How do you remember driving route?

Question

I am new to this country. I have difficulties in remembering the driving route, I mean names of individual routes (I have GPS, but my question is I want to remember some basic routes by heart, but I have difficulties in remember the route name, e..g M3 --> A303 --> A30 , I find these names got no meaning and is so difficult to remember, I keep on asking my husband what is the name of this road, and I hate myself being so stupid). Do you have this feeling same as me, how do you stop this feeling of being useless

Answer 1

When I first started driving I used to plan my route and write on a piece of paper the places I would go through to get to my destination, that way I could look for towns and villages on the road signs rather than remembering the actual names. It always worked for me, sometimes I would end up going through villages rather than round them but I saw some great british scenery on the way!

Answer 2

Don't feel bad.  I moved to a new city (not even a new country with new road-naming conventions) and it took me months to make sense of the downtown streets.

What helped me and may help you is that I used various maps - google maps, yahoo maps, and mapquest - and looked at different views when I had some free time (not in the car).  Then when I drove the route, it would make more sense in light of what I'd seen on the map.

But mostly - give yourself some time, and relax about not recalling the route numbers.

Answer 3

Always carry a map and study it carefully before starting driving. You can write down the numbers of all the roads you'll need to pass and then just watch for the signs. There are always signs!

Answer 4

Use landmarks, restaurants, stores Etc to help you remember...dont worry, all women are useless on the road, thats what us men are for ;)

Answer 5

you are not the 's' word so stop putting yourself down......'b' roads are minor roads 'a' roads are what we has prior to motorways and 'm' roads are motorways..on a map m roads are blue...we aint got many so its not hard to memorise them..a roads are like a big plate of spaghetti...all over the place and b roads are like the olde england roads that were a bit of a throwback...some really minor roads have grass growing up the centre..some like watling street are in the same route the romans gave us...how lazy is that....most towns in england are seven or so miles apart ...ask why...go on you know you want to.....its because seven miles was about what you could travel years ago on foot in a day....from market to market...then the bicycle came followed by canal and railways....all stopped us from becoming inbred lunatics...now we have this wonderful leagacy of potholes and tailbacks....how civilised...lol

Answer 6

The more you drive them, the better you'll remember them.  I'm terrible at navigation myself, so I keep a lot of directions written down and in my car, so I have them handy until I have the route memorized.  Write directions down, and then don't throw them out.  Keep them in a notebook or a folder in your car.  That way you won't have to keep asking.  

If you know you're going someplace new, you can look up directions online, and then write them down ahead of time.

Answer 7

First of all stop feeling sorry for yourself, and secondly if you have sat nav why the h**l do you want to remember routes by heart.  There is always something that us poor plebs do that can't afford sat nav - you read the bloody road signs!

Answer 8

Some people do it by landmarks, as i did i had to learn loads of routes as a bus driver and driving one of those is not like can do a three point turn or u-turn like you can in the car, i always carried my map i color coded all the routes in my bag just in case.

Try a note pad on the dash or blue tack it to the steering wheel with nice big writing on it, otherwise drive the roures when you can with a time schedule and repeat parts you you cannot get into your mind, ok it is going to cost you in petrol but when you drive you take more notice of other things than you do when you are  a passenger.

Answer 9

i always have a notepad on the dash and writedown the route this way you start to remember the roads

Answer 10

Most answers above.  Also i find i can sit and read maps like books.  That helps.  Also remember that the numbers are related.  Like the A120 is off the A12, the A303 0ff the A30 etc.  When you've done more driving it will come naturally,

Answer 11

Landmarks