11 replies to this topic

[THE STIG]

right agreed to buy a car its in carlisle it says in the classifieds is its 173 miles away

when looked up directions its 223 miles away how can it be so far of thats just added 100 miles and 2 hours to my trip plus the exrta fuel costs

can some one answer this

[Jordie]

The classifieds system works of postcodes. IE. The first part of the postcode.

Now for example, you could live miles away from someone but share the same first part of the post code. Example GH3

My brother lives 20miles away from me and has the same start to his postcode.

Not forgetting, that the distance between postcode to postcode in a straight line is less then the distance travelled by car.

Jordie

[Team Loxley Racing]

Usually the mileage is done as the crow flies... Not as the road goes.

[THE STIG]

The classifieds system works of postcodes. IE. The first part of the postcode.

Now for example, you could live miles away from someone but share the same first part of the post code. Example GH3

My brother lives 20miles away from me and has the same start to his postcode.

Not forgetting, that the distance between postcode to postcode in a straight line is less then the distance travelled by car.

Jordie

so whats the point in having the thing on there if its that inacurate !!!!!

my car cant not fly so as the crow flies is of no use what so ever not even as a rough guide if its that far out

[gav]

At least it give you a rough idea most sites wouldnt even have the feature.

[project mini chris]

when i picked up some designer seats from bristol, the thing said it was 107miles from my postcode of LU3 and we discovered it was over 150, never mind, we got the seats and got home safe, thats all that amtters

[Jordie]

It would be a genius piece of php coding to work out the mileage from post code to post code via the shortest route via a road vehicle.

If you dont like it, dont use it then. Simples

Its there as an estimate/guide of distance as said above, as the crow flies!

Ebay is the same. Search for item 50miles from me, find one 50miles from me, but it took 68miles to get there because of the route.

[THE STIG]

It would be a genius piece of php coding to work out the mileage from post code to post code via the shortest route via a road vehicle.

If you dont like it, dont use it then. Simples

Its there as an estimate/guide of distance as said above, as the crow flies!

Ebay is the same. Search for item 50miles from me, find one 50miles from me, but it took 68miles to get there because of the route.

i have know idea how its worked out i am not very computer savi

i wont use it again now i know its a waste of time

am not sycic how am i to know its as the crow flies does not state that ?

well never looked on ebay how far stuff is i look up the distances on multimap

think people missing the point i used the distance in the classified to work out the time and fuel needed to fetch the car agreed to buy it then when seller sent me there adress find out its 100 miles more adding time and fuel costs

had it not been there would have just used multimap as i normally do, but it said put in your post code and told me it was 173 miles away did not say as the crow flies or that its only a rough guide

as post above shows am not the only person to be caught out by it

Edited by THE STIG, 13 October 2009 - 05:09 PM.

[shorty]

don't actually have to type in the post code but it is a nightmare when that happens.

i will usually just use google map to see how far away it is

[BGB]

its may not be accurate to the mile but i use it so when i look at something that needs picked up i would know i wouldn tbe going to Somerset for it.

being a rough distance guage is better than having to look up google maps every 30 seconds

[Adcuz]

It would be a genius piece of php coding to work out the mileage from post code to post code via the shortest route via a road vehicle

Not quite true, it's pretty easy to map a full postcode within a few miles. If the system was storing full postcodes then it would be easy to put something together that would do this with the Google Maps API.

[Jammy]

How would our computer systems know what route you were going to take?

Plus if it did try and lookup the quickest or shortest route, doing that for every advert listed on one page would add minutes to the time it would take to load each page. I'm sure a lot of people would start complaining if that was the case!

It's only there for a rough guide, for every person who finds it is out by 30 miles, I'm sure there is another person who finds it is pretty accurate, law of averages. If you really don't like it that much, don't use it, simples.