Safe Speed Forums

IMO there's very little out there that is extremely bright, colourful and flickering when you're driving on a motorway. Billboards, neon signs etc tend to be accompanied by another light source which makes them less likely to draw the eye.

Oh and by the way, I can draw my attention away from the screens, I was just saying that they are distracting

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Science won over religion when they started installing lightning rods on churches.

Hi Gixxer,
While I appreciate what you're saying, I think Sixy has a very good point. LCD displays are inherently distracting whether they are in your vehicle or another one. Especially at night. As I said in an earlier point, our eyes are naturally drawn towards these things no matter how skilled or disciplined we believe we are. It's an added distraction in a driving environment that already has too many.
Stick one of these things in your windscreen and no matter how good you think you are it will without question take your eyes off the road more.
Our community of safety enthusiasts readily criticise speed bumps, traffic-calming buildouts, illuminated signs, mobile phones et al so I'm finding it impossible to square those things with what seems to be a hefty defence of windscreen satnav.

That all depends who programs it. On one occasion I let my boss set the destination while I drove. I was convinced we were going the wrong way but he insisted I follow the sat nav. He'd got the right road name but the wrong town! Fortunately we were only about 10 miles from where we needed to be...

The prosecution rests.

What do you mean "The prosecution rests"

The SatNav didn't fail, the idiot programming it was the cause of arriving at the wrong destination.

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What makes you think I'm drunk officer, have I got a fat bird with me?

Exactly, but I have to be careful when I decide to call the boss an idiot

Blind reliance on technology over using the evidence one's eyes, experience and knowledge is a mistake, whoever makes it. You thought this guy was wrong but you still went along with it. How many drivers believe what satnav is telling to do in conradiction of all the real facts right in front of them? "Don't think, just follow the display."

Now would these people , using a map check whether the road they passed should be on their left or right ???

Suspect if they did they'd say map was wrong

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lets bring sanity back to speed limits.
Drivers are like donkeys -they respond best to a carrot, not a stick .Road safety experts are like Asses - best kept covered up ,or sat on

I get the tiniest feeling you are exaggerating to prove a point. I don't think any of us blindly follow the Sat Nav; we tend to use it as an aid rather than the absolute guidance. I still look at the road signs but don't need them so much and it helps enourmously when those sign disappear.

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Shooting is good for you and too good for some people.

Not an exageration, please read the previous posts. The chap's boss made an error then blindly followed the satnav. And got them both lost.

Not completely true. I told him I thought it was wrong but since I had never been to this place, but he had, I just had to go with what he and the sat nav said.

When I program my sat nav I do it indoors and if necessary with a map to check against (not so easy with the built in devices!). So far I have not ended up in the wrong place.

I don't think you are ever really lost with a sat nav. You might not be in the right place but that's another story

Had it been any other relationship rather than boss and employee I am sure they would've checked rather than follow blindly against instincts.

As semitone said he didn't want to call his boss an idiot.

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Shooting is good for you and too good for some people.

I do that a lot but it doesn't stop him thinking he's right all the time

The answer to that precise question is probably 0%. But I think it's the wrong question.

My best guess is that the across the board 'balance of distraction' is less with sat nav than without. Obviously without sat nav we have millions of drivers looking for street names and the like...



I agree with these points, but I dispute that the pub TV is comparable to a familiar sat nav.

As for digital dash boards (and digital watches) - I've always avoided them like the plague. I like a good analogue display and always recognised the limitations of digital displays.

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Paul Smith
Our scrap speed cameras petition got over 28,000 sigs
The Safe Speed campaign demands a return to intelligent road safety

OK, in an urban situation that may be reasonable. Now, how about the long motorway trips with no need at all for satnav but there's still this LCD screen permanently stuck in the driver's view continuously telling them that it's a big straight road and there's no need to manoeuvre. Even more importantly, to go back to my previous post, the temptation for the less-able is to fiddle with / program / admire / play with / be distracted by this thing all the time. Thus taking eyes off the road.

I still cannot believe that having what amounts to a computer screen stuck on one's windscreen can possibly be safer that not having one there. The view that satnav is an overall benefit seems at complete odds with the safety philosophy of SS.

I just have to ask - before I answer - have you actually lived with one for a few weeks (i.e. past the 'new toy' stage)?

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Paul Smith
Our scrap speed cameras petition got over 28,000 sigs
The Safe Speed campaign demands a return to intelligent road safety

I don't find my satnav distracting in the slightest. In fact, I can confidently state that I spend far more time checking my speedo in fear of being caught by a speed camera than I do checking my satnav.

Also, unless you only travel routes you know well the satnav can be amazingly useful. For example, I recently had to travel from Glasgow to the centre of Machester then on to the centre Nottingham in the same day. I had never travelled either route before or been in Manchester or Nottingham. There was no way I could remember a brand new route like that in my head, particularly where to go once in the cities. Are you telling me that I would have been less distracted constantly trying to remember the route and continually checking a map than relying on satnav? Do you have any idea what it's like to navigate a city centre you haven't seen before relying completely on a printed map?

I have made similar journeys with a printed map before and I am constantly checking and rechecking where I am going and feel my attention on the road is nowhere near what it should be. I feel the satnav frees me up to pay full attention to the road without having to worry about where I'm going. The satnav tells me when I'm approaching a turn and what direction to take so I can give my full concentration to the road.

I would argue that a driver navigating a new route is considerably safer if they use satnav as opposed to a printed map.

Curmudgeon wrote:

I don't know about others but in that situation my goes to sleep and shows nothing until I need it when a quick tap on the screen wakes it up.

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Shooting is good for you and too good for some people.

I'm running TomTom 5 on an XDA and that does exactly the same.

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What makes you think I'm drunk officer, have I got a fat bird with me?

Might be worth seeing if you can add speed camera overlays to your satnav - much more relaxing when you've had a 30-second warning of one coming up than just spotting it suddenly e.g. as you go round a bend..

I'd have to agree - even after printing off step-by-step instructions in the past it only takes 1 wrong/missed turn to be struggling to find a way back. With satnav I find I'm much more relaxed concentrating on driving without having to worry about looking where the next turning is, road names etc. That's without other benefits such as the ability to find an alternative route if you find a traffic jam.