Sat Navs Top Priority For UK Government

The UK government is holding its first national summit on the role of Sat Navs. Local Transport Minister Norman Baker will host the meeting, which is intended to address the issue of out of date GPS systems.

The summit has been prompted by a number of local traffic incidents that were caused by out of date directions given by drivers’ sat navs. Mr. Baker has warned that misdirected was a “scourge of local communities.” It follows an infamous incident in Somerset last October where a lorry was wedged in a narrow street. Though the lorry was eventually released after several attempts, a 300 year old house was badly damaged in the process.

Making sat nav use safer for motorists- and local communities- means better co-ordination between highway authorities, mapping companies and sat nav manufacturers. At the moment it can take months for map updates from local authorities to register on sat navs. The summmit will take place in early March, around a month before local councils gain new powers to decide how their roads will appear on maps. These measures have been taken because of problems in Whitehall bureaucracy, and to ensure that lorry drivers especially can have the latest updates available to avoid things like narrow roads and low bridges.

Despite the increasing popularity of sat navs amongst UK motorists- they are approximately 8 million users in Britain- only six out of every ten owners knows that they have to update their sat navs on a regular basis. Some cheap sat navs do not even have the facility of upgrading the latest mapping services.

A recent study on sat nav use in the UK  quizzed Brits aged 17 to 45 on their relationship with their satellite navigation system. Its findings are startling: one in five users frequently become angry with their sat nav, whilst the average motorist will travel an astonishing 1,292 miles in the wrong direction during their life thanks to misguided directions from their sat nav. Unclear directions, annoying voice-overs and out of date maps are all a regular cause for concern for UK motorists- testing their patience and jeopardising road safety.