Follow the Sat Nav Regardless

I am far from a Ludite, he lives at the other end of the country, and I will use technology where appropriate. However, I will not rely on it completely, there are times when good old fashioned "common sense" is the best way forward.

While doing other things on the computer, I kept spotting the headline for this story. As headline writers like to grab our attention I really did not believe anyone could be this stupid. Even if your sat nav is saying this is a road when clearly it looks like a footpath common sense (in my experience sense is not that common) should tell you that the computer is wrong. But this "professional driver" decided to follow the sat nav directions no matter what. Well in this case he found himself on the edge of a cliff.

I realise that we can all make mistakes but here is a case of someone switching their brain off.

There was a friend I knew who was a ships engineer and was on a ship that was one of the first to have GPS as an aid to navigation. At one point the GPS was telling the bridge that the ship was in the middle of London when they were actually in the English Channel off the coast of Dover. Had the margin of error been smaller there was a real risk of them running aground. It was simply an error in the programming of the mapping software that caused that error, but because the Ships Master used his brain the event just became a funny story. The driver had he used his brain should have realised that his sat nav was showing an error.

I actually want to get a handheld GPS unit as it can enable me to mark on an electronic map the locations of birds nests, footprints, and all sorts of other data that would enable me to better understand how wildlife uses the landscape. But I will not be walking off any of the cliffs or crags if the GPS tells me that’s the way to go.

The story in the Media