Safe Speed Forums

Why, exactly how many children and OAPs did you mow down prior to having Sat-Nav?

does "pay attention to the bloody road, idiot" sum it up for you then?

Yes it does, thank you. Now all we need is a police presence to actually tell people this simple information.

2006 simulated police-to-driver conversation: "excuse me citizen of indeterminate colour / shape / size but while I respect your personal freedom to express your religious, national and sexual preferences in which ever way satisies your lifestyle-happiness-requirements most adequately, it appears to me that there may have been a moment in the recent past where you performed sub-standard exterior observation while operating your 73-seater person-carrier on a public road and as a result possibly caused a life-ending wounding scenario to one of the more senior members of the public transport linear waiting facility. Before we discuss this issue further kindly sign this disclaimer under the freedom of information act which allows me to broadcast your personal details to anyone whatsoever, preferably for inclusion in credit card and double glazing mailing lists, anything in fact so long as there's a profit in it for our department. Etc etc etc."
1966 version of same: " You just ran over the old lady in the bus queue with your car. You're under arrest."

It proves nothing untill you can give me the following statistics:

1) People whose satnavs found a different route around the road closure
2) People whose satnavs chose this route and then.
2a) Decided that the suggestion was dumb and asked it for an alternative
2b) Reached the river, realised they wouldn't make it across and turned back
2c) Are morons and drove into the bloody river.
3) People using maps who chose this route after discovering the road closure (3a-3c as above)
4) People using maps who chose an alternative route.

All we know is that two people drove into the river. If 200 people reached the river or warning signs and turned around then all this proves is that two people in this country are idiots who have just learned a very important lesson in road safety and car care.

At the end of the day, the routing side of satnav is just a fancy mapreading program, if the map doesn't have it down as a no-through route then the software wont know any better, also some routing engines are better at picking good routes than others

For goodness sake people, can't you see how dangerous these things are?

If your looking at the Sat Nav screen then you ain't looking at the speedo, honestly get with the program!

[Sarcasm mode off]

I have to say I do find my own unit to be far too bright at night, even in night mode. However the benefits it brings me (ie yelling in a horribly teutonic voice "Slow down, exceeding speed limit") extremely helpful, and allow me to pay more attention to the road.

In summary: Voice prompts good, screen mediocre

Most aftermarket satnavs tell you your speed too (and a lot more accurately than the speedo). Perhaps that is why satnav users are crashing all the time, they are all going on average 5% faster and thus are maiming children and old ladies left right and centre.

Hi Lum, actually it's 2 people per day on average, not just 2 people.
As for it doesn't prove anything about Satnav being dangerous, you may be right. What is may prove though is that some people with Satnav in front of them are not paying attention to the real world.

Ok, change my stats request to be number of people per day.

I suspect that the people not paying attention but do no hav satnav will never locate this particular stretch of road though. It doesn't mean that satnav users pay less attention, just that the unattentive satnav users are more likely to end up in this particular river.

This isn't really news anyway. I remember hearing about an old German couple having to have their new BMW fished out of the river because their satnav didn't tell them to wait for the ferry before crossing.

I really suggest a career in politics - you may do very well. The obviousness of distractions being a bad thing is right there in front of you but you want more statistics. Road safety statistics are based on what you find in hospitals after the event. Are you happy to wait until there have been sufficient casualties before the logic sinks in?

I STILL cannot square this forum's dual standards - we want road safety but we're good enough drivers that we also want our electronic gadgets on the dash. Self-interest in the gadget department has a lot of power it seems.

well seeing as you're playing a stuck record, so will I.
My satnav makes me safer as all I need to do in new territory is follow the spoken directions. Despite its occassional attempts at stupid the worst that's ever happened is that I've driven down the wrong road for about a mile (the distance it took to find somewhere safe to do a u-turn).

It's a bit offensive of you to keep banging on about dual standards. I don't have Satnav but I do know that my concentration, observation and anticipation are all adversely affected when I'm unsure where I'm going. You believe Satnav is a distraction. I agree. But so is getting lost. I'm not persuaded by what you've said (so far) that the cons outweigh the pros.

Thank you!

I am all for there being rules about correct positioning, or even a simple "police officer thinks that your sanav install is bloody stupid" clause. You seem to be wanting to ban gadgets completely even though there are obvious benefits.

Lets take a less new example...

Situation: A few people have crashes because they're trying to change CD while going down the motorway
You: Lets ban car radios
Problem with this: A car radio has obvious benefits as appropriate music can help keep concentration and alertness up on long trips, thus reducing the likelihood of a crash for anyone who doesn't listen to Enya or Phillip Glass.


I don't see how satnav is much different and I don't see how it's a dual standard. This forum wants to see an end to caps on vehicle speed (cameras, fear of police etc.) as many drivers are capable of driving with their speed uncapped without any safety issues. How is this different from wanting to see an end to the ban on satnav as many drivers are capable of using them effectively without any safety issues - apart from the obvious fact that satnavs haven't been banned.

No no no no, utter rubbish. I never said ban radios and I never ever said ban satnav either. You're not the first to try and put those words into my mouth!

There ARE dual standards going on here. Just as some people are OK using satnav responsibly, some are not.
Since you believe it's acceptable to use satnav, radio, CD player and so on while driving, would you also say that it's OK to use a mobile phone while driving? What's the difference? How can you say one is acceptable and the other is not.
There are lots of potential safety benefits that people could easily argue in favour of using a phone (e.g. it's no different to using a radio / talking to a passenger / it can help me navigate when I'm being talked-in to a location / it lets my family know I'm on the way home so I relax / it saves wasted journeys and road miles etc etc etc.)

Where do you draw the line? Fax machine? Internet? TV? Really, where is the gadget limit going to be set?

The 'gadget limit' needs to be set at 'net benefit'.

Mobile phone conversations affect hazard development visualisation in some drivers and are a very special case.

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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

It seems different distractions affect different drivers adversely then. So some people find a satnav more distracting than others, as some find mobile phones more distracting.
So can a device such as satnav be automatically acceptable for all drivers to use?

I think it's a balancing act between distraction caused vs benefit gained, which makes mobile phones a very special case indeed, but first I'll just go over the others as they're easier.

Car radio:
Distactions: Momentary distraction if you want to change tracks or stations.
Idiots: Attempt to change CD whilst driving
Mitigating factors: Changing tracks or station is no more complicated an operation than switching on lights or indicating.
Few people are dumb enough to change CDs, especially if they have a CD changer. MP3 radios have made changing discs obsolete anyway.
Benefits: Relieves boredom on longer journeys, resulting in a driver that is significantly more alert for a longer period of time than would otherwise be the case.

Overall safety gain: Positive

Satnav:
Distractions: Robot voice telling you where to go, and occasionally getting it wrong.
Older models require you to manually request a recalculation if you end up going the wrong way.
Manual interaction needed if you see a queue up ahead and want the satnav to find an alternative route before the queue gets silly.
Idiots: Attempt to program in new destination whilst driving.
Mitigating factors: Most satnavs disable programming while driving, though many have an override, hopefully the idiots wont find it but some will.
Benefits: It's better than having to read a map whilst driving
Less distracting than being completely lost in a strange area, something that can cause you to completely miss red lights whilst looking for signs pointing to the town you've already gone past
Keeps driver confident that they're still going the right way in areas of low signage (eg. A14 from M6 to Cambridge, Cambridge is hardly signposted at all on that road, scared the crap out of me the first time I had to go there)
Often more effective than a passenger map reading, depending on the passenger "Turn left here" *turns* "Sorry, I meant right"
Overall safety gain: positive

Now mobile phones. I'm actually against the current mobile phone laws as the distraction caused by a mobile phone is pretty much the same regardless of whether you're holding it or not. The distractions of having a conversation and how it's worse than a conversation with a passenger have already been covered in great depth so I wont go over them again.

The overall safety gain is therefore entirely dependent on the conversation being had, some examples.

"I've reached your industrial estate, please can you guide me through this maze of twisty passages that are all alike": Positive (Industrial estates are among the worst signed areas out there, much easier to have someone talk you through it)
"Hi, that meeting you've just left for that's a 6 hour drive away has just been canceled, you may as well come home": Positive (30 second phone call avoids 12 hours of driving, which can only be a gain)
"My computer is broken and I demand that you tell me how to fix it now even though last time you told me to 'right click' I was reaching for the marker pen": Negative (see the logical vs intuitive brain discussion in the Brainstorming forum)
"You forgot to take the washing down this morning, you always leave me to do everything around the house, blah blah blah": Negative (That can easilly wait until the driver gets home, though it usually happens there too)
"Can you get me a pint of milk on the way home": Debatable, certainly it's distracting, but it saves an additional trip, so I'm going to plump for neutral.

Can also alert a driver to traffic problems on the route they were planning to use, allowing them to either pick a different route or at least have advance warning of the problem they're about to encounter.




Did some older models really need a kick up the arse to make them calculate a new route? I thought ours - a 1997 vintage model - was pretty old, but that copes OK. Some newer models include a TMC option, reducing the likelihood that they'll route you into the back of an existing queue without any user interaction.

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Chris

Well my old garmin gave you the choice of options, but since it would frequently take 5-10 minutes to calculate the new route, during which time it was not giving directions (and often, by the time it had finished you had driven a different way to the way it was thinking of, so it would start the whole process over again), I switched it to manual so that I could pull into a sidestreet for whatever reason without losing my directions.
It's no-longer an issue. My current satnav takes about 2 seconds to work out a route from one end of the country to the other, but then it is powered by a 1GHz Via C3 processor

lol, this topic is a very long way of proving using your brain is a very good idea and not using it will ruin your day, whether your using satnav or not is irrelevant.

Never used satnav meslf but I'm pondering a carputer, seen those displays that overlay a mirror to go inplace of the rearview? not a rearward looking camera but an actual overlaid mirror display.

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Fear is a weapon of mass distraction

With all the posts on here , haven't seen one that asks "if the sat/ signal /anything else goes on the blink - how many motorists would be stranded/going round in circles with no backup system in place --- me i've got a hardcopy sat nav system ---A MAP.On long trips , i use a backup navigation system - has never failed me in 35 years - (as long as i give the right start, and map is right way up) --- oh - it also makes a great sandwich and cup of coffee when we stop - doesn't need updates, trained to spot cameras/talivans /police cars and idiots undertaking ,and change of speed limits with the phrase " it's a 30/40 etc" --"you're going a tad fast" - or alternatively if i go to slow " not a hearse dear" ---called the Wonderful Instrumental Femail Educationalist (or WIFE for short)---never got me lost in all our years of "shortcuts" ---still think the licence fee was a bargain

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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