Sat nav driving you round the bend?

First there was road rage, now there is increasing evidence that drivers in the UK are suffering from "sat nav rage", says Motoring Editor Peter Carroll.

Satellite navigation systems are supposed to make our lives easier by directing us to our destinations with a minimum of fuss and effort. They are popular pieces of kit and some 13 million devices have been sold to drivers in the UK.

But there is a growing body of evidence suggesting that motorists are still suffering navigation "issues" - despite using the latest in technological gimmickry.

The traditional in car bust-up between spouses over the "right way" to a particular destination should have become a thing of the past. Yet new research published today reveals that 10 per cent of sat nav users have quarrelled with another passenger over the suggested route, or who should be in charge of the device.

Furthermore, nearly a quarter (22 per cent) of sat nav owners admit to shouting at the gadget itself as a result of sheer frustration over botched directions.

This should come as no surprise in the light of the fact that nearly 30 per cent of motorists have been directed down an unsuitable road by their sat nav. These include lanes that are too narrow for road vehicles, and routes that feature low bridges or even dead-ends.

For companies like Network Rail this is no laughing matter. The firm reckons it has had to shell out £15 million pounds to date repairing bridge damage caused by lorry drivers using sat navs which have come up with unsuitable routes.

Tony Chilcott, boss of Churchill Car Insurance, which carried out the research, says: "It seems that sat navs are clearly not as problem-free as many motorists initially anticipated. Not being in control of the route of a journey can cause in-car tensions about the best way to get from A to B."

The study reveals that women suffer more "sat nav rage" than men, with nearly a quarter of females (24 per cent) describing their sat nav as "annoying" compared to just 17 per cent of males.

Women are also more likely to turn the gadget off if it sends them the wrong way (22 per cent) compared to men (18 per cent). Twenty per cent of owners have switched their sat navs off in frustration, while six per cent of motorists don't trust the technology and have resorted to asking pedestrians for directions to confirm they are on the right route.

Mr Chilcott adds: "Research reinforces the importance of always having a back-up plan and not relying entirely on the sat nav to get to destinations swiftly and safely. Drivers should ensure they plan their journey in advance and listen out for traffic hotspots and potential problems on the roads."

Personally, I'm a fan of sat navs - provided they are easy to operate. The devices should be easy to programme - preferably with a touch screen - and zooming in and out should be intuitive.

The ones which revert to a split screen as you approach a roundabout are particularly useful. There's nothing worse than coming to a complicated junction and finding out that you should have taken the third instead of the fourth exit because the instruction to turn came too late.

Even worse are the sat navs which want to take you back instead of re-plotting your route. I was once reduced to navigating between Valencia and Barcelona by the position of the sun in the sky because I had turned the sat nav off - after shouting at it for a good 10 minutes.

I can, however, recommend one failsafe back-up which generally enables me to reach my destination, however complicated the route.

It's called a map.