What Three Words

On many sites, people have been promoting the commercial location system What Three Words and of course there is an expensive advertising campaign promoting it.

I have never liked it and see that Mountain Rescue Teams have now criticised its use.

Rescuers question what3words' use in emergencies

I gather that it far easier for the general public to use than lat/long and NGRs which are probably more like to to be incorrect than W3W. Also three words are much easier to say and not be misinterpreted than 6 or 10 digits over a dodgy mobile phone signal. Despite the faults highlighted I suspect it will be much easier and safer to use.

I doubt many people pronounce numbers in a way that is clear and unambiguous or use the phonetic alphabet.

There is a tendency, with everyone using computer maps, to use obscure locations marked on the maps that few people have heard of. Traffic Scotland are fond of doing this. A few years ago the A82 was closed in the town, the VMS from the North side of Glasgow onwards had it showing as closed at <name of an old croft> so cars and coaches were arriving not expecting the closure.

Late one night the Coastguard were looking for two persons reported in the water, they kept giving the location as the name of small stream joining the loch that was marked on the map. By chance large private yacht (gin palace) was heading down the loch and did not respond to the calls because they obviously had no idea where it was. Then someone showed a bit of common sense and gave the location as off the main car park. The yacht returned, launched its RIB and had the crew of the yacht manning their searchlights (the CG have no boat locally and have to wait an hour for the RNLI to arrive).