not work like a bubble surrounding the POI. I will not alert in 360 degrees.

You don't have to be NAVIGATING a route for them to alert, however.

I'm afraid I have to respectfully disagree with that MM. I drove around the city and deliberately drove though 8 or 9 school zone that were in my gps CSV file and discovered that ONLY when I was navigating a route would the alert sound. When I drove back to the same school zone and same path, WITHOUT being on a ROUTE the alerts would not sound. As I mentioned, the alets sounded, not when I was in a school zone but when near the school, it self. And that was probbaly because I had the proximity set to only 1200 ft. when I should have set it to 5000 ft.

My previous unit - Nuvi 350, and my present Nuvi 660 alert in both circumstances - running a route, or not. But I did have the setting enabled on them to alert for custom POIs.

I have the Garmin 2720. When running poi loader in manual mode, I set all of the alerts for School zones but is there a setting that you can enable alerts for custom poi's? Maybe I am missing something about an alert setting for custom poi's.
As I said, I did extensive "research" and drove around for a couple of hours, 2 and 3 times around the same school zone, same streets and same path, getting different results with the alerts when in a "route" mode and not.

I hit the spanner on the main screen, then, on the setting menu, select 'proximity points', I get 'Alerts' and a button to push that says 'Change...'hit thatn, and up comes check-box for Custom POIs I can check or un-check, and at the bottom, an 'Audio' button...selecting that, I can choose from "single tone", "continuous-speed alerts" and "Continuous-all alerts".

No problem disagreeing. Maybe that's how your unit works. That's kinda weird. My Zumo alerts exactly as I described. Maybe some else with a 2720 will chime in with their experiences.

Note that the alert will be distanced off where the POI Location is not necessarily where the school zone is since your GPSr doesn't really know where that is unless you tell it. As you discovered, setting a greater alert might be in order.

Thanks, well, I did find a "custom alerts" setting on my unit and it was set to speed zones "only". I changed it to "all..continuous", so maybe that will make a difference. I'll try it.

I do not know that I would rely on any POI to inform me of a school zone. The areas are usually well-marked and I know of a number of areas where police officers sit on their perimeters waiting for the person who fails to properly slow their vehicles to a safe and legal speed. In fact, I know of one case where a person was cited at approximately 10 p.m. for failing to slow even though the sign said "When Children Are Present". The judge upheld the citation with the admonition that one must ALWAYS presume children are present. At any rate, this is one area where I would not rely on some warning to tell me to slow down. Too many lives are at stake. Locally, a little 5 year old girl lost her life this week in a crosswalk. It was not a school zone but it is incumbent on all of us to be eternally vigilant for children. That is my view and not meant to be negative in any way.