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Sat-nav blunder takes coach full of Christmas shoppers to Lille...in Belgium, instead of Lille in France
Last updated at 13:52pm on 12.12.07Fifty Christmas shoppers taking a coach trip to Lille in France ended up 100 miles away in a Belgian town with the same name - thanks to another sat-nav blunder.
The mistake meant the furious trippers had to spend an extra four hours on their coach as the red-faced driver headed from the town in the middle of Belgium (population 15,000) to the French city (population 220,000) they had first intended.
By the time the coach party from Gloucestershire arrived in France, they only had two hours to spend in the shops before they closed for the night.
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After leaving Cheltenham, the driver of the coach ended up 100 miles off course in Lille, Belgium (ringed, right) when they should have arrived in Lille, France (ringed, centre)
"It was ridiculous," said one passenger. "The coach driver obviously had two Lilles to choose from on his sat-nav and he picked the wrong one.
"A few of us started to wonder what was going on when we saw signs for Eindhoven, which clearly isn't in France.
"But the driver wouldn't be told - he insisted he knew what he was doing.
"When it became glaringly obvious we were heading the wrong way there were some mixed emotions on board.
"A few people were laughing and joking about it - but others were pretty annoyed and they told the driver so.
"We ended up spending more than seven hours on the bus which is not my idea of a great day trip."
The trippers were all from the Cheltenham and Gloucester Sports and Social Club and had saved up during the year for the £150-a-head trip to Lille to do some Christmas shopping in the city which stands on the Deule River in northern France.
Past sat-nav blunders have seen lorry drivers being directed down roads unsuitable for large vehicles, leading to them becoming trapped.
Some passengers on the Lille-bound coach didn't to see the funny side of the situation and are now asking for their money back.
"We ended up only having two hours in the Lille shops so it was all a bit of a rush and a lot of us weren't able to buy as much as we wanted," added the passenger.
"The whole trip was blighted, really, because on the trip back to Ostend the next morning, following our night in a hotel, the driver switched off his sat-nav - but ended up on a road with a low bridge that he couldn't get under.
"He had to retrace his steps and find another road - which added another hour to the time we spent on the bus.
"We are all hoping after this debacle that we will have our money refunded because we didn't get what we paid for."
A spokesman for the C&G Sports and Social Club said: "We're very sorry that our staff and families have been disappointed in this instance, especially as we run so many successful coach trips throughout the course of the year.
"The committee will be meeting to look at ways to make this up to the staff involved."
The trippers were all from the Cheltenham and Gloucester Sports and Social Club and had saved up during the year for the £150-a-head trip
Reader views (10)
Here's a sample of the latest views published.
I drive coaches and trucks and I use sat nav, but alas I always check on an old fashioned road map before i set off. Im Pretty sure there are signs for Lille just outside calais?. The sad thing is many people brought up with this technology wont know how to use a map book. A sign of the times.
- Tommycee, Welling Kent England.
This isn't a "sat nav blunder", this is a "driver blunder". As your story says the sat nav gave two options, Lille in France and Lille in Belgium, if the driver doesn't have a grasp of basic geography that's not the fault of the sat nav.
- Dk, London, UK
Sat nav was designed for use by vessels at sea, but even sailors don't use them without a chart. It only goes to show how many car and lorry drivers can be taken in by clever marketing - that you don't need to know how to use a map in order to get somewhere.
- Peter Haldane, London
You should not be a coach or any driver for that matter if you can not read a map and road signs. No one should solely rely on sat nav, it should just be an aide.
- Brandon Thomas, London UK
Oh for goodness' sake, fire the driver for gross intelligence failure!
- Marianne, SW France
Didn't the 'Welcome to Belgium' signs ring an alarm bell or two?
- Paul, London
Perhaps sat nav should only be sold to customers after they have successfully passed an IQ test.
- Casper, Ibiza, Spain
This was not a Sat Nav error, it was clearly a driver error. When will these foolish drivers learn that any Sat Nav only issues guidance based on what you ask it to do? Luckily the driver did not drive off the end of Dover pier when following the Sat Nav route across the channel!
Would anyone blame a paper map if they picked the wrong town when planning their route?
- Tom, Watford UK
Why complain? I think Lille in Belgium is a beautiful little place to wander around. Lovely old, yet still working, windmills and beautiful houses with wonderfully neat gardens (scarily tidy gardens in fact). The locals are nicknamed the 'Krawaten'. I know this trivia because I race bicycles and they have a race there each year: Krawatencross.
- Threaded, Roskilde, Denmark
This was quite clearly driver error and not sat nav error.
The sat nav would have shown him all the Lille options and he pressed the wrong option.
- Caroline, City of London
