News Section | Hi-Tech Innovation
Good old-fashioned road atlas better at giving directions than sat-navs
A new study has found that old-fashioned road atlases are better at giving directions than technological gadgets such as sat-navs.
Younger drivers, dubbed the ‘PlayStation generation’, have become too reliant on technological gadgets such as satellite navigation guides to tell them what to do and are therefore more likely to get lost when they fail.
Older motorists, meanwhile, rely on an atlas to plan their route and consequently have more successful journeys.
The AA Populus Panel Poll found that 52 percent of drivers aged 18 to 24 have a sat-nav compared with only 28 percent of the over-65s.
In this older age group, 95 percent said they carried an atlas to help them plan their journeys.
That has resulted in more than half of them, or 54 percent, navigating successfully in the past year.
In contrast, drivers aged 18 to 24 are least likely to carry an atlas, with 30 percent never having one in the car.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, 82 percent of this age group has been lost in the past year.
“Younger drivers who rely on modern technology for their navigational needs are the most prone to losing their way, while those relying on atlases are most accomplished at route planning,” the Daily Mail quoted Edmund King, president of the AA, as saying.
“They have become too reliant on technology telling them what to do. So when they get into a car, they expect to be told where to go.
“That’s fine – until things go wrong or the sat-nav guides them to a ten-mile tailback,” he added.
Between the sexes, women are more likely than men to get lost, with 69 per cent losing their way compared with 54 per cent of men.
Disclaimer: Bioscholar is not intended to provide medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. The articles are based on peer reviewed research, and discoveries/products mentioned in the articles may not be approved by the regulatory bodies.