Oh good grief

[pcolbeck]

Why should a SatNav be any worse than the rest of the instruments in a car ? If you cant glance at a SatNav and see which direction the big red arrow is pointing then you cant glance at your rev counter or speedometer. A defy anyone to memorise a route to somewhere in the middle of a big town that they don't know and be able to navigate it in real time especially when roadworks or a new one way system push you off your chosen route. I used to use a map all the time no problem but most of them don't go down to the level of detail you need, you need an A2Z for that and these days there is often no where to pull over and look at a map or A2Z when you realise you have gone wrong. Not all towns are well signposted either. Leeds is notoriously bad. So you end up approaching a junction with a three lane approach and have no idea which lane you should be in. SatNav says bear left so you now know. Much less stressful
and much less last minute lane changing so you can concentrate on the traffic rather than on searching for signs.
I love my SatNav for that last two or three miles as has been said by several others.

[Polar Bear]

Er, I've missed something significant here, or maybe not.  Isn't the very point of in-car satnav that you give it your destination and it talks to you?   If you go off route it tries to get you back on route, and it doesn't need you to keep looking at it or playing with it.

Last item I was a passenger in a car with satnav that's exactly what it did and got us to where we were going.       

[pcolbeck]

You can turn the voice off if it's annoying and just leave the display on. It usually shows a representation of teh section of the road ahead with a red line indicating the route. As junctions come up you get an arrow showing you which way to go.

[Polar Bear]

So basically, people have this incredibly useful and safe tool and they turn off the voice thus making it less useful, and, causing the driver to have to take their eyes off the road to look at it, then potentially fiddle if they don't understand what is happening.

How dumb is that?

[pcolbeck]

You have to take your eyes off the road to look at the speedo.

[Polar Bear]

Indeed but only to glance momentarily.  What if the momentary glance to the satnav where lots ore could be happening causes you to become distracted?   And surely it is better to keep to the minimum the number of momentary glances rather than increase them?

[David Martin]

You have to take your eyes off the road to look at the speedo.

In a discussion with the late Paul Smith I countered this argumentwith calculations that demonstrated an increased safety through looking at a speedo for 1 second every minute to maintain 30mph versus travelling at 35 without.

So even numptys who can't drive at a constant speed without frequently referencing the speedo  are safer keeping their speed down.

..d

[Polar Bear]

OK, so it's not an actual GPS but...