Navigon and iPhone - perfect!

I've had the Navigon software on my iPhone for a few days now. On Monday evening I went to meet an old friend for dinner in Lagos, which is not familiar territory for me. The Navigon system took me straight to his hotel (buried in the tiny back streets) and then we headed for a restaurant on the other side of the town. Our destination was in a pedestrian street in the heart of the old city. This proved the value of having the SatNav in my phone - seeing from the (very clear) display that we were within a few hundred metres of the target, I spotted a parking place and dived into it. It was then a simple matter of pulling the iPhone out of its dashboard mount, changing the journey "profile" to "pedestrian" and completing the journey on foot. Flawless!

This aspect of needing to complete the last part of a journey on foot convinces me absolutely that it's better to have a phone-based navigation system rather than a dedicated SatNav. Although some of the aftermarket systems have battery support, you'd feel a bit of an idiot walking along with a 7" Navigon screen in your hands! And even less useful would be a SatNav built into the car - once you've parked, how are you going to remember the 8 turns between your parking place and your destination?

iPhone rocks!

Navigon and iPhone

I just got the Navigon SatNav software for my iPhone. Finally, the iPhone is now the "do everything" tool it's supposed to be. I chose Navigon rather than TomTom on the advice of a friend, who told me the 3D display is better.

Since I'll only need it occasionally I dismiss absolutely the argument I've seen elsewhere on the web that it's "not as good" as a dedicated unit. Since I already have a dedicated dash-mount (with charger) for the iPhone, it does the job efficiently and safely.

I have to do a quick trip up to Lisbon tomorrow, to a place I've never been before - so that will be the "acid test".

Parking madness

What is it about parking in Portugal? Portuguese drivers seem to think they can double-park wherever they want, blocking other people in.

My apartment is in a backstreet of Loulé. On the ground floor is a popular café and several solicitors' offices. On my side of the street cars park along the kerb. On the far side, there is a parking bay for cars to park perpendicular to the street. All day long cars arrive to visit the café or one of the offices and, if no parking place immediately outside their intended destination is available, they simply double-park, blocking in two or three legitimately parked cars. Naturally, when the owner of one of the blocked cars wants to leave, they lean on their horn to attract the attention of the offending driver. This means that, sitting here in my office, I have to listen to the insistent blasting of car horns all day long. And frequently, when I want to go out, I find myself blocked in by one of these arrogant idiots.

Furthermore, often when I arrive home in the middle of the day and wish to park, I find an empty parking slot blocked by a double-parked car - yes! they are even too lazy to turn into a vacant spot, preferring to block it and two other cars! I've even seen an offending driver come out from the café to let someone out, then reverse back into his original position, thereby blocking the now-empty spot from being used by anyone else!

When the offenders do eventually emerge to move their car they rarely, if ever, show any sign of remorse or guilt, or even haste. On the occassions when I have challenged them for their arrogance and rudeness, they bristle with offence at my anger, claiming variously that they "were only five minutes" or "this is how it's done in Portugal".

Well, enough is enough! I'm going to start a one-man campaign against these rude, arrogant morons. If the police won't help (which I strongly doubt they will), I'm going to print up some multi-lingual notices and spend a day or two gluing them to the windshields of offending parkers.

Does any other country suffer from this kind of pig-headed, self-centred rudeness by drivers?

Police protection?

Here's a driving tip for non-Portuguese residents and visitors using any kind of motorised vehicle in the Algarve: don't get stopped by the police!

The traffic cops here are the BT/GNR (Brigada de Trânsito of the Guarda Nacional Republicana). And guess what? They don't like "rich foreigners". As usual with public services, they are overworked and underpaid, so I cannot blame them at all being pissed off most of the time. But it stills hurts when you get on the wrong end of them.

A few months back I was riding in medium traffic on the EN125 (a main east-west road here in the Algarve). A few cars ahead of me were two traffic cops on bikes. One of them was riding in a way that can only be described as "like a jerk". He was weaving his bike from side to side, standing up on the foot pegs, slowing down to a crawling pace then speeding up again. The driver of the car immediately behind him was obviously in distress, not knowing what to do with this lunatic clowning around in front of him. I watched in amazement as this guy committed a string of motoring offences, any one of which would have rightfully got ME in trouble if I'd done it front of HIM.

Finally, I lost my cool: I pulled alongside him and made a hand gesture that suggested he was not setting a good example to other road-users. In three seconds they had their flashing lights on, sirens going, and had pulled me over. I was then subjected to a very aggressive inspection of my documents (together with an absolute refusal to speak Portuguese slowly enough for me to understand them). Unfortunately, the insurance certificate I had with me had expired and the new one was still on my desk in my office. They (gleefully) escorted me to the police station and then took two hours to issue a simple fine. During this time I was warned, in no uncertain terms, against making any official complaint. After finally being released, I decided to let it slide: life's too short and all that.

Two weeks later, I was pulled over by a roadside random check team. I'd forgotten to switch on the headlight of my bike: an offence, even for a bike bigger than some Japanese hatchbacks and at midday on a clear sunny day. They fined me 60 Euros on the spot. If I hadn't happened to have 60 Euros in my wallet, they would have confiscated the bike.

Enough! The next day I went to the police station and asked to see the boss. How come, I asked him, I can witness 6000 traffic violations per hour when I'm out on the road and yet rarely see anyone being pulled over for the most heinous infractions? How come I can see beaten up old Zundapps on the road with no brake lights, no front or rear lights and completely bald tyres? How come I have to close the front windows of my apartment at night to block out the revving engines and screeching tyres of the nocturnal "tuning" morons, without ever seeing one being chased by a police car? How come all of this and then it's ME, a responsible motorist with 25 years bike and car experience, that can pick up 200 Euros of fines in two weeks for... what? For nothing important!

He was a polite, well-educated man and he listened in quiet amazement to my complaint that the greatest part of my offences was to have been "a rich foreigner". He asked me to identify the officers involved in the first incident. He explained to me that he was shorted-staffed, under-budgeted, etc. Would he refund my fines? No. Could he assure me that such injustices would not occur again? No.

Was it a satisfactory ending for me? Not really, but I'm glad I complained. Somebody should.