To think people who own a Sat Nav are lazy sods or just probably not intelligent enough to read a map?

[GordontheGopher]

They only send you into a field anyway.

Complete waste of money.

Oh - and Margaret also lets us know when there's a speed camera around - something a map doesn't do (not that we'd be so irresponsible as to exceed speed limits)

ohh yes, Tom is very good at spotting those little blighters too!

We have taken Tom to France and to The Netherlands as well as lots of the UK, and he has been a little godsend.

He has been lent out to friends who have all ended up buying a little cousin to keep! Marvelous bit of kit!

One of the things I love about my Tom Tom is that it gives me the arrival time.

EG, last summer we drove up to Edinburgh to visit my parents. I have made that trip many times, so I did not need the Satnav to tell me how to get there. What was great though was that every time my 8 year old asked me how long the trip was, I could answer her in a dead pan way - it will be 3 hours and 42 minutes. She never whinged or argued about this. It was a godsend.

SatNavs are fantastic when you are on holiday in countries where the road signage is terrible. We were on holiday in Greece last year and the SatNav was a godsend.

Also great for telling you about roadworks, traffic jams etc and hence accurate arrival times.

The other think that it has done for me is to make me realise how little effect there is on overtaking, as regards arrival time.

I have become a much more relaxed driver as a result of this

Ooh MB tell my partner that, he loves playing "beat the SatNav"

LOL and that must be quite exciting in France!

So exciting in fact that he spent two days in driving school anxiously getting some points back

Oh yes, it's completely lazy and stupid. Mind you, so is using the phone. Idiotic new technology. What's wrong with carrier pigeon, or smoke signals? When I want to talk to my friends I usually climb to the top of the nearest hill, gather enough brushwood and start a beacon. marvellous. And don't get me started on fridges, when digging a giant pit and filling it with winter ice will do just as well.

oh my god, the satnav has stopped dh and I having so many rows in the car. He drives much better as well now he has someone he trusts telling him which way to go. I am dyslexic and have terrible problems with left and right; it hasn't led to a happy time in the car I can tell you.

I take pleasure in reading maps and am bloody good at it [preening emoticon], but have borrowed work's satnav (we have it for more geographically challenged colleagues who have to drive around Europe on their own) and I'm having to admit it has its uses, particularly in built-up areas when you're on your own and can't easily stop to check the map. And it's updateable so is frequently more accurate than the map.

But I do, as a lover of maps, REALLY hate admitting it.

I also love maps. I know the difference between the symbol for a church with a spire and a church without! I know what the triangulation point looks like.

I can even, if given a scrap of paper and a pencil, work out the distance between two points on a twisty road, or the outline of a hill from the contour lines (WAsn't O leve Geography fab? ) but the Tomtom is ace

never use sat nav - don't see the point.

Message withdrawn

Cups, do you not drive places that you have never been on your own?

I do a fair bit of driving with just me and the kids. It is like having someone sitting beside you, giving you directions. Much easier than with a map

Sat nav is great if you're in a strange town. We can both read maps but get seriously lost trying to get out of somewhere like Liverpool.

Sat navs are great if you have the common sense NOT to turn down what is clearly a farm track.

And as someone else mentioned, they are worth there weight in gold for giving a nice unarguable answer to the 'when are we going to get there' question.

Personally though, if I'm going somewhere new alone I prefer to get directions from AA route planner and take a good look at the map first.

I drive in many places I've never been - in different places rural & city - but always find that I can look around at landmarks, check signs or know direction I'm going in. I never feel lost and when I have gone the wrong way I get to a large road and spot a sign that's relevant to my destination.

Without question grimma, I have to have locked on, in the directional sense, by having loaded the map into my head first before I'd trust a satnav. I just like the fact that it tells me the detail without taking my eyes off the road.

But I would only use it on very specific occasions.

Haven't read whole thread but to the OP - you are kidding, right?!

I drive on my own to places I have never been before all the time (for work, mostly). Without Sat Nav I would be reading a map (which I can do very well, Thank you very much) and driving at the same time, and I would have to allow extra time in case I got lost.

Sat Nav gives me more time to sleep spend with my DC and is therefore invaluable.

Unlike DH, I do ignore it when it is plainly talking nonsense, though - and we both have them on mute 99% of the time.

Well that's lovely for you. I find having a satnav is a very pleasant alternative to being completely lost and bursting into tears.
I'm educated, intelligent, high IQ but I have little sense of direction. The two aren't mutually exclusive. I'm highly intelligent but crap at netball/ballroom dancing and playing tennis too.

We haven't argued once about taking a wrong turn since having a sat nav - well worth the money imo. It's been great. I'm intelligent but have a terrible sense of direction so am very grateful to the sat nav thank you very much.

Yep, it's a spatial thing not an intelligence thing. I'm blessed with an extremely good sense of direction. DP thinks I was abducted by aliens who implanted a compass in my brain cos I really can just feel which way is right. And I'm rarely wrong.

I WANT sat nav. I have no sense of direction at all, and often have to drive to new places for work.

It causes me huge stress, and I end up with printed off pages of multimap held against the steering wheel while I try to navigate around unfamiliar towns.

I would LOVE sat nav. Doesn't make me stupid or lazy, just ... geographically challenged. I wouldn't try to read a book while driving, what on earth am I trying to do reading a map???

And I'm a geography graduate who can use maps perfectly well for walks in the countryside, just put me in my own back garden and turn me round 3 times, and I'm lost already

Dh has fantastic spatial awareness.....he used to be a fighter pilot but even he sees the advantages in the Sat Nav. If for no other reason than you don't have to stop and look at the map.