One of my most used gadgets is my sat nav system. Initially, I purchased a PDA and installed TOMTOM software and had it sat in a GPS enabled holder. I was skeptical to begin with but soon realised what a sweet piece of kit a sat nav system was. No longer pulling over trying to remember road names or whether it was the first or second left. Opening up an A-Z to have your brain take that mental picture was beginning to be a thing of the past.

But are we relying too much on sat nav systems? The problem I found was waiting for it to catch up. When suddenly doing a U-turn, for example, to avoid traffic and waiting for it to calculate a new route resulted in my driving, literally, taking a back seat. I would, in a state of obliviousness, sit between two lanes taking glances at the sat nav waiting for it to tell me where to go next. Then realising it was not going to happen as quick as I would have liked, begin to slow down hoping that it would direct me down a new route.

Research seems to suggest that using a sat nav has been the root cause of a percentage of road accidents and is considered to be as distracting as a mobile phone.

Typical causes have been:

1. Programming the sat nav whilst driving
2. Believed the sat nav rather than your own eyes
3. Put the sat nav in a position obscuring vision
4. Watched the sat nav whilst going round a roundabout to help identify the correct exit
5. Over reliance on a sat nav making you think that the road you are being directed down is suitable for your vehicle. E.g. lorries, caravans.

When we purchased our new car, it came with a built in sat nav system. Not as slick as the TOMTOM but did a good enough job. Its biggest drawback was not being able to program a destination using a postcode alone. Another problem was the time it took to calculate a new route, to the point where I had to pull over and wait for it to catch up.

Depsite its obvious risks, if used sensibly, can it (or has it) replaced the A to Z? In time, I believe it will. How can reading a map, remember the route, forgetting it, pulling over, remembering the route, forgetting it…etc compete?

Saying that, I needed to make use of my A-Z when the missus drove off with the car with the built in sat nav. Hated it.