An interesting, if unsettling, development.

[Gareth]

after a short while, I found that I no longer missed the visual display at all.

I can manage without the voice but not without the visuals.

Likewise. A boing is helpful for alerting.

In my experience the voice is often misleading; turnings are called out that aren't, and others that are, aren't. Must be the mapping data doesn't always identify the main road at a junction, so the algorithm can easily get it wrong.

Maybe Bill doesn't worry about precisely following the satnav route since it'll fix it up anyway. While I know that, I find it annoying to take the wrong turning.

[Strangely Brown]

These days I use a phone and Google for directions. Mine’s able to connect to the car audio via bluetooth so spoken directions are loud and clear. The actual phone however is tucked away out of sight, such as in a side pocket of my jacket. Being invisible the temptation to look at it is removed and, after a short while, I found that I no longer missed the visual display at all.

I find the opposite - I can manage without the voice but not without the visuals. How do you manage to understand complex junctions?

This. I would rather have a view of the junction than a description from which I have to form a picture in my head. Apart from that I find that very often the Nav is too laggy and I am already leaving a complex roundabout just as it get round to telling me that I need to leave.

[akirk]

These days I use a phone and Google for directions. Mine’s able to connect to the car audio via bluetooth so spoken directions are loud and clear. The actual phone however is tucked away out of sight, such as in a side pocket of my jacket. Being invisible the temptation to look at it is removed and, after a short while, I found that I no longer missed the visual display at all.

I find the opposite - I can manage without the voice but not without the visuals. How do you manage to understand complex junctions?

This. I would rather have a view of the junction than a description from which I have to form a picture in my head. Apart from that I find that very often the Nav is too laggy and I am already leaving a complex roundabout just as it get round to telling me that I need to leave.

Agreed - for me the approach to a complex junction is often non-complex, and it is a stretch of road in which I have already slowed down in preparation - that is the time when a quick glance at a visual of the junction is neither overloading me nor distracting - but then helps firm up where I am going as I approach - once I am into the junction that visual remains with me, I wouldn't expect to need to look again...

[jcochrane]

after a short while, I found that I no longer missed the visual display at all.

I can manage without the voice but not without the visuals.

Likewise. A boing is helpful for alerting.

In my experience the voice is often misleading; turnings are called out that aren't, and others that are, aren't. Must be the mapping data doesn't always identify the main road at a junction, so the algorithm can easily get it wrong.

Maybe Bill doesn't worry about precisely following the satnav route since it'll fix it up anyway. While I know that, I find it annoying to take the wrong turning.

Tend to agree with both Gareth and waremark. Particularly in busy complex situation. Driving in central London is an example

[Another Bill]

Well it sounds like I’m outnumbered (again).

Maybe Bill doesn't worry about precisely following the satnav route since it'll fix it up anyway. While I know that, I find it annoying to take the wrong turning.

There’s truth in that, in as much as I tend to take the Satnav route with a pinch of salt. I generally have a rough idea of what kind of road I’m expecting at any point in a journey. If I’m expecting good A roads and the Satnav tells me to turn onto a single track road, or into a housing estate, it’s probably just trying to cut a corner and I’ll nearly always ignore it.

I do find Google’s live traffic maps extremely useful when crawling in a traffic jam and I want to know how long it stretches ahead, and whether there might be any interesting detour. But that usually involves a bit of pinching, scrolling and zooming, in which case it’s only feasible with a willing assistant in the passenger seat to act as human Satnav.

[jcochrane]

Well it sounds like I’m outnumbered (again).

Maybe Bill doesn't worry about precisely following the satnav route since it'll fix it up anyway. While I know that, I find it annoying to take the wrong turning.

There’s truth in that, in as much as I tend to take the Satnav route with a pinch of salt. I generally have a rough idea of what kind of road I’m expecting at any point in a journey. If I’m expecting good A roads and the Satnav tells me to turn onto a single track road, or into a housing estate, it’s probably just trying to cut a corner and I’ll nearly always ignore it.

I do find Google’s live traffic maps extremely useful when crawling in a traffic jam and I want to know how long it stretches ahead, and whether there might be any interesting detour. But that usually involves a bit of pinching, scrolling and zooming, in which case it’s only feasible with a willing assistant in the passenger seat to act as human Satnav.

TomTom on the iPhone projected onto the car's info system works well for me and deals with some of the points you raise.

[Another Bill]

TomTom on the iPhone projected onto the car's info system works well for me and deals with some of the points you raise.

My car doesn’t have such technology, but other half’s 2017 Polo does. It has the advantage of being a larger screen than a phone or Satnav but is also further from my usual line of vision (compared to a sat nav on top of dash) which concerns me. If I’m looking down at the Polo’s info screen and something important changes on the road ahead, would it register immediately in my peripheral vision? I’m not sure tbh.

But I don’t drive the Polo often, I might get to like the Nav if I gave it a chance. It’s a nice car to drive but you have to get used to some quirks like rather small door mirrors and a bizarre, imho, feature called Hill Hold Assist (google if interested) even though it’s a manual car with mechanical handbrake. Sorry, off topic.

[Another Bill]

In meandering around the web trying to find support for my own take, I found this buried deep in a RoSPA page.

https://www.rospa.com/rospaweb/docs/adv ... satnav.pdf

Research suggests that spoken navigation instructions have been shown to be easier to process and respond to than visual instructions or a combination of spoken and visual instructions. One study suggested that spoken navigation instructions have also been shown in real driving conditions to produce better driving performance than visual instructions or a combination of visual and spoken instructions3. Although this study did indicate that interpreting complex instructions did place cognitive demand on drivers leading to poorer driving performance, a study by Virginia Tech Transportation Institute found that voice-based navigation systems are safer than those that rely on visual aids, as the driver can navigate without having to read a map or rely on visual navigation instructions4.

Of course, you can prove anything using Google, so I’m not claiming to be right or trying to change anybody’s minds. But at least I feel I’m not entirely alone on this one.

It’s a pity there’s no links to referenced studies, they might’ve been interesting too. Technology may have since evolved, rendering them less relevant.

[Horse]

In meandering around the web trying to find support for my own take, I found this buried deep in a RoSPA page.

https://www.rospa.com/rospaweb/docs/adv ... satnav.pdf

Research suggests that spoken navigation instructions have been shown to be easier to process and respond to than visual instructions or a combination of spoken and visual instructions. One study suggested that spoken navigation instructions have also been shown in real driving conditions to produce better driving performance than visual instructions or a combination of visual and spoken instructions3. Although this study did indicate that interpreting complex instructions did place cognitive demand on drivers leading to poorer driving performance, a study by Virginia Tech Transportation Institute found that voice-based navigation systems are safer than those that rely on visual aids, as the driver can navigate without having to read a map or rely on visual navigation instructions4.

Of course, you can prove anything using Google, so I’m not claiming to be right or trying to change anybody’s minds. But at least I feel I’m not entirely alone on this one.

It’s a pity there’s no links to referenced studies, they might’ve been interesting too. Technology may have since evolved, rendering them less relevant.

Try putting keywords / phrase into Google Scholar

https://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=e ... ons+&btnG=

[userLeft1]

If it's any consolation Bill, I prefer audio guidance rather than visual and I don't like to use satnav without the audio. Although I find that I tend to use the audio to avoid missing a turning and the screen to help identify which one I need.