Skip to main content

Satellite navigation 'has made drivers lazy'

A majority of UK drivers have no idea of how to read a map and are likely to find themselves hopelessly lost without their satellite navigation (satnav) system. That's the shocking finding of a UK vehicle leasing company which has found that people rely on their electronic devices so heavily that they often have no idea of the route they've taken to reach their destination. In addition, Flexed.co.uk has found that virtually everybody who has used a satellite navigation device has found themselves lost
October 30, 2014 Read time: 2 mins
A majority of UK drivers have no idea of how to read a map and are likely to find themselves hopelessly lost without their satellite navigation (satnav) system.

That's the shocking finding of a UK vehicle leasing company which has found that people rely on their electronic devices so heavily that they often have no idea of the route they've taken to reach their destination.

In addition, %$Linker: 2 External <?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-16"?><dictionary /> 0 0 0 oLinkExternal Flexed.co.uk Visit flexed website false http://flexed.co.uk/ false false%> has found that virtually everybody who has used a satellite navigation device has found themselves lost in the last mile of a journey at some time or other because it is unable to take them to the exact spot to which they're driving.

Flexed spoke to 1,150 private and commercial drivers about their satellite navigation use, and found: seven per cent of people who use a satnav rely on it totally on a journey; 63 per cent of drivers don't bother with road signs when they're using a satnav device; 60 per cent say they can't read a paper map; 81 per cent say they probably wouldn't find an unfamiliar place again if they had used satnav to get there in the first place; 91 per cent say they've got lost in the last mile of a journey because the device has announced they've arrived ‘too early; only nine per cent said they research the route before taking an unfamiliar journey.

"It's becoming very clear that satellite navigation is making drivers lazy," says Flexed.co.uk spokesman Johnny Ratcliffe, "And it's got to the point where people arrive at their destination with no clear idea how they got there.

“In the old days it would have been a map, forward planning and using the eyes in my head.”

Flexed.co.uk urges drivers to do the same and says that people should become more familiar with the forgotten skills of map-reading.

Related Content

  • Scoot Networks to deploy electric scooters in Chile
    October 23, 2018
    Scoot Networks will gradually deploy 500 electric scooters in Santiago, Chile, to offer citizens a more sustainable mobility option. The pilot programme will take place in Las Condes' business district as part of an agreement with mayor Joaquin Lavin. Gonzalo Cortez, general manager for Santiago, says the scooters reduce air pollution, make streets safer, keep money in the local economy and makes mobility more affordable. In June, Scoot delivered 500 electric scooters and 1,000 electric bicycles in
  • ITS World Congress hosts European Commission’s 3rd ITS Conference
    September 26, 2012
    On 22 October 2012 the European Commission is organising its 3rd Conference on Intelligent Transport in Europe within the framework of the 19th ITS World Congress at Messe Wien, Room Stolz 1&2 and foyer Stolz. The main objective of the conference is to provide and discuss results of the ITS Action Plan and to present the status of the implementation of the ITS Directive 2010/40/EU. Additionally, the presentations will address legal issues for ITS deployment as well as European multimodal journey planners.
  • ITS America free webinar series: Connected vehicles and the environment
    December 7, 2012
    The third webinar of the AERIS autumn/winter 2012-2013 webinar series will take place on Wednesday, 12 December 2012 at 1:00 pm EST. The webinar will provide an overview of the draft concept of operations for the dynamic low emissions zones transformative concept. As part of the AERIS program's efforts to develop ways in which real-time transportation system data could improve the operation of the surface transportation network, six transformative concepts, or bundles of applications, were identified. Each
  • FLIR aims to build on US successes with infrared-spectrum cameras
    October 24, 2012
    FLIR is looking at this show to promote awareness of the successes its infrared-spectrum cameras have achieved in the US market, and to emulate those gains elsewhere in the world. Infrared cameras score over their visible light competitors for applications such as Automated Incident Detection (AID) and vulnerable road user detection, according to Dan Dietrich, the company’s Manager, Traffic & ITS. “Detecting bicycles and pedestrians is challenging for visible-spectrum cameras in certain conditions but becau