To be irritated that my DH is so reliant on a satnav

[GothicRainbow]

Even just on short local journeys that he should know as he drives them often enough he insists on using it. He is completely and utterly reliant on it and it drives me nuts!

We're currently driving back South after a weekend away and the journey is pretty simple M1, M25, M3 then home. I fell asleep (up a lot of the night with DS, hence why I'm not driving) and wake up to find we've missed the M25 junction and we are merrily driving towards Brent Cross. Apparently he didn't see the M25 junction and it's not his fault because we didn't have the satnav on .

We've now added another half hour on to an already long journey!

Yes if you can remember the numbers for obscure B roads Pipbin. I can't (or can't be bothered).

Streams, forests etc are useful if they exist. In the middle of cities not so much.

Plus I like knowing my eta so frequently wang on the satnav just for this.

Yes if you can remember the numbers for obscure B roads Pipbin. I can't (or can't be bothered).

But that's the point, back in the days before SatNav your looked on a map before you went and then you remembered them, just like we used to remember people's phone numbers.

Also handy for finding petrol stations and car parks.

When you turn into a road the satnav tells you the road number or name.

Do people still buy silly voices for them?

You could get Maggie Thatcher saying Turn left or if you bought Blair he said Look before every instruction. I would hope that that joke has worn thin by now.

Would you rather he get lost? I can't do directional awareness. I can mapread, or use a satnav, or follow verbal or written instructions that someone is given me but landmarks mean nothing no matter how familiar they are and I will get lost constantly. I just have no awareness of where I am in a space and how that relates to other places. If I walk down the high street, go into a shop, have a browse and walk out again I will struggle to remember which way I'd been going down the highstreet before I went into that shop.

Some people just can't do it. For people like us, satnavs and googlemaps are the best thing since sliced bread. Why would I make my life harder because someone who doesn't struggle with this thinks I should be able to do it? I am 29 years old, satnavs didn't exist for a lot of those 29 years, I really have tried to cope without and life got easier when they became available.

But why do I need to do that, if isn't necessary. I don't know more than three people's mobile numbers now either because I don't need to.

If need be (ie the satnav broke) I can reach into the passenger seat picket and get a road atlas. But I wouldn't choose to make this my first choice. Tbh if the satnav broke I'd use google maps on my phone and turn on the commentary to give me directions.

You can still get them if you want them Andrew.

But there's loads of ordinary voices to choose from that come with it if you don't fancy Homer Simpson etc.

We called our last one Miss because she sounded like a caricature of an old-fashioned headmistress. Our present one is male and sounds just like any middle-class RP speaker. Suits us.

The mad thing is, my dh still doesn't speak English all that well; we speak in French or a bit of Malinke. So when the blooming sat-nav woman pipes up, he often says, "Qu'est-ce qu'elle dit?" and I have to translate. Then we found you can change her accent to an Irish one (!) which oddly enough he seems to understand a bit better. All this palaver to go to places we already know. I'm glad he seems to have fallen out with 'her' and she's sulking in the cupboard. Serves her right.

Oh I have a satnav and I use it.
My comments were aimed at the people who couldn't seem to comprehend that it was possible to get anywhere new without them.

YY my one is called 'Serena'. She can't say 'towards' properly, and says 'tords' for some reason. But she seems nice enough.

YANBU. My DH is sat nav reliant too. Even if he looks at the route given and can see it's rubbish, like taking us right through central London instead of using the M25, or going down what is clearly a little farm track to nowhere, he still follows it. I'll be teaching DS to read a map.

Mine's muted. It kept interrupting the radio, the only noise there is are the speed camera warnings.

It is important to know when to ignore it. Even if it then gets cross and recalculates the route.

"It is important to know when to ignore it."

Yes. I often over-ride the satnav because I will have checked the route on google map before setting off. I think it is very limiting to totally rely on a satnav and would always use a real map as well.

YANBU. My dh uses his all the time, regardless of distance or how many times said place has been visited.
The problem I have, is I think it takes away your observation skills. Whereas I can go somewhere once or twice by following signs and a map, I will then pretty much know where to go. Although I might not know the 'finer' parts of the route, once I get there the remembered landmarks jog my memory. Dh is completely ignorant of 'that petrol station' or ' that pub' as he won't have been looking around him, he'll have been blindly following his Sat nav.
Makes for lazy drivers!

My other gripe with his reliance on Sat Nav is that he really hasn't learnt any geography of the area.

So I'll say" that pub looks nice... It's in the village just of the big roundabout in XYZZY" and I'll get a blank look. No knowledge of how to get to XYZZY or even remembering the roundabout. Just because he's never needed to notice anything like you do when you need to pay attention to which direction you are heading in.

Even places we go a lot like the airport he know gets off at the wrong junction without the sat nav. After having to really study a map ( and stop and check on the way) I can still find my way to his parents house despite only having done it once. And I'm shite with directions as I said before.

Fuctifino - yes exactly that!

www.theaa.com/route-planner/index.jsp