James Bryce
MEN are more likely to disregard a satnav when it gives them the wrong directions.
That’s according to a survey that found that drivers, on average, are sent nearly 10 kms away from their intended destination by ‘untrustworthy, inaccurate’ navigation.
The study also revealed that eight out of 10 drivers say they have defied directions provided by satnavs, believing them to be less efficient than alternatives such as maps.
While some 83 per cent of men say they regularly defy their satnav’s suggested direction, around 74 per cent of women do the same.
More than half of motorists say they have argued with a passenger over satnav directions.
Some 60 per cent of women admit to starting the argument.
The findings, by insurance firm Swinton, suggest a growing sense of frustration at the unreliability of satellite navigation systems.
The study follows the death of a Spanish man who drowned after his satnav sent him into a reservoir last year.
The 37-year-old followed directions on the GPS device, which had not been updated to show La Serena reservoir at Capilla, near Badajoz.
In El Gastor a Canadian tourist drove down a narrow street with steps after his GPS system told him to go there last week.
Steve Jefferies told the Olive Press: “It was terrifying. A group of local youngsters had to lift me back onto the right road.
“It is very narrow and steep up there and it could have been much more serious.”
A Satnav device is just a tool, an aid to navigation not a driving instructor! There was an occasion when we were driving through Dijon in France when the Satnav told me to turn left, but the local authority had changed the road layout and such a manouvre had been forbidden, a quick check of the road signs made that obvious. The good thing though, was that, having turned right, the machine was able to guide me back onto my journey again, a feat the local road signs were totally inadequate to perform.
I was also horribly lost in Paris once without the Satnav and it took me seven hours to get back out again using maps. Satnavs are wonderful things but they are not infallible as anyone who has used one for any length of time will know, I regularly ignore mine on roads I am familiar with. Even updating the mapping system regularly doesn’t necessarily help as sometimes unfinished roads are included to try and keep the current update accurate for a reasonable time.
The trick is to remember that a drivers attention needs to be firmly focused on the road, not on the satnav, if it looks wrong, then it quite possibly is! For my own part, as a regular user, particulalrly on long journeys, I would much rather use a Satnav than to be lost, it only needs a bit of common sense.