Howdy
Is there much call for A-Z map books these days?
I have just about every country etc, just missing 3 or 4 I think but I haven’t even looked at them in several years. They are boxed up in spare room.
Does anyone still use them?
Chalkster:
HowdyIs there much call for A-Z map books these days?
I have just about every country etc, just missing 3 or 4 I think but I haven’t even looked at them in several years. They are boxed up in spare room.
Does anyone still use them?
Can’t read the small print these days without screwing up my face and eyes like Ho Chi Min and holding them at arms length.
Most of mine date back to 80s so would be usekess anyway, so no…but I totally rely on my 600 quid sat nav 100% without question anyway. 
Donate them to a trucking museum, the young drivers of today will be so confused 
Still got and use all mine in the n.s footwell ,my 1997 London map got multiple circles in biro on nearly every page .
I gave all mine to my lads first school after his teacher asked if anybody could donate any maps. Mine too were complete with company names scribbled in, or highlighted roads for routes into a farm delivery, or short cuts etc.
Got a truckers atlas but can’t honestly remember last time I opened it.
Now just use a bog standard £60 garmin car sat nav and google maps. Yet to find myself wedged under a low bridge or stuck down a residential cul de sac!
Still use mine when going to a new drop. Then consult the prat nav.
Seldom do i need to consult a map at all these days though always carry a bridge height atlas, but during the 90’s i had a large ‘‘AA Street by Street London and the South East’’ (though i recall my first version of this wasn’t titled AA, i think was called Nicholsons) that was literally a full street map covering some 40 miles in all directions around the dump, but the most clear large scale mapping i’ve ever seen, fantastic for the job.
A big book obviously, it took a bit of balancing on the steering wheel, but luckily as i had a lorry and drag with a soft ride it tended to stay in place, though i spilled a fair bit of tea and debris from eggnbacon sarnies in the pages around some of the routes requiring more steering input than just knees
Seriously though that atlas, last published in the mid noughties, was probably my best map purchase of all time.
As we often comment here, and i know Robroy is leg pulling at 600 
, but even £300 is a ridiculous amount to pay for a satnav, the much cheaper car versions of which are perfectly adequate as a pocket sized street map of the country, not forgetting of course the sheer number of smart phones now about with access to google maps.
The thing is with maps, and to an extent Satnav if used as it should be, as a street map and a guide only, is that by plotting and finding your own route, the driver learns and remembers…following the electronic toy’s instructions to the letter the driver learns nothing, if the signal drops the driver blindly following it won’t have a clue where they are, hence the utter chaos when a motorway is suddenly closed and thousands of drivers have to hurriedly select ‘alternative route’, all then going exactly the same way which causes mayhem on the diversion.
Mine are in a box under my bed! All getting pretty old now, the blue lines are mostly rivers, not motorways! 
Pete.
Punchy Dan:
Still got and use all mine in the n.s footwell ,my 1997 London map got multiple circles in biro on nearly every page .
Same here. A circle at the street an a line to the edge of the page. Used to use me ■■■ packet to draw a straight line.
There’s not su much of a need for them these days. Nearly everyone has a smart phone which will get them access to Google maps which offers more info than an A to Z ever did.
I too still have an A to Z of Greater London which is about two inches thick and most streets are highlighted from doing multidrop work around London moons ago, but no need now as I can view it all on my phone, I can view it aerially and at street level and its up to date too.
Having said that I still won’t throw it. It’s a reminder if the haedd yards I’ve put in over the years
peterm:
Punchy Dan:
Still got and use all mine in the n.s footwell ,my 1997 London map got multiple circles in biro on nearly every page .Same here. A circle at the street an a line to the edge of the page. Used to use me ■■■ packet to draw a straight line.
■■■ packet top tipped off, so we had summat to write down address for backload, with stub of pencil tucked behind the ear. Always needing some loose change for t’phone.
Sent from my SM-G361F using Tapatalk
I have a huge collection under the stairs.
Remeber getting a London a - z once for Xmas is huge about the size of the old yellow pages.
But came in very handy.
Also got some old aa/rac hard back road atlases from the 70s maybe 80s.
There like a book hard backed has road map of the UK in it.
Then there be an enlarged map of a city centre say Manchester then about 4 pages telling you the history of the place things to do etc.
And it’s like.this for a lot of the city’s and towns.
Like an atlas and encyclopedia in one.
Keep them in hope they might be worth a few quid one day
I look like moving soon and looks like the maps will go to the charity shop or a school then. I’ve moved twice with them but see no point in keeping them now.
I’d be lost without my ipad which has two free apps on the UK Map and maps.me, both of which zoom in to street level.
Thanks for the replies everyone, you confirmed more or less what I was thinking.