More Blame the SatNav

We have some “research” that is apparently telling us that satnavs impair our driving ability.

Sat-nav systems can not only sometimes send motorists the wrong way but also impair driving, a study suggests.

None of those I have owned has ever sent me the wrong way. I’ve occasionally gone the wrong way, but that was driver error.

I suppose it had to happen sooner or later. It happened with the “mobile phones cause cancer” nonsense a decade ago. Every new advance in technology has its gainsayers and there will inevitably be effort put in to try and discredit it. So, no, no surprises here.

The study suggested motorists did not drive as safely when they were trying to concentrate on the directions given.

While they could cope with simple instructions, they started to swerve, speed up or fail to notice pedestrians if they had too much information.

Sigh… Try navigating with a paper map on the passenger seat. Try navigating with a passenger giving instructions –  sometimes poorly worded and confusing –  then compare that with simple direct commands from a satnav. I have never found the instructions confusing or misleading. That doesn’t mean I haven’t taken the wrong turning, of course. On a busy intersection with multiple options, sometimes the driver misreads the layout and takes the wrong one. So what? It isn’t dangerous. The satnav will recalculate and come up with an alternative route –  much like that passenger who is map reading. The point being; that any driver attempting to navigate unfamiliar roads will be distracted to an extent from the main driving task as they try to decide which lane to adopt and which exit to take –  it’s a problem that is as old as driving. Can’t say I have swerved or tried to run over pedestrians, though.

Of course, some drivers are confused by the slightest input –  even to the point of finding road signs distracting.

Lead researcher Polly Dalton, from the department of psychology at University of London’s Royal Holloway college, told the BBC that the gadgets needed to be kept simple.

I agree.

“It’s important not to make those directions too complicated because that runs the risk of asking them to keep too much information in mind when they are also trying to concentrate on the driving task.”

They aren’t. How is “at the roundabout, take the second exit” complicated? Or, as mine does, take a turning giving the street name? Bloody hell, but if this is too complicated, then these people don’t deserve to hold driving licences.

But she added that listening to instructions was still safer than looking at a map.

Funny, I could have sworn I heard someone say that already…

I do hope we aren’t paying for this bollocks.