Safe Speed Forums

I've used a PDA based SatNav sytem for over 2 years. I still always have a map in the car for emergancy use (think I've only had to use it once when the PDA totaly crashed).

In the Alfa I have it sat by the door pillar, and the TVR I've got the magnetic arm bent so that it sits below the windscreen in front of the centre of the dash. So neither block my view and are both at about the same height as the normal instruments.

I always plot the route If I'm heading out of town - even if I know where I'm going, but mute the voice instructions until I get to a point where I need them on. This way if I hit any delays,accidents,diversions it re-routes- I've lost count of the number of times I've left the motorway due to tailbacks, accidents and not had to stop to find another route.

It has also has been great when in the TVR with the roof off on a nice sunny day - just go for a drive in the country and just take road turnings at random. No idea where I've ended up - press 1 button and I've a route plotted to take me home.

I think the closest law about this is this one:

[quote=Motor Vehicle (Construction and Use) Regulations 1986]
Regulation 109: Television Sets

(1) No person shall drive, or cause or permit to be driven, a motor vehicle on a road, if the driver is in such a position as to be able to see, whether directly or by reflection, a television receiving apparatus or other cinematographic apparatus used to display anything other than information--
(a) about the state of the vehicle or its equipment;
(b) about the location of the vehicle and the road on which it is located;
(c) to assist the driver to see the road adjacent to the vehicle; or
(d) to assist the driver to reach his destination.
(2) In this regulation "television receiving apparatus" means any cathode ray tube carried on a vehicle and on which there can be displayed an image derived from a television broadcast, a recording or a camera or computer.

However, this needs to be read in conjunction with the following:

Regulation 104: Driver's Control

No person shall drive or cause or permit any other person to drive, a motor vehicle on a road if he is in such a position that he cannot have proper control of the vehicle or have a full view of the road and traffic ahead.[/quote]

So satnav is explicitly allowed under 1b and 1d and in any case it's perfectly legal because the law is so old it only prohibits CRTs. LCD is fine for whatever you like, so long as it's not blocking the view of the road and traffic ahead.

Reading the regs there on "television recieving equipment" etc.

according to the law, you are not allowed to see the screen...it doesn't matter if it's switched on, it's seeing the device that's the problem. So no more transporting your portable telly in the passenger seat then as it's not used to display information!?

Unless it's an LCD or plasma based portable TV, then you can quite happily watch BBC1 on the M6 for all that law cares.

Actually, on the M6 at certain times of day that probably isn't such a bad idea

Friday 3 Feb, southbound M1 near Leicester. "People carrier" with 2 small kids on board; one in a back seat but not in a child seat, the other aged I estimate <6 years in the front seat with a seatbelt diagonal strap across their throat. Satnav display stuck with a suction cup slap in front of the female driver's nose - right in the middle (no kidding and no exageration) of their half of the windscreen.

I'm still convinced that this is a massive problem just waiting to explode. Trouble is we're waiting for the first big attributable accident to happen and hit the national news and until then nothing will be done at all. Then suddenly there will be a huge wave of reaction - "something must be done about this hazard! Blame the satnav manufacturers! etc etc etc."

To all the responsible satnav users out there who do know how to drive - good for you. But how happy will you be when one of these numpties who has no clue about anything slams into you because they've got an LCD screen taking up more of their attention than the road does?

Clear definition and enforcement of the things that matter please!

I did a little reverse research. Going back in time, on 3 Feb 2005 you wrote:


You seem to be making a goodly part of my point for me. Looking for clarification here:

So, given that most drivers are probably not capable of dealing with even normal conditions safely, that they do leave the moving pictures up on the screen even at night, that they are not well trained, are not aware of and do not follow advanced driving techniques..... do you believe or not believe it's an overall benefit for them to now also to be allowed to stick GPS displays in their windscreens?

The point of a well designed sat nav display is that it shouldn't be 'interesting' at all. And as I said in the bit that you dug up, the more 'interesting' the worse it would be.

[edited to correct typo]

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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

Agreed, but people are easily distracted by even slightly interesting things as you said last year. In the formula of supposed benefits of satnav versus the disadvantages of yet another distraction for the average (read "questionable") driver, I'd like to see the acceptable use of these devices clearly defined.
We have sensible rules for many aspects of vehicle equipment safety. This area seems to me to be in the realm of "sell lots of products and worry about the hazards later." I can't see how safety-conscious drivers can simply accept that having such a thing stuck in so many windscreens is a good thing. We rail at tinted windows, dangly accessory things on rear view mirrors, unobservant drivers pulling out in front of people. Why is an obtrusive GPS screen in the driver's view being accepted by so many so easily? I believe it's every bit as bad as a mobile phone.
Time will tell.

Every SatNav manual I've read tells you to put it in a corner, or other place where your view of the road is not obstructed.

People shoving it right in the middle of the windscreen so they can't see where they are going are already catered for under existing legislation IIRC (Can't put crap in Zone A) so there is no need for yet another badly worded overly broad piece of legislation that would probably end up making it illegal to store a closed map on the passenger dahboard as well as partially adressing the problem it was designed for.

And as for the fear of one of these numpties driving into the back of you while using one of these things. I'll take that risk and see how you like the risk of being rear-ended while one of them is looking for a specific street name (bonus points if the sign has been nicked or altered) or looking for a house number on one of those streets where people consider themselves to be too posh to have a number on the door, so have them on the gate, or in the hedge, or spelled out with letters (bonus points if the houses on one side of the road go 1,3,5,7,29,31,33 while the other side counts from 2-34 in a sane manner), or perhaps they could hit you on the motorway while peering between the 7 micron gap between two lorries in order to catch the half second time period where the sign advising what junction is coming up is actually visible to people who aren't in lane 1.

I think we're better off with them.

I think we're better off with them with the state of signage in this

Points one by one:
Your're responsible and know how to drive, the numpties are not, they don't follow that part of the manual and they are the majority.
From observation, they are also putting crap wherever they want as it suits them, because they are not thinking.
Ask 3 traffic cops where it's OK to put one of these things in your car and you'll get 3 different answers as I did.
I don't want new legislation any more than you do! We have more than enough useless laws already that nobody adheres to. I want the existing law, such as it is, clarified and ENFORCED!
You have chosen to take the risk whereas I do not, please don't make me have to take the same risk on your behalf by default!
They're in lane 2, as usual, then they notice the satnav warning and cut across 2 lanes to exit, while simultaneously keeping an eye on the display.

I do see the benefits regarding the street signs and house numbers as you say. I'm still baffled that in a safety-driven forum the default position on what amounts to unenforced illegal installation of potentially dangerous equipment is considered the lesser of two evils and thus accepted as an overall benefit. I'm convinced that we're in the realm of poorly-considered acceptance of proliferation of a new device and, more worryingly, so is plod, wherever he or she is.
Unfortunately there will inevitably come a time when I'll be able to write "told you so" and I'm concerned because I'd much rather not be able to write that. Which is why I'm trying to tackle the problem before the motorway pile-up, not after.
Attitudes over this topic will, as often happens, be somewhat different after the unhappy event.

http://www.autoblog.com/2004/12/03/gps- ... in-france/

GPS didn't cause this one (or the other accidents they refer to) but the guy using the GPS instead of his brain did cause it. Ergo, he shouldn't be using GPS while driving and he's far from alone in that.

I think the 'default position' is really as follows:

1) We lack evidence of any problem at all associated with sat nav displays. We can, should and do theorise that there may be a problem, but we also recognise that other problems (e.g. looking for street signs or reading maps) are likely to be mitigated.

2) In the grand scale of road safety problems, sat nav is likely to end up at a low position in the list.

3) I agree that in an ideal world there would be an effective brake on proliferation until adequate evidence of safety exists. However the world is very far from ideal and road safety policy devices are applied willy nilly with no adequate supporting evidence. Against such a background, sat nat is again 'small beer'.

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

First off, it can't have been a very good system if it actually did suggest making a u-turn on an autoroute - mine only does this on local roads and even then the message is "IF POSSIBLE make a u-turn"
I would argue that anyone who thinks it's ok to do an 'immediate u-turn' on an autoroute shouldn't be driving at all - with or without GPS.
If you do a bit of research though you'll find that there have always been idiots pulling these sorts of manoeuvers when they've missed junctions. Just take a look at any of the "world's worst drivers" type tv shows.

When all is said and done the problem of screen obscuration is only a transient one.

We are at a moment in time where pocket sized satnav systems have suddenly become affordable, whereas manufacturer fitted integrated ones are still relatively expensive.

I would expect that within 5 years the average aftermarket car stereo will have full satnav functionality at a very modest cost - say £50 extra, via (perhaps) a fold-down LCD screen, and meanwhile factory fit ones will drop to a few hundred, putting them on a par with the handheld systems available today.

The number of cars using devices suckered onto the windscreen is probably more or less at a peak now, so if that isn't leading to mass death and destruction we can probably rest easy in the knowledge that this is just another minor issue that will resolve itself in the fullness of time. Ingenuity and common sense will achieve this result far more easily and quickly than legislation.

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CSCP Latin for beginners...
Ticketo ergo sum : I scam therefore I am!

One of the worst accidents I've ever seen (and was damned-near involved in) was about 20-or-so years ago and caused by some clown U-turning through a gap in the central crash-barriers on a motorway just outside Madrid, at night, in the rain... I just missed him... The following lord-knows-how-many vehicles were not so lucky - it was absolute carnage. I'll be honest, and it's not to my credit, but I didn't stop; there wouldn't have been anything I could usefully have done and at the time the Spanish police had a nasty habit of locking everyone up until they'd "completed their enquiries".

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"Politicians are the same the world over... We build bridges where there aren't any rivers." - Nikita Kruschev

About as happy as someone rear-ending me while looking out for cashcams and not concentrating on the road...

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Pecunia Prius Equitas et Salus

Exactly. We take people who arguably should not be on the road at all, then allow them to stick a computer in their windscreen that they look at frequently (rather than the road) and then the computer tells them what to do. So sometimes they do it even if it's insane. Because they are daft and also have no spatial ability.

Already they don't have the capacity to operate a vehicle so adding another piece of equipment that distracts them even more is not going to be an improvement.

The people in question don't have the skills required to pick their own noses without instruction so to ask them to cope with simultaneous input from what they see and also what the GPS tells them and expect them to sort out the reality safely? Please.
My entire point - too many drivers are not capable of dealing with the input they get from their own eyes without adding more things for them to think about. These are the people who, for example, look directly at their passengers while talking to them and veer off the road in the direction their head turns at the same time. GPS is way beyond their grasp so why is it considered OK for general sale??????????

I too put danger from looking for scameras about level with looking at / playing with (as DOES happen all the time in the real world) GPS boxes. Real people do program and play with these things while driving. They are not skilled at driving let alone anything else.
Sadly there will be a huge wreck sometime as a result of this and people will get hurt.
We are all campaigning to get rid of the crazy camera problem so why do so many people suddenly have "selective approval" over the clear GPS risk?
Is it because of feeling in control over your choice of having GPS whereas scameras are a case of the government imposing them on you? I think we may be getting to the real nub here. If the DVLA told us we all must have and use GPS there would inevitably be a huge outcry against it as being an imposed distraction and a safety risk, thus double standards.

so should we also ban them from carrying navigating passengers? What happens when the passenger shouts out "you missed the exit, better turn around." Obviously we should as you go on to say





because GPS is a highly useful and very safe piece of equipment IF USED PROPERLY.
Why aren't you arguing for a ban on radios or cd players in cars?

1) It's more often than not used improperly.
2) Where did the word "ban" come from? I never said or even suggested that.

Navigating passengers don't sit right in front of you and show you moving pictures in your line of sight.
A car is reasonably safe if used properly. Trouble is when it's used improperly.

I'm afraid you're perhaps seeing what you expect to see rather than reading the discussion, please review the forum carefully.