Know your route

I was recently made aware of the perils of blindly following maps to employment tribunals found on the http://www.employmenttribunals.gov.uk/ website.

Normally I check where a tribunal or court is in relation to car parking or the train station by using a map service such as multimap or streetmap but I was kindly provided with a map for Bedford Tribunal printed off the employment tribunal website.

Easy I thought so I didn’t bother to check it. Bad mistake. The map bears little or no resemblance to the actual streets and pedestrian areas between the train station and the tribunal. I walked for 10 minutes to find I was in a pedestrian area that was not on the map. There were no signs to the tribunal. I was lost. I then found a taxi and gave him my map. Bad mistake. It confused him so much it took over 5 minutes for us to start our journey and that was only after he scratched his head in bemusement and asked a fellow taxi driver for directions (he was told the map was rubbish).

The route we took was not shown on the map at all and none of the roads were marked. It cost £5 and yet when I walked the return journey (the most direct route I could take from memory which did go through a pedestrian area) it took me a little over 5 minutes.

So if you are going to Bedford check out your route on a more reliable and accurate map site.
Amy K