As a provider of vehicle recovery services, here at Start Rescue we’re always keen to hear about research in the field of road safety:
A recent study by Polly Dalton, of the Royal Holloway College’s department of psychology in London and Pragya Agarwal, of Lancaster University, has suggested that the satnav could be hindering our driving.
Of course, many drivers are very happy to rely on their satnav, especially when they’re travelling to unknown parts of the country, but the study has found that satnav devices simply give us too much to think about. Keeping one’s eyes on the road is hard enough, especially in built up areas with lots of potential obstacles – but the added directions spoken and visualised by our satnavs can mean we get in a bit of a flap.
In a separate survey, 19 per cent of drivers polled stated that they had indeed been distracted by their satnav. This is two per cent more than those who admitted to being distracted because they were using a physical map.
Key findings of the study include the fact that when drivers are trying to remember large blocks of information, they are less able to keep their eyes on the road, resulting in a substantially higher number of steering wheel movements than are generally recorded by drivers without satnavs.
Perhaps satnav makers will take this research on board and reduce the amount of information their products give out, or deliver that information in a simpler form.
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