# Google maps



## Swerve (Jun 29, 2011)

Google Maps now includes traffic information in real time for Spain. Until now the service has only been available in Britain and USA. The new data will be available online and also on mobile devices and will show events on the roads in the previous 5 -10 minutes. Spain is one of many European countries to have the service, also available in Austria, Belgium, Czech Republic, Denmark, Germany, Ireland, Israel, Luxembourg, Holland, Poland, Slovakia and Switzerland.
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## Alcalaina (Aug 6, 2010)

Swerve said:


> Google Maps now includes traffic information in real time for Spain. Until now the service has only been available in Britain and USA. The new data will be available online and also on mobile devices and will show events on the roads in the previous 5 -10 minutes. Spain is one of many European countries to have the service, also available in Austria, Belgium, Czech Republic, Denmark, Germany, Ireland, Israel, Luxembourg, Holland, Poland, Slovakia and Switzerland.
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Sounds good - although consulting your mobile device while driving along is not such a good idea!

We used to have a thing in our car in the UK that cut in over the radio and warned us of traffic jams ahead. I presume you can get that here, but it hardly seems worth it these days as most of the traffic jams round where we live now are caused by herds of goats or cows.


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## baldilocks (Mar 7, 2010)

Alcalaina said:


> Sounds good - although consulting your mobile device while driving along is not such a good idea!
> 
> We used to have a thing in our car in the UK that cut in over the radio and warned us of traffic jams ahead. I presume you can get that here, but it hardly seems worth it these days as most of the traffic jams round where we live now are caused by herds of goats or cows.


We had one in UK (I called her Gladys - she sounded as though she had a cleft palate) but it only worked on motorways and major A-roads that had means of mounting the speed sensors, e.g. with overhead direction signs.

Doubt very much whether they exist here, though.

On the subject of Google, we used to use Google Earth Street view quite often (e.g. when going to a strange place and needing to find an address/parking/restrictions) but they seem to have changed it and it isn't as good/useful. We found it very useful when we had to go to Barcelona to visit relations and were able to see a suitable place to stop to offload the scooter for the suegra to get to the building which was in a one-way street with only a narrow lane for traffic with no stopping spaces.


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## Alcalaina (Aug 6, 2010)

baldilocks said:


> We had one in UK (I called her Gladys - she sounded as though she had a cleft palate) but it only worked on motorways and major A-roads that had means of mounting the speed sensors, e.g. with overhead direction signs.
> 
> Doubt very much whether they exist here, though.
> 
> On the subject of Google, we used to use Google Earth Street view quite often (e.g. when going to a strange place and needing to find an address/parking/restrictions) but they seem to have changed it and it isn't as good/useful. We found it very useful when we had to go to Barcelona to visit relations and were able to see a suitable place to stop to offload the scooter for the suegra to get to the building which was in a one-way street with only a narrow lane for traffic with no stopping spaces.


I use Street View a lot too - hadn't noticed any deterioration though. What's changed?


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## jimenato (Nov 21, 2009)

There is a big difference between google maps (useful for getting around and street view) and google earth (fun but IMO not quite so easy to use).


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## thrax (Nov 13, 2008)

You need the latest version of Google Earth for it to work properly but for technical reasons you can no longer zoom. You can still use the zoom function on Google maps.


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## jimenato (Nov 21, 2009)

thrax said:


> You need the latest version of Google Earth for it to work properly but for technical reasons you can no longer zoom. You can still use the zoom function on Google maps.


Oh good! I thought it was only me who couldn't zoom...


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