Its not the sat-nav

I was going to post a follow up to my last blog, but I seem to have misplaced it. So if you were waiting sorry but hey; thats life.

These days, we read every week about someone who has driven into something enormous and then blamed their sat-nav system.

Just the other day, a party of actors drove merrily into a swollen river and, after they’d been rescued from the stranded van by the fire brigade, said it was all the sat-nav’s fault.

Right. I see. So if you were driving towards a cliff and the lady in the dashboard said “straight on”, you’d do it, would you?

Then we heard about a woman — I shall spare your blushes, Paula, by keeping you anonymous — who has vowed never to use satellite navigation again after her system ordered her into the path of a speeding train.

I particularly enjoyed reading last Tuesday about a Syrian lorry driver who’d ended up beached on a small road in Skegness — while trying to get from Turkey to Gibraltar.

Needless to say, he claimed his sat-nav had gone mad but it had done no such thing. He’d simply given it the wrong destination.

We’re not talking about Mr Intelligence here. Because he’d presumably come to Britain on a cross-Channel ferry and at no point did his tiny little brain think: “Hang on a minute . . . ”

Of course, I’m not going to try to argue that all sat-nav systems are foolproof.

Indeed, the system used by BMW is hysterically terrible. It has never heard of the A40, the A1 or even Buckinham Palace Road, which has been around for over 100 years.

Then you have Mercedes, whose sat-nav-based traffic system is a work of fiction to rival Harry Potter. If it says the road ahead is blocked, you can absolutely guarantee it isn’t.

The best I’ve ever come across, weirdly, is the cheap handheld Navman. It knows about the A40, for instance, and it’s so easy to understand, even a Syrian lorry driver could manage.

However even this one does not know, as it steers you over a level crossing, whether a train is coming. That’s why your car is fitted with a steering wheel, brakes and space for someone who by law, must have functioning eyes.

I know, of course, that in this day and age, cars are blamed for everything: Cancer, the downfall of the economy and the demise of the polar bear.

But when it comes to sat-nav, we have to stop blaming the car and start, instead, mass executions of the stupid.